Mobile game advertising in Vietnam: game UA, metrics, channels and the law

Updated in October 2026.

Mobile game user acquisition (game UA) means running mobile game advertising to buy new players, on the condition that what they spend in the game and the ads they watch inside it pay back the cost of acquiring them within a time frame you can live with. Games differ from other apps in one useful way: you learn whether you are making or losing money quite early. The first 7 days of revenue from a cohort of players are already enough to estimate the day you break even.

This article does not explain again what UA is, and it does not cover mobile game marketing in the broad sense, such as brand building or community. I only cover what is specific to mobile games in Vietnam: metrics, channels, creative, the law and fraud, plus a payback sheet you can copy and use.

Two kinds of game UA in Vietnam

Group 1: Vietnamese studios publishing games for the world. Most of them make casual and hyper casual games. In Q2 2025, casual accounted for 41% of paid game installs in Vietnam and hyper casual for 39%. The United States receives more than half of the UA budget of game apps headquartered in Vietnam, with Japan second at about 11% (AppsFlyer, State of App Marketing in Vietnam, November 2025).

Group 2: game publishers serving Vietnamese players. These are usually role-playing and hero-battle games that run on servers and live on in-app spending. This group falls under Decree 147/2024/ND-CP, the government decree on internet services and online information, at every step from obtaining a license down to each individual ad video. In 2025, 84% of game installs in Vietnam came from Android and only 16% from iOS (AppsFlyer, November 2025).

IAP, IAA or hybrid: your game monetization model decides how you bid

• What is IAP? IAP (in-app purchase) is revenue from players paying for items, and it usually comes from a small share of players. The metric to watch is ARPPU: if 20 paying players spend VND 4 million in total, ARPPU is VND 200,000. You optimize for purchase events or purchase value.
• What is IAA? IAA (in-app advertising) is revenue from ads shown inside the game, for example rewarded video ads that players watch to earn a reward. The money is spread thinly across many players, so players have to stay for a long time.
• Hybrid: both at once. The hybrid casual games genre goes this way: as easy to pick up as hyper casual, with an added upgrade system that sells IAP. In Q1 2025, 30.4% of Vietnamese game apps used a hybrid model, up 42% year on year; IAA still accounted for close to 60%, and IAP alone for only about 10% (AppsFlyer, November 2025).

For mobile game monetization through ads, IAA games on Google App campaigns can use tROAS for ad revenue (ARO). You send revenue from AdMob or other networks into Google Analytics through the ad_impression event, and most of the app’s revenue must come from ads. Hybrid games add ad_impression together with the purchase event in one campaign (Google Ads Help). TikTok lets you optimize for installs, in-app events (AEO) or value (TikTok Ads Help).

IAA games also have to keep the ads inside their own game clean. Apple requires ads shown in an app to be appropriate for the app’s age rating, interstitial ads to have a close button that is large enough, and users to be able to report inappropriate ads (App Store Review Guidelines, section 2.5.18).

Game UA metrics: retention, ARPDAU, D7 ROAS and payback

D1, D7, D30 retention = players who open the game again on day 1, 7 or 30 / installs. If 1,000 people install today and 250 open the game again tomorrow, D1 is 25%. This is retention rate measured by cohort, meaning the group of players who installed on the same day.

ARPDAU (average revenue per daily active user) = revenue for the day / DAU. With 20,000 DAU and VND 6 million in revenue, ARPDAU is VND 300.

D7 ROAS = the cohort’s revenue in its first 7 days / the cost of acquiring the cohort. Spend VND 60 million, earn VND 24 million in 7 days, and D7 ROAS is 40%. The payback period ends on the day cumulative ROAS reaches 100%.

Retention benchmarks for comparison, based on 2025 data from 16,262 games, iOS and Android combined, all genres (GameAnalytics, 2026 Mobile & PC Gaming Benchmarks, January 2026):

These figures mix all genres and are only a reference point. The more reliable benchmark is the cohorts of your own game. Other app metrics are covered in our article on app marketing KPIs.

Soft launch: measure before you pour money in

A soft launch means releasing the game in a few small markets to measure it before you scale. By the end of the soft launch you need answers to three questions: (1) does D1 beat the median for the genre; (2) does D7 ROAS reach the minimum in the payback sheet below; (3) which creative delivers the highest IPM (installs per 1,000 impressions). The store page has to be ready too: see the checklist for launching an app successfully on the App Store and our entry on ASO.

A game published for Vietnamese players cannot be advertised before it has its publishing decision, and that includes ads meant only as a test.

A payback sheet for a hybrid game

Hypothetical example: I run UA for a hybrid puzzle game on Android in Vietnam, with a CPI of VND 6,000 and a goal of paying back within 60 days. The table shows cumulative revenue per install, with IAP already net of store fees.

1. Multiplier from D7 to the payback day: 6,300 / 2,400 = 2.625.
2. Minimum D7 ROAS: 100% / 2.625 = 38%. A cohort with D7 ROAS below 38% will almost certainly not pay back within 60 days.
3. CPI ceiling: D7 revenue per install / minimum D7 ROAS = 2,400 / 38% = about VND 6,300. If D7 revenue is about the same but CPI goes above the ceiling, cut the source.

The formula to copy:

Target D7 ROAS = ROAS required on day N / (cumulative revenue on day N / cumulative revenue on day 7)

Filled in with the example: 100% / (6,300 / 2,400) = 38%. The multiplier is really a way of estimating a game’s LTV early, from 7 days of data.

