Any feedback on my marketing strategy?

My game never has an active server unless I’m advertising. It’s really demoralizing for me and my few fans since the game is best when there’s a full server.

However, it seems most people who play for 5+ mins really like the game, and any time I advertise I get a few loyal fans. The chat usually has a few messages disappointed that the game is so small. I say this only to show I don’t think the quality of the game is my issue, but my marketing.

These are my ads for the game:

Normal Ads

RushRectangleAd

Meme-y Ads

RushLevelDiffRectangle !

These ads get pretty bad CTRs even though I think they look fine. The Normal ads get 0.61%, 0.31%, and 0.86%, while the Meme-y ads get 0.70%, 0.14%, and 1.01%. I only spent 500 $R each for these tests, so maybe that’s my problem?

I’m making a new post because most advice I see is people reassuring that a good game will blow up naturally. Maybe my game doesn’t fit in ROBLOX’s demographic (or it just isn’t good enough), because it gets very little natural growth.

My goal is to have at least 1 active server constantly, so players won’t get turned away at a 0 player count and can actually have fun. What can I do to help make this happen?

The main thing that I would guess (with having no real knowledge of your game) is that there isn’t much to keep a player there. The rounds can be incredibly fun, especially with friends, but if there isn’t stuff to keep a player coming back (like levels, shops, etc) then the fun rounds eventually get old. You might find useful information in this article on the Wiki, and best of luck! https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/articles/designing-for-engagement

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Although the ads look pretty well made, they aren’t interesting.

Let me explain:

You see a guy holding blocks, thats nothing interesting, you see a guy shooting a guy holding blocks… ok but what is it really about? Then you see a guy shooting something, no clue what it is.

Give context to your ads atleast, dont make it too mysterious. Yes mystery can add onto advertisments, using it too much and it wont even get clicked.

If you show powerful guns vs a whole team while another person runs away with blocks and shoots, now thats interesting, shows some suspense, gameplay mechanics, and how it works.

Show different enviroments and possibly make the players more interesting.

Add text that gives a slight amount of context like “GET POWERFUL” or “RUSH TO DESTROY” (generic i know but works)

And try advertising on mobile if your game is mobile friendly, this will defintley get alot of boosts since many players (especially kids) are on mobile.

Gameplay might also be an issue considering that they only play for 5 minutes (which is really short).
Make it enticing to play off first, give them a sense of power as soon as they join (or something similar) then tone it down and explain some other gameplay aspects (not for too long though) if needed.

Making gameplay boring in the first part just makes them click off (I do the same thing honestly).

FINAL VERDICT

bruh

Now thats a big no no, dont do this PLEASE

Actually, I cant even join the game-

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First off, let me say that your ads aren’t very appealing. If I saw your ad I would not click on it, let alone play your game. The ads look pretty boring in that it’s just a guy either holding blocks or a gun. You should probably work on making your ads better.

Second, I noticed your game only has 1 thumbnail, and like your ad, it’s very unappealing and boring. All I see is a guy holding blocks and two other people pointing guns at the guy holding the blocks. The thumbnail tells me almost nothing about the game, as the only words it has on it is “RUSH”. You need to put a short teaser on your thumbnails, like “SHOOT YOUR ENEMIES” or something like that.

Third, 500 Robux is NOT enough to get you a sufficient number of players. You need to spend at least a couple thousand (5k - 10k) and that will usually get you around 100-200 concurrent players. Adding on to that, in my point of view you will actually LOSE money from advertising, rather than gain. The reason is because you are only selling loot boxes as your only source of income. That’s pretty bad monetization. You need to make some gamepasses too like a better gun or something like that.

Fourth, where’s the tutorial? Not having a tutorial will just drive away new players since they won’t know how to play. I joined your game just now, and I didn’t have any idea of what to do until I read the description on the Roblox website. You need to script a tutorial to pop up for new players when they join your game. When people click on advertisements, they rarely read the description before clicking “Play”.

