Contact Us
Where should you source creators?
Start by matching your game’s audience to a creator’s community, not just their follower count. Use a simple 3P Fit framework – Player, Platform, Persona – to decide who goes into your first test bench.
– Player: Does the creator’s audience align by genre appetite (idle, mid-core, survival, racing), monetization tolerance (F2P with IAPs, premium), and region? Review audience geos, language, and historic engagement on similar games.
– Platform: Where does that audience actually convert for your platform? Mobile-heavy audiences skew TikTok/Shorts; PC/MMO players skew YouTube longform and Twitch. Confirm device hints in comments, stream overlays, and creator content (phone capture vs OBS scenes).
– Persona: Does the creator’s on-screen persona match your game fantasy? Cozy, sweat, comedic chaos, tech-deep – the closer the vibe match, the fewer “ad read” tells you need.
– View velocity: Compare views in the first 48 hours to the creator’s median. Consistency beats spikes.
– Audience composition: Top countries, language, and age. Map to live geos and rating.
– Content adjacency: Prior performance on similar genres and mechanics. Look for organic fans of roguelikes if that’s your core, not just “gamer” creators.
– Commerce friendliness: Has the audience historically clicked, used codes, or adopted mods/skins from this creator?
– Brand safety: Past controversies, DMCA behavior, and disclosure hygiene. Avoid future headaches.
Build a shared shortlist document with the 3P Fit score for each creator (1–5 per P), links to sample content, and your hypothesis for why they should work for this title.
Which creators should you test first?
Not all creators serve the same role. Use an ABM Mix – Anchor, Bench, Moonshot – to structure your first two sprints.
– Anchor: Reliable mid-to-large creators who post on a predictable cadence and have stable view velocity. Goal: establish baselines and predictable cost per engaged view/click.
– Bench: Niche mid and micro creators tightly aligned to your subgenre or platform. Goal: find outsized conversion pockets that can be scaled with volume.
– Moonshot: One or two creators with breakout potential or new formats (e.g., emerging Shorts talent). Goal: learn fast with capped exposure and clear guardrails.
– Run creators in waves by subgenre to reduce noise. Keep a few geos clean if you can run holdouts.
– Stagger posts across days to avoid cannibalizing your UA stack.
– Assign unique links and codes; consolidate tracking formats to one or two per platform so you can compare apples-to-apples.
– Pre-approve 2–3 concept angles per creator so you can pivot quickly without re-contracting.
Success criteria at this stage are relative, not absolute. You’re trying to rank creators by consistency, audience match, and early funnel quality, then decide who graduates from Bench to Anchor.
How should briefs drive better content?
Your brief should enable creativity while locking in the moments that move players. Use the CRISP Brief – Context, Role, Inspiration, Specifics, Proof.
– Context: What’s the player fantasy and meta loop? Define the one-sentence promise (e.g., “Build, raid, and outsmart clans in 10-minute sessions”).
– Role: Why this creator? State the fit and what you want them to emphasize in their voice.
– Inspiration: Provide 3–5 reference clips with time stamps showing the hook, transition, and CTA pacing that worked for similar games.
– Specifics: Non-negotiables like feature highlights, platforms, rating, disclaimers, link placement, and timing. Include two alt CTAs to test.
– Proof: What good looks like – examples of comments, retention proxies (e.g., tutorial completion), and creative checklists.
– Hook in the first seconds with a visible in-game goal or pain solved (“I finally beat Night 5 without spending”).
– Show a clear gameplay arc: setup → tension → payoff. Avoid feature dumps; one core loop per integration.
– Use creator-owned moments: builds, challenges, duos, clan invites, fail montage. Viewers smell stock footage.
– Pin the link and say it once in the hook and once near payoff. Make the CTA ultra-specific (“Download from the pinned link to join my guild”).
– Offer a creator-exclusive in-game incentive when possible (skin, code, or early access) – framed as social proof, not hard sell.
What formats convert players best?
Choose formats by channel behavior and where your audience makes decisions.
– YouTube longform: Best for mid-core and PC/console where explanation and social proof matter. Integrations around 45–120 seconds work inside a narrative or challenge. Include end-screen cards and pinned comments.
– Shorts/TikTok/Reels: Great for mobile F2P. Aim for a tight gameplay loop with a visible goal, 15–35 seconds, and a clean caption CTA. License top posts for Spark Ads – creator handle and social proof lower friction.
