Sponsored Experiences moving to Ads Manager

Roblox · October 26, 2023, 7:53pm

[Update] November 10, 2023

Hi Developers,

As we shared in the “Ads Roadmap and Upcoming Changes” post earlier this week, we are building toward an Ad system that is objective-based, drives advertiser value, and respects the user experience. To power the future of Roblox Ads, we have built Ads Manager as a one-stop shop to create, manage, and view reporting for all your ads on Roblox. To date, Ads Manager has only supported Immersive Ads.

We are excited to announce that Sponsored Experiences will move to Ads Manager on November 8th. Starting today, you can begin creating Sponsored Experiences campaigns using Ads Manager with a start date of November 8. The documentation has all the information you need to schedule your first campaign.

Timeline for Sponsored Experiences moving from Roblox.com to Ads Manager

Sponsored Experiences can be created on Roblox.com until November 7, 2023. Sponsored Experiences created on Roblox.com will have a maximum end date of November 7, 2023.

To give advertisers time to set up ads using the new system, we are enabling Sponsored Experiences in Ads Manager today. Advertisers can start scheduling campaigns with a start date of November 8th. After November 8th, all Campaigns will need to be created exclusively in Ads Manager, and we will remove the creation from Roblox.com to consolidate ads under Ads Manager.

Creating an Ad Account on Ads Manager

To create Campaigns on Ads Manager, you will need an Ad Account. Visit Ads Manager and create a personal or business account to get started. Full documentation can be found here.

We heard your feedback at the Ads Manager beta launch in Q2 2023, and we are no longer restricting Ads Manager to only 18+ users. Starting today any user over the age of 13 is eligible to create an Ad Account and start using ads to reach its audience. It is important to note that users between that age of 13 and 18 can only use Ad Credits as a payment method which we believe is the desired payment method for this user group. More details on the payment methods are below and also can be found in the documentation.

Bidding on Sponsored Experiences is now Auction Objective-Based

Previously, the Sponsored Experience system was an impression-based lottery system. Advertisers would place a bid per day, and delivery would be based on the percentage of total bid values in the system your bid represented. That means that advertisers were simply buying “lottery tickets” for the chance to get their ad served.

Moving forward, Sponsored Experiences in Ads Manager will enable advertisers to bid on a “Cost per Play,” and they will only be charged for each Play generated. A “play” is defined as a player joining your experience (after landing on the experience details page). Ads will be delivered through second price auction (details in documentation), ensure fair pricing for advertisers based on performance, and deliver maximum value for the placed bids.

Improving Discovery of Sponsored Experiences

In a commitment to continue improving the Sponsored Ad system, we are currently running a series of experiments to improve the placement of the Sponsored row on the home page. We are testing different placements to improve advertiser value while respecting the user experience.

In the next few weeks, we will move up the placement of the Sponsored row to provide more discovery for Sponsored Experiences. We expect to increase impression opportunities and drive more visibility with a higher placement.

New and Improved Targeting

By integrating Sponsored Experiences into Ads Manager we allow age, gender, device, and region targeting. In the future, Ads Manager will support more advanced targeting.

Improved and Consistent Reporting

The improved UI in Ads Manager allows advertisers to view reporting across all their campaigns in a single view. We will report impressions, plays, cost per play, and more. In the future, we will extend reporting to surface the most relevant information to advertisers.

Thank you.

FAQ

Click here to view the FAQ! (Updated on November 10, 2023)

What happens if I run a campaign with Ad Credits but it doesn’t spend my entire budget?

We will refund unused Ad Credits to your Ad Credit balance within 24-48 hours, due to the processing time it takes. We will also update the UI status to make this clearer.

Why didn’t the campaign spend my entire budget or show low impressions even though I have a larger budget?

Ads Manager uses an auction system that means your ad is potentially competing with other ads for the same impressions. Some things that can impact the delivery of your ads are your maximum bid and targeting selection. Since Ads Manager uses an auction system, choosing too low of a bid may result in your ad not getting high rank in the auction or not winning the auction, as ads with higher bids will get prioritized delivery and placement. Selecting a smaller target audience may also make getting delivery harder. You can raise your maximum bid and broaden your targeting to help drive more delivery.

Do I need to be age-verified or ID-verified to use Ads Manager?

You do NOT need an age-verified or ID-verified account to use Ads Manager. We have updated our documentation to reflect this.

Why is there a larger minimum budget required?

Currently, we require a minimum of 10 ad credits to run ads: 5 credits per day for a minimum of 2 days. We recognize this is a significantly higher minimum budget than the previous Sponsored Experiences system. The new ad delivery system enables you to bid on conversions and requires more budget to help predict conversions. We are working on fine-tuning the delivery to support smaller budgets in the future.

Why must I include my address when setting up my Ads Manager account?

This was a holdover from when you could only buy ads using a credit card in Ads Manager. In the coming weeks, we’ll be removing the address requirements for developers who want to run campaigns using ad credits.