Fifth, I don’t want to offend you or anything, but your game is extremely boring in my opinion. I am just running around, getting boxes, and shooting others. What’s the point of the game? The game has very little gameplay features at the moment, you need to add more gameplay features so players will keep coming back to play. Like I said, I just joined, and I don’t feel like playing again, because it is so boring and there is literally nothing to do except run around and shoot people and collecting blocks. If I am missing something, then that leads back to my tutorial suggestion, you need a tutorial so new players can be introduced to everything in your game.

Tl;Dr - Your ads and thumbnail aren’t appealing, and you are not spending enough money on advertising. Your game also lacks a tutorial to help new players get started, leaving most of them clueless of how to play the game. Your game lacks gameplay features and gets quite boring after a few minutes.

Also, like @3rdhoan123 mentioned, why the heck are you kicking people for “high lag”?!? That is absolutely ridiculous and if I were to be kicked for that, I would leave a dislike and never come back, let alone the fact that I have never seen a game kick me for that. Not everybody has super “high tech” devices that can run Roblox games at a good speed. Lag is not something you need to worry about. If high lag plays a major negative role in your game, you need to redesign your game so EVERYBODY can play, including those 20 year old PC users. Everybody should be able to play your game, or you will not get very good results.

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Something I want to add onto that, I remember playing a game where you would tag others, simple and possibly boring concept right? Wrong, the added mechanics of the “movement” and “feel” of the game is what boosted it to front page, making it quite fun to play, the wallrunning, dashing, fast paced, and intense gameplay added onto the experience of playing it making many people play it for long times.

Infact, heres me playing it (it was 2 years ago dont roast me):

Although it looks generic now, it was still fun playing it, and I actually wanted to collect some of the items. The leaderboards also made it competitive to play.

TL:DR
Add more fun “movement” to the game, the more the player enjoys the controls, the more enticing it is it to play. Add competitiveness as well.

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Thanks for the in-depth response. It’s given me a lot to think about.

Also, the high-lag thing is a pretty bad bug in my anti-exploit, meant to stop players from abuse with artificial internet connection. Will fix immediately.

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Great point. I’ve thought about extra movement and I’ll consider what will work for my game. Thanks for the suggestions, they definitely feel better than just criticism :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks for the suggestions. And super sorry about the kicking, that was an unintentional consequence of some anti-exploit code. Fixing immediately.

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Great ideas. My game suffers from exactly that- fun rounds, but they get old. Good link also, that’s very helpful!

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From the bit of time I spent playing your game, it plays a lot more like a proof of concept, then a fully fledged out game.

Mechanically, there’s no real reason to fight anyone other than because you can. You could honestly sit arround your base collecting parts and waiting for the other team to try and attack you. This also works in the other direction, one team can vastly out gun the other team meaning they never have a seconds breath to try and catch up.

I’d just suggest taking what you have to the drawing board and expand on the ideas you’ve allready formed to make the gameplay more dynamic

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If the game is small, then make it bigger! Maybe make a tutorial also for the game. As far as your marketing goes, i think your game needs more of what is called “Natural Growth”. For example, i made a game and even tho it was barely complete i was able to get 20 people in a server without ads. Get some friends, use YouTube to help, Make a discord server, and give it some time. The best part of a roblox game and the part people really recognize you for, is the thought behind it.

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Instead of immediately kicking the player from your game, I think you should be restoring the Vector3 Position they were previously in (teleport them back to where they were before getting lag). It’s more convenient and better than this system because it won’t discourage a player who experiences lag to not not play your game.

This method would also be a temporary solved issue to exploiters increasing walkspeed!

I recommend going to #help-and-feedback:scripting-support to learn more information about this.

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Just saying I sponsored my game for 500 and then it became like my most successful game with over 900 people playing at a time. But of course, the game did start to slowly drop in player count.

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Yea, I know those cases happen occasionally (quite rarely). But with his game and all the design issues he has, he’ll have to spend much more to get a player base like that. I usually consider 5k Robux to be a good amount for a sponsor on release day, just so you can see how the game performs and if people like it or not.

I would use this. It shows you when to advertise and what platform is good to advertise.