N1 Partners’ May report shows the affiliate industry is shifting from aggressive traffic acquisition toward long-term profitability, with greater focus on LTV, ROAS, and sustainable growth.
N1 Partners’ latest gaming industry trend report shows that the affiliate marketing market continued shifting from aggressive scaling toward sustainable growth throughout May. Facebook and Google remain the dominant traffic sources, but advertisers are increasingly prioritizing LTV, repeat deposits, ROAS, and predictable profitability.
N1 Partners says traffic acquisition strategies are shifting toward long-term profitability
According to N1 Partners, the market entered a noticeable transition during Q2. In the past, the industry relied heavily on rapid scaling, short-term conversions, and high-volume traffic strategies. Today, however, brands are placing far greater emphasis on predictable performance, customer lifetime value, and stable conversion funnels.
This means gaming affiliate marketing is no longer simply about who can deliver the highest number of users. Advertisers now care more about whether those users continue spending over time, whether they show repeat deposit behavior, and whether long-term returns remain stable across different acquisition channels.
For affiliate teams and media buyers, the core competitive advantage is changing rapidly. What matters most is no longer short-term registration volume, but whether traffic can continue generating revenue throughout later lifecycle stages.
Facebook and Google remain core channels, but diversification is becoming increasingly important
From a traffic perspective, Facebook and Google continue to be the most stable and reliable channels in the gaming market. N1 Partners believes both platforms still provide relatively consistent ROI, but ongoing platform updates, ad rejections, account bans, and stricter moderation policies have also made reliance on a single traffic source significantly riskier.
On Facebook, broad targeting audiences still offer strong scaling potential, provided campaign structures remain clean, creatives communicate clearly, and advertisers are able to feed effective signals back to the platform. Short-form video formats also remain underrated and can, in some cases, achieve performance close to other video formats while maintaining lower CPMs.
On the PPC side, search advertising continues delivering relatively high conversion rates, though rising competition and increasing CPC costs are limiting scalability. UAC and demand generation campaigns still show strong potential, but success increasingly depends on data quality, creative strength, and accurate LTV modeling.
Channel allocation is also evolving. In the past, PPC traffic could account for 60% to 80% of total acquisition volume. Today, some teams have reduced that share to around 30% to 50%, while redistributing budgets toward Facebook, in-app promotion, and App Store Optimization (ASO).
Brands are placing greater focus on LTV, repeat deposits, and ROAS
May’s trends indicate that advertisers are becoming far more sophisticated in how they evaluate traffic quality. Looking only at CPA or first-time conversion rates is no longer enough to determine whether a channel deserves long-term investment.
For Facebook traffic, brands are now paying closer attention to total deposit value over specific timeframes, audience behavior patterns, and repeat deposit ratios. High-value users alone are no longer viewed as proof of quality traffic, since large deposits can sometimes occur randomly and may not support sustainable long-term performance models.
PPC evaluation methods have also become more advanced. Advertisers are increasingly monitoring one-week, two-week, and four-week ROAS while incorporating LTV and long-term customer value into performance analysis.
In other words, low-cost leads are no longer considered valuable if they fail to generate continued spending or repeat engagement later in the lifecycle.
Current key metrics include:
- LTV Measuring long-term customer value rather than only first-time conversion.
- Repeat deposit ratio Evaluating whether users demonstrate sustainable spending behavior.
- ROAS performance over time Tracking real returns after one week, two weeks, and four weeks.
- Unit economics Ensuring profitability remains positive even after traffic scaling.
Creative quality, data, and conversion funnels now determine scaling success
N1 Partners believes Facebook testing priorities have shifted heavily toward creative quality and data optimization during May. Simple, natural creatives that do not feel overly promotional are now performing better, while the lifecycle of individual “winning creatives” continues shrinking.
For media buying teams, continuous creative rotation has become essential. In the past, one strong creative could scale for long periods. Today, audience fatigue develops much faster, and platforms increasingly rely on fresh creative signals for optimization.
PPC campaigns are also no longer just about matching search terms. Teams now need to better understand actual user intent. The closer search behavior aligns with real customer demand, the higher the conversion rate and the lower the cost of acquiring high-quality users.
Current common mistakes are largely concentrated in three areas:
- Making decisions too quickly Campaigns are frequently paused or adjusted before the learning phase is completed.
- Overly complex structures Too many ad groups and audience layers make optimization more difficult for the platform.
- Over-focusing on short-term metrics Low CPA is often mistaken for efficiency while long-term LTV and real profitability are ignored.
- In addition, internal conversion funnel issues remain a major concern. Problems involving PWA apps, in-app push funnels, and unstable cloaking setups can all cause high-quality traffic to drop off later in the user journey.
Moderation, compliance, and AI automation remain key areas to watch
From a regional perspective, Australia continues to be one of the most difficult markets for maintaining stable ROI, while both Canada and Australia require stronger creative adaptation and channel optimization capabilities. Germany and Austria, meanwhile, are viewed as markets with emerging opportunities and potentially lower competition pressure compared to certain Tier-1 regions.
Regarding moderation, Facebook and Google remain the industry’s most challenging platforms. Content reviews are becoming stricter and trigger points increasingly unpredictable. Promo codes, copy details, or even technical account signals can all lead to ad rejection or account risks.
AI automation remains largely in a supporting role. While automation tools can improve efficiency in standard marketing operations, AI still struggles to replace human expertise in media buying and complex traffic environments, especially when nuanced strategy decisions are required.
Overall, the message from May’s gaming market trends is becoming increasingly clear: growth still matters, but profitability quality can no longer be ignored. The teams most likely to succeed moving forward will not simply be those with the largest budgets, but those capable of managing traffic quality, compliance risk, creative iteration, and long-term customer value simultaneously.
