CATS: Crash Arena Turbo Stars
Driving scalable growth through creative automation and smarter campaign optimization
The objective
Scaling D0 tROAS through auto-selected creatives for Smart+
CATS: Crash Arena Turbo Stars (CATS), developed by Nazara Publishing, is a casual action game where players build weaponized vehicles and compete in automated PvP battles. The game's core appeal comes from strategic vehicle customization, progression choices, and humorous cat-themed visuals, making it highly approachable for a broad audience.
As the team scaled their acquisition efforts, they faced a common challenge: creative fatigue and the operational burden of constantly identifying, refreshing, and scaling winning creatives. To address this, the team explored a more systematic creative structure through auto-selected creatives for Smart+.
The solution
Unleashing automated smart features to conquer creative fatigue
To optimize their global rollout, CATS deployed a Smart+ campaign utilizing specialized In-App Purchase Day 0 target ROAS bidding. The core engine of this strategy was TikTok's auto-selected creatives for Smart+ feature, which automatically sources, refreshes, and prioritizes top-performing creatives across multiple creative ecosystems, including in-house assets, creator content, and AI-powered creative solutions.
Because gameplay revolves around discovering new combinations and progression paths, a single creative is unlikely to capture the game's full depth. TikTok's solution enabled Nazara Publishing to continuously surface diverse gameplay scenarios, from weapon combinations and battle outcomes, to progression moments, keeping creatives fresh while showcasing the breadth of the gameplay experience.
This richer creative coverage also improved audience matching. By exposing different gameplay mechanics and player motivations, auto-selected creatives for Smart+ prioritised the best-performing creatives for each audience segment, helping attract users with stronger intent while reducing creative fatigue. Combined with campaign automation tools such as Smart+ IAP, Goal-Based Budget Increase and Attribution Flex, the strategy delivered more scalable acquisition while improving both Day 0 and Day 7 ROAS.
The results
Leveling up campaign returns with record-breaking efficiency
The adoption of autoselected creatives for Smart+ alongside Goal-Based Budget Increase (GBBI) delivered measurable improvements across campaign scalability, efficiency, and downstream monetisation. By continuously serving the most relevant gameplay creatives to different audience segments, Nazara Publishing expanded creative coverage by 2.5×, allowing it to showcase a broader range of vehicle customisation, PvP battles, and progression moments while reducing creative fatigue.
GBBI complemented this strategy by automatically scaling budgets on high-performing campaigns, contributing to a 7% increase in budget spendability and enabling greater delivery without sacrificing performance.
These operational gains translated into stronger business outcomes throughout the optimisation window. The enhanced creative strategy attracted higher-intent players, resulting in a 31% uplift in Day 0 ROAS and a 38% uplift in Day 7 ROAS compared with the baseline campaign.
The results demonstrate that combining gameplay-driven creative automation with intelligent budget scaling provides a repeatable framework for efficiently acquiring high-value players while supporting sustainable campaign growth and long-term advertising returns.