What not to do

• Borrow the multiplier from another game. The right multiplier only comes from your own game’s older cohorts that have completed their 60 days.
• Calculate ROAS on player spending before store fees. Wrong: “The cohort spent VND 30 million, we spent VND 60 million, so ROAS is 50%.”
• Use one multiplier for both iOS and Android, or for players from ad networks and players from Meta.
• Set the D7 ROAS target exactly at the minimum. Leave a margin for error, especially on iOS after ATT, where data comes back through SKAdNetwork in aggregated form and with a delay.

Mobile game advertising channels

Meta now finds players mainly through the creative, so the creative strategy section in our article on Meta ads in 2026 applies directly to Facebook ads for mobile games.

Pre-registration on Google Play

App campaigns for pre-registration run for Android games that have not yet launched in the countries you target, and the game must launch within 90 days of opening pre-registration. Google recommends opening pre-registration 3 to 6 weeks ahead, or 9 to 12 weeks for a highly anticipated game, with an in-game item as a gift for people who sign up (Google Ads Help).

In Vietnam I treat a pre-registration campaign as game advertising too, so I only run it once the game has its publishing decision or its confirmation certificate.

Creative for games: gameplay video and playable ads

Playable ads are the signature format of mobile game ads: the viewer plays a short section of the game right inside the ad. Technical limits (Meta Business Help, Google Ads Help, checked October 2026):

A suggested process for testing creative:

1. Test 3 to 5 concepts a week, each built on a different reason to play: puzzles, character power, story, playing against real people. Do not test 5 color swaps of the same idea.
2. Read the first 3 seconds with hook rate and the whole concept with IPM.
3. High IPM with below-average D1 means the concept promises something the game does not deliver. Drop it, even if CPI is cheap.
4. Keep a winning concept running until IPM falls and CPI rises for two weeks in a row (creative fatigue), then build variations from that same concept.

Game advertising law in Vietnam

Decree 147/2024/ND-CP on internet services and online information was issued on November 9, 2024 and took effect on December 25, 2024 (full text of Article 54, in Vietnamese; LuatVietnam, December 2024, in Vietnamese). The points that touch UA:

• Article 37: G1 games (multiplayer games where players interact through the company’s servers) need a License plus a Publishing Decision for each game; G2, G3 and G4 games need a Certificate plus a Confirmation of publishing notification. Foreign organizations providing games to users in Vietnam, including cross-border, must set up a company in Vietnam.
• Article 38: publishers self-classify their games as 18+, 16+, 12+ or 00+, and the rating must be shown continuously on the game screen and in ads.
• Article 54: ads must match the content and visuals of the licensed game and include the game’s name, age rating and a warning about physical and mental effects; the app store description must state the license number and date of issue; no advertising is allowed before the game has its Publishing Decision or Confirmation.
• Article 56: players must register their full name, date of birth and a Vietnamese mobile phone number; players under 16 must be registered by a parent.
• Article 57: games may not attach promotions with cash or physical prizes, and virtual items may not be converted back into money.

Article 56 hits the funnel directly. The registration step sits between the install and the first level, so D1 for games published in Vietnam is hard to compare with global benchmarks. Measure registration completion as an event of its own.

From July 1, 2026, companies that allow virtual items to be exchanged for money face fines of VND 170 to 200 million (Decree 174/2026/ND-CP, according to Tạp chí Luật sư Việt Nam, the Vietnam Lawyers Journal, in Vietnamese). The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is collecting comments on a draft amendment to Decree 147 that tightens account verification and playing time for players under 16 (Báo Văn hóa, July 23, 2026, in Vietnamese). Check the latest version of the rules before you lock in a plan.

On the app store side, Apple and Google both require games that sell randomized rewards (loot box mechanics) to disclose the odds of receiving each item before the player buys (App Store Review Guidelines, section 3.1.1; Google Play, Payments policy).

Checklist before running game ads in Vietnam

1. The game license is complete: a Publishing Decision (G1) or a Confirmation (G2 to G4), including for pre-registration campaigns.
2. The store page shows the license number, the date of issue and the linking code.
3. Every video, image and playable shows the game’s name, the age rating icon and the warning line.
4. Every scene in the creative exists in the licensed version of the game. Do not film gameplay “to look good” that the game does not have.
5. No promises of real money. Wrong: “Play and earn cash every day”, “Top up VND 100k, win an iPhone”.
6. Games that sell random chests show a loot box odds screen.
7. The MMP tracks registration completion, tutorial completion, first purchase and ad_impression.

Install fraud in games

In Q1 2026, the install fraud rate for games on Android was 7%, lower than shopping (10%) and finance (31%) (AppsFlyer, State of Fraud for Marketers 2026, April 2026). A low number does not mean you are safe:

• 80% to 84% of game fraud goes through the organic channel, so the organic install baseline you compare against may already be inflated.
• Game fraud on Android is moving from emulators (down 32%) to phone farms that use real devices (up 72%), because post-install game data such as levels completed and session length makes emulators easy to catch.
• Affiliate fraud in games fell from 29% to 14% in a year. Across all categories, self-reporting networks (SRNs) such as Meta and Google have a fraud rate of only about 1%.

The rule that follows: pay for installs that come with a real event (passing level 5, coming back on day 1), not for bare installs. Also check for CTIT bunched under 10 seconds and for sudden spikes of the same device model in one source.

If you are about to launch a game in Vietnam or need a cohort payback sheet built for each channel, Adtek’s App User Acquisition team can work on it with you. Contact Adtek to talk it through. If your app is in another category, UA for bank advertising and for an ecommerce app differs from games in which event you optimize for and how you fight fraud.