– Twitch/Streaming: Works when your game rewards shared moments – co-op, raids, high-stakes attempts. Use overlays, chat commands with short codes, and scheduled drops. Avoid mid-combat reads; place calls during prep or debrief.
– Community amplifiers: Discord events, leaderboard shoutouts, or UGC challenges that ladder back to a tracked link. Great for retention nudges post-install.
– Discovery: Short video hooks, memeable moments, creator challenges.
– Consideration: Longer breakdowns, builds, comparisons, first-hour impressions.
– Conversion: Creator clan invites, event countdowns, exclusive codes, and Spark/Boost amplification.
Don’t force formats that fight the platform. For example, PC-first MMO raids rarely convert from a 20-second TikTok without a follow-up YouTube or stream touch.
How do you measure real lift?
Treat measurement as a layered system – link hygiene, quality proxies, and controlled tests.
– Unique, human-readable URLs per creator and platform. Short, branded links discourage copying errors.
– UTM discipline with consistent taxonomy. Separate platform, format, creative angle.
– Platform-native signals: Android referrer, TikTok attribution partners, and SKAN-friendly flows on iOS. Keep postbacks mapped to creators even if you need to bucket by campaign.
– View-to-click ratio by format and creator. Outliers point to hook issues or mismatched audience.
– Landing-to-install drop. Diagnose store page issues vs creative promise.
– Early session depth: tutorial completion, first-win, or level X reached – whichever best predicts D1 retention for your title.
– Comment sentiment and save/share rates on short video. These often precede stable CPIs.
– Geo or time-based holdouts: Keep one or two comparable markets clean or alternate on/off weeks. Compare baseline installs and retention.
– Synthetic controls: Build creator cohorts by size/format and compare against similar non-influencer weeks, adjusting for paid UA spend and seasonality.
– View-through modeling: Attribute a portion of installs in the 24–72h window when no other major campaigns change. Ensure you track creative exposure windows.
Define success tiers before you launch: pass, retry with new angle, or park. Graduating a creator should require consistent quality proxies and stable costs, not one viral post.
When should you scale with media?
Scale when organic posts prove message-market fit and the content still feels native under paid pressure. Use paid amplification to extend reach, not to fix weak creative.
– TikTok Spark Ads and Instagram Boosting: Promote creator posts from their handles. Keep comments on; social proof matters.
– YouTube Ads with creator allowlisting: Run TrueView or reach campaigns on the creator’s video or whitelisted handle. Test new thumbnails and first frames.
– Paid social whitelisting: Run direct response variants under creator identity, especially for mobile titles. Align ad copy with the original hook.
– License windows and territories clearly (e.g., 30–90 days, named geos). Reconfirm before Spark or whitelisting.
– Sentiment and save thresholds: If organic comments are net-negative or saves are low, don’t boost.
– Creative fatigue checks: Watch decay of click-through and install rate; rotate new hooks or angles before performance craters.
– Budget pacing: Step up in planned increments only after stability across two posting cycles, not just one.
How do you stay brand-safe?
Set safety up front and automate the boring parts.
– Vetting: Scan for past strikes, music licensing behavior, and patterns of undisclosed ads. Check VODs, not just highlight reels.
– Disclosures: Require clear, platform-native labels (#ad, Paid Partnership) and verbal disclosure. Provide exact copy to reduce creator guesswork.
– Ratings and policies: Match disclosures to your game rating, age gates, and platform rules. Avoid placing mature titles with family-audience creators.
– Content boundaries: Define off-limits topics, prohibited gameplay (e.g., exploits), and third-party IP risks. Put them in the brief and the IO.
– Escalation: Give creators a single contact for quick fixes. If a post goes sideways, pause amplification first, then update assets and links.
What should you do next?
– Build your 3P Fit shortlist and run a two-wave test with the ABM Mix. Document hypotheses and outcomes in a single tracker.
– Use the CRISP Brief to standardize creator inputs and keep only the moments that move players.
– Stand up a measurement spine: clean links, consistent UTMs, and a weekly quality proxy dashboard. Layer on a lightweight geo/time holdout.
– Graduate creators by consistency, then scale with Spark/whitelisting when the content proves itself organically.
– Close the loop with creative learnings: recycle top hooks into UA ads, and bring high-performing creators into seasonal events or battle passes.
Influencer marketing for gaming compounds when you treat it like a product pipeline – sourcing, testing, iterating, and scaling with proof. Ship tight experiments, keep your learnings centralized, and let creators do what they do best: make players care enough to click and play.