What are playable ads? A practical guide for UA teams

A playable ad is a short, interactive ad that lets people try the core of a game or app before they install it. Instead of watching a video of someone else playing, the viewer plays for a few seconds themselves, then sees an end card with a button to the store or to the brand's offer.

The IAB describes playables as a single ad unit that combines mobile gestures such as tapping and swiping with game mechanics, and that can cover attention, education and action in one experience. That is a fair summary. For a UA team, the practical version is simpler: a playable proves your core loop to a stranger in under a minute, and only people who enjoyed it click through.

This guide covers how playables work technically, what a good one contains, where they earn their cost, where they do not, and how to brief one.

How a playable ad works

A playable is a small HTML5 application, usually delivered as a single self-contained file. When an ad network wins an impression in a publisher's app, its SDK opens the file in a webview, typically in an interstitial or rewarded placement. Everything the ad needs, including images, sound, code and fonts, travels inside that file, because most networks forbid requests to outside servers while the ad runs.

Three pieces of plumbing sit around the game itself:

• A lifecycle API. Many in-app networks use MRAID, the IAB standard that lets an ad know when it is ready and visible and lets it open the store. AppLovin asks for MRAID 2.0; Unity Ads injects MRAID 3.0.
• A store call. The ad never navigates by itself. It calls the network's function, such as mraid.open(), Meta's FbPlayableAd.onCTAClick() or Google's ExitApi.exit(), and the network handles the redirect and the click tracking.
• Network rules. Size caps of around 5 MB, no automatic redirects, no sound before the first touch, and the network draws the close button, not you.

Because each network packages and validates differently, one playable ships as one file per network. Our playable ad specs checklist lists the differences network by network.

The anatomy of a good playable

Almost every playable that performs has the same four parts, whatever the genre.

The hook

The first frame decides whether anyone touches the screen. It should already look like a game in progress, with one obvious thing to do. A tangle of jelly friends holding hands, as in our Hand in Hand concept, reads as "fix this" before any instruction appears.

The tutorial

A hand cue or highlight that shows the exact gesture, with two or three words at most. The first move should be impossible to fail. If the player does nothing, the hint replays.

The play

A short loop with a moment of tension: a harder second step, a near miss, a timer, a risk. In Pop Pop Pan, holding the heat too long burns the popcorn, and that small risk is what makes the player lean in. Guidance from Unity suggests that if a playable takes users more than 30 seconds to complete, it should be cut down.

The end card

Game name, icon, one line of value, one large button. It appears after a win, after a loss and after a time limit, so every player sees it. The button calls the network's store function, and nothing else does.

Our playable ad best practices go deeper into each part.

Where playable ads run

Most playable volume runs on in-app networks that serve interstitial and rewarded ads inside other apps, many of them games: AppLovin, Unity Ads, Mintegral, Moloco and Liftoff among them. ironSource's direct campaigns moved to Unity Ads in 2026, while the ironSource Exchange still serves programmatic demand.

Google Ads accepts HTML5 playables in App campaigns. Meta accepts them under the app promotion objective, with a lead-in video on Facebook and Instagram placements. TikTok serves them through its ad network and, in upgraded Smart+ campaigns, on TikTok itself.

Formats vary too. Some placements show a playable on its own, some show a video first and the playable after it, and some use a playable as an interactive end card after a video. Which combinations are available depends on the network and the placement, so check the current options in each dashboard.

Why UA teams use them

• They prove the mechanic. A video can show a draw-a-path puzzle; a playable like our Roll Home concept lets the player draw the path and watch the ball roll. When the fun is in the action, doing beats watching.
• They pre-qualify installs. People who play the ad and click through already know what the game is. That tends to matter more for retention than for install volume.
• They give the network a different signal. A playable is a new creative type in the auction, which can open up traffic when video variants have stopped improving.
• They are cheap market research. A playable built around a mechanic tells you how strangers react to that mechanic before you build more of it.

Liftoff's 2025 Mobile Ad Creative Index reports that, among apps that are not top spenders, playables reached an impression-to-install rate 16 times that of non-playable formats, and that top-spending apps put over 35 percent more of their spend into playables than other apps. Results in your own account will depend on genre, network and the quality of the build, so treat any benchmark as a reason to test, not a forecast.

Where playables are the wrong tool

Playables are not a better video. They are a different tool, and they have real limits:

• Deep games are hard to compress. If the appeal of your game is progression, story, collection or social play, a 30-second slice may undersell it. Video can show weeks of progress in seconds.
• Production takes longer. A custom playable takes days, not hours, and every network needs its own build and QA.
• Measurement is coarser. Networks report impressions, clicks and installs; what happens inside the playable needs its own events, and not every network passes them back.
• Social feeds are video-first. Meta and TikTok accept playables, but their feeds and creative tools are built around video, and most teams still lead with video there.

