Reach More People With Search Ads

[Roblox]

[Update] September 17, 2024

@Roblox

Moving forward, Sponsored Experiences will no longer be placed within search and will only be displayed on Home. We’ve seen that a very small volume of impressions for Sponsored Experiences come from search, and there is higher user engagement with search ads compared to Sponsored Experiences within search. This change doesn’t affect live Sponsored Experience campaigns.

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[Update] August 28, 2024

@Roblox

Audience estimation for search ads is now available in Ads Manager. Audience estimation will show the approximate number of Roblox user accounts your search ad could potentially reach over a month, based on the keywords, budget, and bids you set.

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Hi Creators,

Every day, there are millions of searches happening on Roblox. As we’ve shared, our mission for Discovery is to connect every creation with its most relevant audience. Today, we are giving you the ability to reach more of that audience with search ads.

Search ads allow you to promote your experience to global users ages 13+ who are actively searching for experiences or genres of experiences using specific keywords. We built this feature to give you more ways to drive discovery of your experiences.

Starting today, advertisers will be able to buy search ads for their experiences through Ads Manager. Many users will start seeing search ads, and we will roll out to more users over the coming weeks.

Example of search ads on mobile (left), Example of search ads on desktop (right)

Search ads will currently work for exact match (vs. broad match) keywords, which means we will show your ads for search terms that have the exact same spelling as the keyword you bid on. For search queries that directly match an experience title, such as “The Hunt”, the exact match experience will still appear as the primary enlarged tile, and search ads will display immediately after.

Our ads system prioritizes ads that are most compelling and relevant to a user and their search query. In addition, we will prevent experiences identified as clickbait or spam from surfacing as a search ad. We’ll share more on our efforts to reduce spam and clickbait in a separate post soon.

How to Create a Search Ad

To begin, go to Ads Manager > Create > Choose “Visits” as the Campaign Objective > Choose “Search Experience” as the Ad Format.

Creating a search ad campaign within Ads Manager.

Choosing Keywords

When creating a search ad, you get to select the specific keyword(s) that you want your experience to show up for when people are searching.

Eligible keywords for search ads are based upon recent popular search queries on Roblox.

To maximize user experience and make the most of your ad spend, we recommend you bid on keywords that are most relevant to your experience. For instance, if you have a horror experience and you bid on the keyword “obby,” while you could get some initial traffic from this ad, our ad system will ultimately optimize for ads that are most relevant.

You can select up to 10 keywords.

Bidding and Ad Creative

For search ads, you set the maximum price and bid you are willing to pay for a play (cost per play bidding) in USD. Roblox runs an auction to determine the best ad to show when there is an ad opportunity within search. Roblox considers the user, ad information, and the relevance of the experience to the user’s search query when determining what search ads to show and the relative ranking between ads.

Just like Sponsored Experiences, your default ad creative will be your experience image.

Once a search ad campaign is approved and active, your experience may display as a search result when a user searches for the keyword that you bid on.

Reporting and Analytics

Search ads will also show up in the Analytics Dashboard where you can view your acquisition sources. For now, search ads will show combined with sponsored ads as an acquisition source.

Search ads will also have reporting to help you effectively manage campaigns at the campaign, ad set, and individual ad level. Ads reporting will continue to utilize click-based attribution for conversion tracking, ensuring accurate and transparent reporting. Reports will include metrics such as spend, impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), cost per play (CPP), plays, play rate, and more.

What’s Next

This is just the beginning for search ads, as we plan to add more features over the coming months. Some upcoming features include audience estimation, which will show the approximate number of Roblox user accounts your search ad could potentially reach over a month, based on the keywords, budget, and bids you set.

Please share your feedback below on what other features you’d like to see added to search ads. Thank you!

Resources

• Documentation: Search Ads

• Documentation: Ads Manager

• Documentation: Advertising on Roblox

FAQ

Click here to view the FAQ

What experiences are eligible to run search ads?

• All Roblox advertisers of experiences must abide by our Community Standards. Like for Sponsored Experiences, paid access experiences and 17+ experiences currently are not eligible to advertise using search ads.

Can you buy keywords for another experience on Roblox and show up?

• Know that just like today, the exact keyword matched experience will still show up organically first as the largest tile, followed by search ads. You can bid on any keywords that Roblox users are searching for, including other experience names. However, since relevance is a critical factor in ad ranking, experiences that are most relevant to the keyword being bid on will be more likely to show up higher. If you bid on your own experience name, it’s possible you will show up once as the larger tile first followed by your search ad.

How are search ads different from Sponsored Experiences that show up in search?

• Currently, Sponsored Experiences show up in search results regardless of what keywords a user inputs. Sponsored Experiences can help you reach a broad range of users on Home. Search ads can supplement your Sponsored Experience ad campaigns by reaching more relevant and specific audiences in search. (Updated in September 17, 2024)

What will happen to Sponsored Experiences with the launch of search ads?

