Building and Running a Mobile Game's Entire Growth Engine

Frank's Football Studios had a live mobile game, Foxy's Football Islands, but no one running marketing. I joined as their first marketing hire, built their entire growth function from nothing, and run it day to day: the strategy, the paid ads, the social content and creative, the app-store presence, the analytics, and the brand. And it works. Across three phases of paid testing I brought Tier-1 US installs in at $1.21 to $1.88, with the best ad reaching $0.89 per install, proved that warm story-led creative wins at roughly 2.5x lower cost than aggressive creative, and lifted the Play Store listing to a 27-28% conversion rate, above casual-game benchmarks. And when the data showed new players leaking inside the game rather than in the ads, I made the call most marketers avoid: pause the spend, hold the budget, and point the team at the exact leaks my funnel analysis found. Within weeks of joining, the founder also had me directing the creative team, running player testing, and helping shape the product itself.

Challenge

The game was live, but growth had stalled and the marketing budget was leaking. No one owned marketing, and there was no way to tell what was actually working.

• Ad money was being wasted. Earlier campaigns chased the cheapest possible installs, which brought in low-intent players from low-cost regions who churned almost immediately.
• Nothing was measured. No tracking, no real analytics, no view of what a player cost or where new players dropped off, so spending decisions were guesswork.
• Players were not sticking. The real problem was never named: the game could pull in installs, but too few players came back, and that, not a shortage of installs, was what capped growth.
• No marketing engine at all. Social channels sat dormant and inconsistent, the app-store listings were never set up to be found, and there was no content, no creative pipeline, and no brand to speak of.

Approach

Find the real problem first

Before spending another dollar, I audited everything: the ad accounts, the analytics, the app stores, and every social channel. The finding changed the plan. Getting installs was never the issue, keeping players was. I got the founder aligned on fixing that first, so the budget would stop pouring into a leaky bucket.

Buy better players, waste less budget

I cut the cheap, low-value regions that had been draining the budget and refocused on the US, a Tier-1 market where players are far more valuable, and far more expensive to win. Before committing real money, I proved the approach on a small one-week test: US players at $1.21 each, with day-one retention of 17.6%, above the studio's target and better than players who found the game on their own. Then I scaled the method, not just the spend, across three structured test phases. In the latest one I culled underperforming ads on day four so the budget concentrated on winners, and the playbook kept sharpening: warm, cozy, friends-first creative beats aggressive raid-style creative at about 2.5x lower cost, story-led AI video is the strongest installer, and the single best ad brought players in at $0.89 each. When an ad wore out and costs spiked, I caught it quickly and refreshed the creative instead of throwing more budget at a tired ad.

Run the content and creative engine

Paid ads are only as good as the creative behind them, so I run the studio's content and creative engine too. I own the weekly content calendar across five platforms, write the copy, and brief and direct the creative team, the video editor and the key visual artist, on every piece, from social posts to ad creative to the game's tournament trailer, with an AI story-video pipeline now shipping about three videos a week. I also rewrote both app-store listings around the words players actually search and gave the brand one consistent identity, so the game shows up, looks like a real product, and always has fresh creative to test.

Make every dollar measurable

I built the measurement side from scratch, so for the first time the studio can see what each campaign costs, which players stay, and exactly where new players drop off in their first minutes. Eight campaign reports and monthly store reviews so far keep every decision on evidence. The deepest win came from funnel analysis on Google Analytics and BigQuery: it pinpointed the exact three places new players leak, ruled out the suspects that would have wasted dev time, and proved the leak was in the game, not the ads. That evidence is why spend is on hold while the fixes ship, with the budget banked for a clean retest, instead of pouring into a leaky bucket. Spending decisions are now based on data instead of hunches.

Go where growth needs me

Growth does not stop at marketing, so neither do I. I have run seven rounds of player testing through my own tester network and feed the findings straight back into improving the game, I shape release priorities with the team, and I localized the full game into Spanish and Portuguese, 1,186 strings and island names translated and imported into the live build, with a Spanish QA lead already hired for the launch pass. I also redesigned and relaunched the game's landing page, and designed the studio's first community competition end to end, rules, compliance, and prize structure. Hired to run marketing, I now also direct the creative team and have a hand in the product itself.

Results

This is an active engagement. Here is what is built and proven three months in, as of August 2026.

• Install economics proven, with a creative playbook banked. Three structured test phases put Tier-1 installs at $1.21 to $1.88 blended and the best ad at $0.89 per install, and settled what wins: warm, story-led creative over aggressive, at about 2.5x lower cost.
• The store sells the game above its class. Play Store conversion held at 27-28% across back-to-back monthly reviews, above casual-game benchmarks, on listings rewritten around what players actually search.
• Measurement now steers the roadmap. Funnel analysis on GA4 and BigQuery found the exact three places new players leak and ruled out the red herrings, so dev effort goes where it pays; when the data said the game, not the ads, was leaking players, I paused spend and banked the budget for a clean retest once the fixes ship.
• A whole growth function, built and run end to end. Weekly content on five platforms, an AI video pipeline at about three a week, UGC production, free store promo placements, and eight campaign reports, plus full Spanish and Portuguese localization, seven community test rounds, a relaunched landing page, and the studio's first community competition designed to the rules-and-compliance level.
• Trusted with more. Hired for marketing, I was pulled into directing the creative team, player testing, release planning, and the product roadmap inside the first month, and the founder now has an efficient, measurable path toward where he wants to take the company.

Client Feedback

"What a massive impact. Honestly, I've not known anybody make such an impact, and I've been around quite a few years."

Francis Fox, Founder, Frank's Football Studios

Scope of Work

Growth strategy and marketing audit, target-market and budget planning, paid user acquisition, app-store optimization, content strategy and copywriting, social media and content calendars, creative direction (briefing and directing the video editor and key visual artist), analytics and tracking setup, player retention and funnel analysis, plus player testing operations, release-planning input, game localization execution, landing-page design and build, competition design and compliance, and ownership of the growth roadmap.

Tools Used

Meta Ads Manager, Google Analytics 4, BigQuery, Firebase, Google Play Console, App Store Connect, Branch, Metricool, Trello, Canva