For a side-by-side look, read playable ads vs video ads.

How to judge a playable

Pick one headline metric before launch and stick to it. For install campaigns that is usually IPM, installs per thousand impressions, because it captures both whether people engage and whether they convert. Click-through rate alone can mislead: a confusing playable can earn accidental taps, and networks count clicks differently.

Under the headline metric, two layers help you understand why a playable wins or loses:

• In-ad events. First interaction, tutorial completed, level finished, end card shown, CTA tapped. If most players never make the first move, the hook or tutorial is the problem; if they finish but do not tap, look at the end card.
• Quality after the install. Day 1 and day 7 retention and return on ad spend from your attribution partner. A playable that wins on IPM but brings in players who leave on day one is not a winner.

Our guide to A/B testing playable ads covers how to set those tests up cleanly.

Not just for games

The format works for any product where trying beats being told. Food delivery apps can let people build an order, beverage brands can let them pick a flavour, fintech apps can let them try a savings simulator. Our Brava Burger concept has the player tap ingredient cards to build a burger, then ends on a first-order delivery offer. Tidewell lets the player tap through three flavours of sparkling water before a Shop now button. See our brand playables and the guide to playable ads for brands.

How to brief a playable ad

A good brief fits on one page and answers:

1. The store link, or the brand guide and the offer.
2. The networks you buy on, which decides packaging and orientation.
3. The deadline, including time for network review.
4. Your best current creative and why you think it works.
5. The assets you can share: layered art, animations, fonts, sounds.
6. The languages you need now and later.
7. The metric you will judge it by, usually installs per thousand impressions.

From there, a studio should come back with a storyboard showing the hook, the interaction and the end card before writing any code. Ours arrives within a day, and a typical custom build takes five to seven working days; the full process is on our homepage under How we work.

A short glossary

• CTA: the call to action, usually the install or order button.
• End card: the final screen with the brand, the value line and the CTA.
• IPM: installs per mille, installs per thousand impressions. The usual headline metric for playables.
• Impression-to-install rate: the share of impressions that become installs, the same measure as IPM divided by 1,000.
• Interstitial: a full-screen ad shown at a natural break in the host app.
• MRAID: Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions, the IAB standard API between an ad and the app showing it.
• Rewarded placement: an ad the user chooses to watch or play in exchange for an in-app reward.

Start a playable with us

Send us your store link and the networks you buy on. Within a day you get a one-page storyboard with the hook, the interaction and the end card, and a fixed quote to go with it. Write to info@zerind.com or use the form on our homepage.

Start a projectPlay our concepts

Related reading

• Playable ad specs by network: the 2026 checklistFile size, packaging, MRAID version, the exact CTA call and review rules for AppLovin, Unity Ads, ironSource, Mintegral, Google, Meta and TikTok, checked against each network's own documentation.
• How to make a playable ad: from storyboard to network-ready HTML5The production path we follow on every build: brief, one-page storyboard, asset prep, a lean HTML5 engine, one adapter per network, and QA on real phones.
• Playable ads vs video ads: when each one winsThe formats do different jobs. A framework for deciding where a playable earns its production cost, where video should lead, and how to compare them without fooling yourself.

Sources

Checked on 8 October 2026. Networks update their specs; always confirm against the current page before you upload.

1. IAB, Playable ads: capturing the attention of consumers, brands and agencies alike: https://www.iab.com/playables/
2. IAB Tech Lab, MRAID (Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions): https://www.iab.com/guidelines/mraid/
3. Liftoff, Highlights from the 2025 Mobile Ad Creative Index: https://www.liftoff.ai/blog/highlights-2025-mobile-ad-creative-index/
4. Unity (ironSource content team), 5 missed opportunities that can destroy your playable ad: https://unity.com/blog/5-missed-opportunities-that-can-destroy-your-playable-ad
5. AppLovin, Creative specs and guidelines: https://support.applovin.com/en/growth/promoting-your-apps/creatives/best-practices-and-guidelines
6. Unity Ads, Playable asset specifications: https://docs.unity.com/en-us/grow/acquire/creatives/playable/specifications
7. Unity, Guide for ironSource Ads direct demand sunset: https://docs.unity.com/en-us/grow/is-ads/ironsource-ads-sunset
8. Google Ads Help, HTML5 and playable asset requirements for App campaigns: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9981650
9. Meta Business Help Centre, Playable ad specifications: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/412951382532338
10. TikTok Ads Help, Playable ads: https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/playable-ads