• Sponsored Experiences will still show up in Home and Search. Sponsored Experiences will only be displayed in Home and will no longer show in search. (Updated on September, 2024)

What audience targeting can I use for search ad campaigns?

• For now, search ads will reach users in all regions, all genders, ages 13+, and all eligible devices. Advertisers will not be able to choose more granular audience targeting.

Can I use Robux to buy search ads?

• Any Roblox user ages 13+ can convert Robux to ad credit and utilize it for running ads. This accessibility ensures that a wide range of creators can participate in the advertising ecosystem. Learn more here.

[Dango360]

This sounds great! I especially like how it uses keywords so that creators can direct players towards their game as they search. Will keywords be more utilised in the future (i.e. in other areas or unsponsored games)?

[BladianMC]

Why is there a bill now, is this new?

[LazyPwnter]

This is great, expanding our ability to reach new players in the search bar is an extremely useful update.

Is there any chance we will see advertisements allowed for 17+ Experiences anytime soon?

[vltsna]

After a long wait, it’s great to see another good update.

[ZAZC_x (ZAZC)]

this is actually pretty awesome if i do say so myself, my only worry is if i try searching “untitled tag game” im getting 50 sponsors for different variations of “untitled sus weird game” or whatever

ive seen so much weird things with the sponsorship thing, it feels somewhat iffy to me

[jackjenningsdev]

@BladianMC

Why is there a bill now, is this new?

i think this only applies to credit card payment

[XenoSynthesis]

In the early days of Roblox, games, hats, Gear, and other assets already had genres (Sci-Fi, Medieval, Horror, Town and City, Military, etc.) Hopefully down the road this will be extended to other areas of the website and Studio, such as Groups and Toolbox models.

[Misterx113]

@Roblox

Adding up to 10 keywords within an ad set.

Why do you use school and shooting game for the same experience? Thats rly sus

Joke beside, I hope we wont see 20 sponsered search ads infront of a 200k experience, so searching becomes useless, I hope theres a limit for search ads on the result page!!

[Hexpdo]

Cool, this will add more to sponsored games and such. It’ll be easier for me to sponsor now probably.

[smashman65]

Is this issue fixed?

Ads Manager Uses Credits Immediately vs. Over Selected Timeline

The new ad manager does not work as expected. If you select your campaign to run over multiple days, all the credit can be spent within hours. The credit is not properly spread over the expected timeline. Expected behavior I would expect the ad system to distribute the credits evenly over the selected timeline. If I submit an ad with 100 credits over 10 days, it should spend 10 credits per day. Ideally those 10 credits would be distributed evenly throughout each day as well

Im afraid to do sponsorships if it murders my money in a few hours

[apenzijncoolenleuk1 (Apenz1)]

Pretty handy for advertisers, but as a user I honestly prefer if search actually shows what I wanted to search. That might just be me though idk…

[JoeyKreates]

It’s always great to see more ways to help players discover our experiences.

Awesome update!

[OutlookG (Outlook)]

when will immersive ad revenue not be awful

[vicy98 (Samarium_Helium)]

Would your game show up twice if you were a top result for a search but made an ad anyway? Lol

[CapColton]

Why does it cost USD instead of robux- or even accept robux as a secondary option to pay? It seems it defeats the point of allowing non-front page games or young developers to advertise their game using non-real-life money. Minimum $5 just to show your game on the game page temporarily is honestly crazy idea (while it is “cheap”, but the fact we have to use real life money for something short instead of robux is wild).

The relevant search results shouldn’t even be charged at all! It is literally keyword tags and why does it even cost $$?! What is this, EA-style subscription model? This isn’t how you replace traditional user ad.

Btw welcome back genre but could’ve be better with a pre-written list like “Horror”, “Funny”, “City”, etc just like old day. I don’t think being able to customize keyword is right idea as it encourage us to throw random keyword in to make search look wildly inaccurate.

[ydfrn (Progen)]

died 2017
born 2024
welcome back Genres

[XenoSynthesis]

If it’s anything like UGC, then it already is a pre-written list of keywords. Main difference is avatar items can only choose five keywords (like “car”, “robot”, and “sword” to describe a Battlebot) whereas games would have a maximum of ten. If someone pays for the wrong category, they’re hurting themselves in the long run.

For instance, if you have a horror experience and you bid on the keyword “obby,” while you could get some initial traffic from this ad, our ad system will ultimately optimize for ads that are most relevant.

I agree that this kind of functionality should have been included in the search engine years ago. For too long, the closest thing we had to genres were “Top Earning” and “Popular Worldwide” which tell you absolutely nothing about the gameplay itself.

[EmesOfficial (Emes)]

I’d like to get some clarity on when paid games will be allowed to be advertised again. Since the sunsetting of user ads, I haven’t been able to promote a game I’ve worked on for 3 years. This makes it nearly impossible for small developers without a following to successfully release a paid game.