My Experiments with Sponsored and User Ads

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

Hello there,

It seems like the only way for a new game to get some players is by running ads, so I will try doing that and I plan to post my results here. The goal is to get an attractive icon (CTR in Sponsored Ads), good store page (conversion rate in Sponsored Ads) and some ad creatives that would bring as many eyes on that store page as possible (CTR).

I will use 250 - 1000 Robux until I will find a sweet spot and improve metrics of my game (retention, play time, monetization, etc).

Latest completed Sponsored Ad

Store page had these images as thumbnails.

Yes, one of them is very obviously AI generated… And I decided to keep the screenshot of the game area in too. Since I’m new at this and my other ads performed much much worse, I was under impression that these results are great, but soon learned, that the goal is 1-2% CTR and more… And conversion should be much higher too.

I don’t have a new icon, so for next test I decided to remove the screenshot and re place the thumbnail with something… fancier. I will post results later, but I think I made a mistake by using an image (also AI generated) that does not have roblox-like character. I will have full results tomorrow, but so far conversions don’t look good.

I also tried this meme-ified User Ad (rotated for better thread readability)

I don’t think these results are good. I ran the same meme ad for the previous version of this game with simpler game name and that one had 0.17% CTR.

The game is Trap Arena which is very multiplayer-reliant competetive score chaser where players have to run around an arena full of… well… traps. More about the development and a place for feedback can be found in the dev log here.

In the future I also plan to make modifications to the game title itself and test them out too.

Hope you will find this thread useful!

Cheers!

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

A couple of smaller tests ended today, so it seems like one key to higher CTR and conversion rate is targetting mobile. Which is pretty bad news for me, since my game is not very mobile-friendly.

For comparison… Targetting PC-only had abysmal results.

I assume the difference between impressions is due to how many games get on screen on different platforms, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

So, my main task now is to make my game UI and gameplay feel better on mobile and after that I will throw some robux at different icons and some User Ads.

[GamEditoPro]

Hm… Looks like interesting experiment for people which need start their game from somewhere.

Also, why person on image have 6 fingers on both arms?

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

Counting fingers is still something AI is having trouble with

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

Testing a different name “Battle Trap Arena ”

Name change had a slight impact compared to the previously used “Trap Arena ”, but hard to draw conclusion with such a low volume. Having something like “battle” in the name might benefit search optimization, but the competition is likely insane.

Next I will try adding something like “mad” or “crazy” to the name.

Edit: for some reason I initially noted that name change had no impact, but I realized that +0.3% CTR for an added word to the name is something.

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

It’s been a while… And I ran some more Sponsored Ads! First of all, kind of settled down with Crazy Trap Arena name. First, it had the best CTR on initial ad run and, second, I kind of like it the most.

Sadly, it didn’t carry on with that 3%+ CTR in the follow up tests, but these flunctiations could be result of many things and I don’t have funds to fully test weeklong sponsorships.

Tablet-only had decent results. Maybe that’s the way to go for a game that is not very suitable for small screens.

Also tried the female audience, just for the sake of it. Not surprisingly, much worse results.

I haven’t settled down on the icon, don’t believe this is the best for the game and hope to have something new to test during the following weeks. Might order from Fiverr or Discord. Same goes for the thumbnail.

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

Try doing console ads. There is very little competition

[Mightty]

Thank you for documenting this! Your post contains lots of valuable information and tips on a thought process which I think every developer on Roblox goes through at some point.

[M1Jy (0idk)]

Why would you recommend that for now? Peoples for weeks have been complaining about bug that console advertising gave them 0 on visits - game joins

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

Sadly, I can confirm that. A lot of impressions, zeroes everywhere else. Didn’t know about the bug…

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

This is what I got a on april

vs mobile on march. Console ran longer, but compare the cpp values. I tested multiple times and console is always the best sponsor.

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

Thank you for sharing, those are definitely great numbers (catchy icon too)! Too bad console ads are glitching out now, hope that’s going to be fixed soon and I will try it out again.

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

Sadly the game failed, I will share the sponsors results I got before removal of <13 advertising. It was main reason my game died off and became unprofitable. Btw as lietuvis

[SnoutUpDev (SnoutUp)]

Sorry to hear that, is the game still LIVE or did you privated it? Was retention and engagement numbers decent enough? I’m currently struggling with getting those up (wrong game genre for ROBLOX, heh).

My best CPP so far was 4.5, for mobile 17+ males, but I hope to lower it with better store art.

P.s. smagu sutikt lietuvių

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

The game is still playable and some people still play it. New player retention was bad, but other stats were fine. I don’t have console to test the game on it and from what I’ve heard the game was laggy at later stages. Only recently roblox added graphics settings to console, which would have helped a lot for me lol.

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

If you are buying robux to advertise you will spend a lot for little results. I got my robux from freelancing for other devs. 1$ = 285 robux for devex/hiring

[VulkSerity (SplootingSquirrel)]

Why does it matter if you put female or male, console or tablet, why not put all?

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

The point is to target your game audience and not just shotgun everyone. If females have 20% chance to click on ad and males 30% why would you advertise to females?

[VulkSerity (SplootingSquirrel)]

But you would get more audience?

[Inf1n1tylt (Infinitylt)]

You will get the same amount of impressions(if the targeted audiences are similar size), but the amount of people who click them will differ.