Why are you requiring the purchase of Ad Credits at a post-DevEx rate?

The conversion rate from Ad Credit to Robux is the post-DevEx rate. We recognize that, in the past, developers were able to use earned Robux directly for running ads. However, using a post-DevEx conversion rate enables easy comparisons between ads that are bought in fiat (USD) and ads that are bought using ad credit. Most importantly, ads will be delivered through an auction system. The actual price you pay for ads is determined by the market: advertisers compete to reach the same audience. Advertisers may achieve a better return on investment with this change, given that you can set max bids, target to reach the right audience, and are charged based on an auction.

Why are you removing the ability to create Sponsored Experiences from Roblox.com?

We want to provide a unified platform to create, manage, and view reporting for all your ads with Ads Manager. We will be able to add improved capabilities, which include better targeting and bidding based on your desired objectives like visits or awareness.

Why is the Robux to Ad Credit conversion rate the same as the DevEx rate?

To ensure fairness in our advertiser ecosystem, Robux can be converted to Ad Credit at the DevEx rate. Large brands and advertisers have previously purchased Robux at the retail price for the purpose of spending on ads. Creators with earned Robux were able to reuse their earned Robux for ads instead of cashing it out at the DevEx rate. Moving forward all advertisers will be purchasing ads at the DevEx rate. In addition, advertisers are charged based on auction so the real ROI for ads will be based on ads performance and advertisers will be paying the market rates.

How are advertisers charged and what is the attribution model?

Advertisers are charged for each play. A play is counted when a user clicks on a sponsored experience, lands on the experience detail page, and then enters with the advertised experience within one hour. This charging model is called cost per play (CPP). CPP is beneficial for advertisers as you only pay for performance with a very well defined attribution window.

Why do I no longer see “conversions” metrics in the Ads Manager reporting that I used to get in the old system in the creator dashboard?

In Ads Manager, advertisers should look for a metric under name “plays” if you are looking to determine “conversions”. Conceptually, both “conversions” and “plays” measure the same metric.

system · October 26, 2023, 8:03pm

This topic was automatically opened after 9 minutes.

kingerman88 · October 26, 2023, 8:07pm

I thought this was coming out next year… Guess not…

Does this mean that you’ll be removing the ability to view our old sponsorship data, because if so I gotta go archive all of that, and this is quite the short notice, I would have liked at least a months heads up if this is the case.

Additionally what’s the point of:

When it costs 20 credits to do a campaign…

Imagine someone has 2850 Robux, they convert it all to ad credit and can’t even use that newly purchased ad credit to pay for ads. Additionally they can’t refund the ad credit to Robux, so they’ve just locked 2850 Robux.

Outside of that, I’m glad to see some clarification on the new bidding system such that we won’t be spending .20 ad credit per play, this new system seems okay.

ChipioIndustries · October 26, 2023, 8:24pm

This is still an absolutely terrible change that destroys user privacy. How on earth can you justify wanting a user’s government ID - probably the most sensitive document they have - to run an advertisement? Something that could be run with no private information whatsoever for the past decade?

“We keep your data safe and secure” is not a valid argument for this egregious privacy violation, because it’s a claim for security, not privacy. Privacy is simply not requiring these excessive amounts of data in the first place.

Furthermore, last time I trusted Roblox with my private information, I was doxxed and then not notified for two years, and now I’m supposed to do it again, but with even MORE data this time? This is a shameful way to treat your developer community.

CoIorEvent · October 26, 2023, 8:28pm

What is the point of making us pay 2850 robux for 10 ad credits instead of allowing us to buy 1 or 2? This seems like a scheme for Roblox to make more money.

AlexPalex178 · October 26, 2023, 8:28pm

I don’t know about this update. Also am i the only one who thinks that this amount of Robux is CRAZY?

I wish I had 133.000.000 Robux haha

BjornInfinity · October 26, 2023, 8:33pm

What do I do if my country is not on the list when creating an ad account?

Fid6et · October 26, 2023, 8:41pm

This is informative & unfortunate; this company is becoming more & more out of touch.

GazilionGrandGadgets · October 26, 2023, 8:42pm

You used to only have to give your address when buying Robux and if you advertised or sponsored using Earned Robux you didn’t need to give any of your information at all. WHY does everyone now have to give their street address to advertise their game?
Roblox used to encourage developers to start at any age, not anymore.

