Ask HN: How should I train myself for this new role?

[hkyeti]

So I've been assigned into a user acquisition role within the mobile game studio I work for.

Can anyone experienced in this role suggest the best steps / resources to start learning?

(my past role has been in game design, so UA is something brand new for me)

[davismwfl]

Sorry, I don't have direct game experience in a UA role. I have done UA for other products/services, but I am not sure all what is expected of you here.

Just curious, did you apply for this role? Or were you selected? I think it is awesome when you get a role you aren't fully sure how to do, forces us to learn and always excites me personally.

[hkyeti]

I've moved to a remote role away from the HQ, so looking for something "self contained" that could be done myself without needing a lot of interaction with the others (like game design I was doing before).

Excited about the challenge but not sure where to start with learning...

I'm going to be responsible for all ad spend and trying to get to ROI positive campaigns

[davismwfl]

Gotcha. I'd take a little time and do the Google tutorials and go through some of videos that have been put out by Google and others on this topic. Years back I built a marketing platform that would manage people's ads across Facebook, Google amongst others and help them deal with the remarketing and retargeting spend. Our whole team learned a lot from going back through the Google tutorials and videos, even the people who had been doing it for years. Not that those resources are everything, but if you are starting without a lot of background knowledge it will help you get up to speed quick.

Facebook is similar, go through the examples and tutorials they have. In our case, we learned Facebook ads garnered the most clicks/traffic but had the worst conversion rates of almost every other medium we used. But for games that might not be the case, I'd still guess the conversion off Facebook is going to be lower than others but it maybe better than for services and even ecommerce.

One of the things we figured out was a lot can be learned by what Google/Facebook etc don't say in their documentation/tutorials as much as what they do. Also make sure you pay a lot of attention to the landing pages as SEO is not dead. Landing pages for ads are critical to conversion and ranking IME.

Good luck in the new role! Sounds fun and exciting, as well as maybe a bit terrifying. :)

[hkyeti]

Thanks for the advice and support! Yes, bit scary but enjoying to pick up a new field...