A surprising number of teams still misread their early-day metrics — and it’s costing real money in UA and scaling.
One of the biggest confusions we see every week at CAS.AI
:
👉 Google Ads vs Ad Networks define “Day 0” and “Day 1” completely differently.
Here’s the short version:
Ad Networks (Unity, Mintegral, ironSource):
• Day 0 = the first 24 hours after install.
If a player installs at 23:45 and returns at 00:05 — it’s still Day 0.
Google Ads ROAS:
• What Google calls Day 1 ROAS = actually the same first 24 hours.
Different name — same underlying metric.
Google Retention:
• But here Google switches logic completely.
• Retention is counted by calendar days, not 24-hour windows.
If a user installs today and opens tomorrow — that’s D1 retention, even if only 30 minutes passed.
This mismatch creates real problems:
• ROAS targets get set incorrectly
• Teams think campaigns are underperforming when they’re not
• Budgets get paused too early
• Reporting becomes inconsistent across channels
If you aim for 70% Day 0 ROAS on networks, you might need only 55% “Day 1” ROAS on Google — because they’re measuring the same time window.
Understanding this difference is one of the easiest ways to stop losing money on UA.
At CAS.AI
we help teams navigate these metric traps — whether you’re launching new campaigns, optimizing mediation, or scaling revenue.
If you’re unsure whether your early-day metrics are being interpreted correctly — feel free to reach out.
This is exactly the kind of thing we help studios fix before it becomes expensive.
