If you’re buying installs in Japan the same way you buy them in the US or Europe, you may be optimizing for the wrong number.

That’s the core argument from Jatin Mittal of Indovia, a mobile game publishing partner that invests its own capital into UA and distribution for studios worldwide.

In a conversation with Rocket A, Jatin laid out why Indovia treats Japan as a fundamentally different market — one where roughly 95% of media spend runs on CPE (Cost Per Engagement) rather than CPI, and where that split is a deliberate response to how Japanese players actually behave, not a stylistic preference.

This article is based on a conversation with Jatin, and reflects a paraphrased summary of his comments on the Japanese market. 

Who Is Indovia?

Indovia describes itself less as a distributor and more as a growth partner. As Jatin puts it, the belief driving the company is simple: “great games deserve more than a launch — they deserve a growth engine.”

Indovia works with studios and developers globally to scale high-potential titles, funding user acquisition and distribution directly rather than acting purely as a middleman.

That includes performance marketing, data-driven monetization, creative optimization, and live operations — plus its own first-party distribution layer, Jackson, a portfolio hub app that lets Indovia cross-promote users across its titles instead of relying entirely on third-party UA channels.

The Design Philosophy Behind Indovia’s Titles

Indovia’s games are casual, hybrid-monetized (ads plus IAP) titles built around a single, clean core loop with meaningful level-based progression. But the philosophy behind that design goes further than genre conventions.

“Good design and good UA are the same problem,” Jatin says. A game needs a reason for players to go deeper — well-paced difficulty, a loop worth repeating — and that same depth is what makes a title financeable, because deeper engagement is what turns into measurable, monetizable behavior.

Indovia designs for retention and depth first; monetization, in this view, should scale with genuine engagement rather than being bolted on afterward.

Why Japan Matters — and Why It’s Different

Japan sits near the top of Indovia’s priority list, and Jatin is specific about why: it combines high eCPMs and strong per-user monetization with a rewarded-ad ecosystem that Japanese users are already culturally comfortable with — point- and offer-based mechanics that map naturally onto CPE campaign structures.

But that opportunity comes with a cost of entry. Japan, in Jatin’s words, is also “a demanding market: users expect polish and localization done properly.”

That combination — high ceiling, high standards — is why Indovia invests in local rewarded partners in Japan rather than treating it as a smaller version of a Western launch.

The 95% Number: Why Japan’s Media Mix Looks Nothing Like the West’s

Here’s where the strategy gets concrete. Indovia’s media mix isn’t uniform across regions — it’s split according to how deep players in each market actually go.

• In Western markets, engagement tends to be shallower and more predictable. Players don’t typically reach the deepest levels, so a fixed CPI model fits: the reward funnel is simple to structure, and paying per install is efficient when depth is limited. CPE sits below 5% of the mix there.
• In Japan — and to a meaningful extent Korea — the pattern flips. When Japanese players commit to a game, Jatin notes, they’ll stick with it all the way to the final levels, and that commitment deserves to be rewarded in proportion to the time and effort invested. CPE lets Indovia pay for sustained engagement rather than the install itself. The result: roughly 95% of APAC media spend runs on CPE.

“It’s the same philosophy applied to two very different player cultures,” Jatin says.

CPI and CPE Aren’t Competing Tools — They’re Different Instruments

When both models run side by side, Indovia doesn’t judge them by the same KPIs.

• CPI is a volume and top-of-funnel tool, judged on install cost, scale, and early ROAS signals like D7.
• CPE is a quality and LTV tool, judged on ROAS at the offer window (D30 and beyond), event-completion rates, and cost-per-event weighed against revenue-per-event.

The shorthand Jatin uses: CPI buys reach, CPE buys depth. Indovia builds engagement event ladders specifically so that CPE spend tracks where monetization actually accrues — meaning every event they pay for has to justify itself economically against a target ROAS.

The Early Challenge Wasn’t Delivery — It Was Data

Launching CPE campaigns in Japan for the first time didn’t expose a distribution problem. It exposed a data problem.

Modeling a CPE campaign properly requires localized benchmarks — confirmed D30 ARPU, revenue by level depth, and a clear read on a channel’s payout structure — and those aren’t always transparent up front. Calibrating an event ladder to how Japanese players actually progress, rather than assuming Western pacing, “took real iteration,” Jatin says. With CPIs and CPMs running higher in Japan, Indovia had to hold its discipline and confirm that matured LTV caught up before scaling spend further.

Their answer was to treat the opening phase of any Japan launch as a deliberate data-collection exercise, re-forecasting once the deep funnel produced real numbers. Jatin puts it this way, “a patient approach that has served us well.”

The Metrics Indovia Actually Watches in Japan

Ask Jatin what he pays closest attention to in Japan, and the answer isn’t installs or Day-1 retention. It’s:

• Revenue by level depth, alongside D30 ARPU — because much of the value in Japan sits in the mid- and deep-tail of the funnel, not the first few sessions
• ARPDAU and eCPM, both of which run higher than in most markets
• Each channel’s reward and coin economy mechanics, since they shape player behavior directly

Retention curves and progression pacing in Japan differ enough from Tier-1 Western markets that reusing the same LTV assumptions, Jatin warns, “would be a mistake.”

Designing Event Structures for a Market That Goes Deep

Building a CPE event ladder isn’t just about picking milestones. The principle Indovia follows is to anchor events to real behavioral inflection points — difficulty spikes and natural drop-off levels — rather than tidy round numbers. Every event needs to sit where progression and monetization genuinely happen, and needs to stand on its own economically against the target ROAS.

The balance matters too: enough events to smooth out conversion-rate noise, but not so many that the signal dilutes. Indovia validates the full ladder using Monte Carlo simulation to stress-test ROAS before committing the budget, then re-forecasts at D30.

For Japan specifically, because players progress further into a game, deep-tail events carry more weight in the ladder — the opposite of front-loading everything early, which is closer to a Western default.

Jatin’s Advice for Publishers Entering Japan

Asked what he’d tell other publishers considering Japan, Jatin’s answer is less a tactic than a mindset:

• Respect the market. Localize with genuine care — half-measures get punished in Japan.
• Partner with local rewarded channels who understand the coin and offer economy natively. That expertise is the market’s real edge.
• Get the event structure and LTV model right first, on a disciplined, data-collection budget, before scaling spend.
• Be patient with the offer window. Japanese LTV matures later than many teams expect, and judging a campaign too early can make a genuinely strong one look weak.

“Japan rewards publishers who treat it as its own market, with its own logic,” Jatin says, “rather than a line on a global media plan.”

The Takeaway

Indovia’s 95% CPE allocation in Japan isn’t a bet on a trend — it’s the output of matching a media model to how a specific market actually plays. Where Western engagement is shallow and predictable, CPI is efficient. Where Japanese engagement is deep and reward-native, paying for the install misses where the value actually sits.

For publishers still running Japan the way they run everywhere else, Indovia’s approach is a reminder that the market rewards patience, localized data, and a willingness to pay for what players actually do — not just for the download.

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Running Japan the way Indovia does takes patient data and the right local partners. Rocket A connects you directly to Japan’s local reward media — no middleman margin, no local entity, live in 5 days.

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