Brian Bowman, CEO of Consumer Acquistion, at GamesBeat Summit 2019.
Brian Bowman, CEO of Consumer Acquistion, at GamesBeat Summit 2019.
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Brian Bowman — Why user acquisition is dead and what’s coming next

Brian Bowman, the CEO of Consumer Acquisition, believes that user acquisition as we know it is dead. To be more exact, he believes Facebook and Google third-party adtech is dead, at least compared to the kind of expertise needed by human experts prior to big changes in ad platforms in 2018.

Last year, the optimization algorithms for Facebook and Google Universal App Campaigns (UAC) were dramatically improved, leveling the playing field between advertisers both large and small. Both parties automated the process of user acquisition advertising.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.