Retronikk · October 26, 2023, 8:46pm

This new ad system seems very unfriendly towards indie/passion developers…

Daniel_0971 · October 26, 2023, 8:49pm

Unidirectional Robux to Ad Credit Conversion: Roblox’s new ad system allows us to spend our robux to promote our games and experiences. I just wanna say sponsors is 10x better but now I guess we cna expect ads inside our beloved games and this comes with a problem: the inability to convert ad credits back into Robux. This system sucks and your basically just putting your robux in a prison
Econmical problems: One big problem with this non revert robux back system is that you can lose REAL money. When people spend our Robux on ads, we hope to get something back or atleats gain a few vists and hopefully grow the game. But if we can’t turn the ad credits back into Robux, it’s like we’re stuck with OUR HARD EARNED money in the ad system, and we might not get what they expected. This will 100% make people feel unsure whether its worth advertising ot not and this might lead to Roblox making less money from this than sponsors if you think about it.
Frustration
Over the last few months Roblox has made it obvious that they dont care about us, Us who are making roblox popular, were just like people putting money in their pockets and what do we get back from them? Bad updates and cringy metaverse things.
I mean I think they should make a way to turn your ad credit back to Robux if so it wouldn’t be as bad, like I do somewhat like this but like you got to be over 18+ if you wanna spend REAL money and in the end people are just gonna use their robux for this lets be real, no one will use the usd thingy 99.99999999999% would rather use robux so I think Roblox should consider implementing a two way conversion system that allows users to convert ad credits back into Robux.
Roblox sucks at protetcing our private info
Y’all remember when Roblox leaked out people’s phone numbers? I mean I’m not comfortable with Roblox having my ID as it might be leaked, now I am not a big developer so I shouldn’t care but still Roblox’s security Sucks a lot. And like I realized now when i tried to sign up, WHY do they wanna know where I live, Is it really that necessesary in order to advertise my game? Seriously? I doubt it’d get leaked but like if it does it’s ggs for the big devs theyre gonna see penny wise at their main door the day after
Not only Roblox’s algorthims sucks this sucks as well and even if you gain a few vists as long as you dont make a alot money Roblox wont even wanna recommend your game to others because their alogrithm works like this: High earning = Get recommended, this is why we always see the same games in the front page and sponsors was a way to get your game there to. They don’t even care about the non profit games that does have a higher player engagement so yeah small dev = not even worth advertsing especially if your young

dylanjkl · October 26, 2023, 8:55pm

This is a good change from the aspect of taxes as developers are now able to appropriately deduct all advertising efforts as business expenses which basically results in additional income.

dylanjkl · October 26, 2023, 9:05pm

I also keep getting an error uploading an image.

manddilu · October 26, 2023, 9:06pm

I kind of get the sense of this sentence, and I think that this sentence was supposed to make sense of the “Why is the Robux to Ad Credit conversion rate the same as the DevEx rate?” question, but I’m struggling to see how that makes things fair.

Lets say I was one of those mentioned large brands, and have purchased Robux at retail price solely for advertising. Or I was a small developer and purchased a smaller amount (which I have done in the past), it doesn’t matter. So I’ve spent $1 per Rx100, and now that I’m forced to use Ad Credits instead of those Robux, I can convert and get 35% of my money’s worth in Ad Credits. And this is fair, how? Because some folks didn’t spend money on their Robux but earned it instead? (and that earned Robux was also paid for at retail price, and a hefty cut was taken from it each time it switched hands)

I’m not accusing, I’m genuinely wondering if I’m missing something. The only way I see this being an okay thing (unless I’m missing something) is if Robux was still one of the payment options, and if it was valued at a pre-DevEx value when it’s being used. But it doesn’t seem like that’s the situation, why would anyone want to convert in that case.

I’m fine with the other stuff, even handing out my personal information (because all the big companies either already have it, or can buy it from other big companies), I’m even excited about the new platform, and CPP sounds promising (if done right); but this I can’t get over. I hope I misunderstood. Say someone purchased $100k worth of Robux one of these days, before November 7th, intended to sponsor over the next month or two. What are their options? Spend it all before the 7th, have what remains after that date lose 65% of its value, DevEx it and lose 65% of it, or spend it on other types of ads (hopefully that’s still an option)? Obviously an exaggerated case but the point remains, for someone $100 will feel like $100k.

But even without exaggerating, anyone who was saving up Robux for sponsoring will lose out on 65% of its value unless they dump it before the 7th and buy “lottery tickets” as you correctly called them yourselves. Up until this point a Robux was a Robux, bought or earned, and now a Robux is a Robux if you want to spend it on anything other than sponsoring, because in that case a Robux is 35% of a Robux.

Someone please tell me I’m wrong.

smashbros122 · October 26, 2023, 9:14pm

In the previous post, I already thought it was bad enough needing to give your information and your ID. But now I see, even if I didn’t have to do ANY OF THAT, I still wouldn’t be able to use this system if I really wanted to.

Why on EARTH did you make it so sponsors require a minimum of 20 credits? The only way I would be able to get that much is if I were to grind myself to death working in the “I’ll give you R$50 if you make a whole tycoon” clown mines, aka the Talent Hub.

Please don’t do this. I don’t mean “please don’t make this site a thing”, I mean please stop making it unusable for people who:

Don’t want to give their personal information to a company infamous for mishandling it on multiple separate occasions
Want to advertise stuff like their groups, which this change will completely destroy
Aren’t willing to put in less than R$5,000. This last one feels like it was guided by those people on this exact devforum parroting the same “You need a minimum 20K budget” schlock for years and years.

If this goes through as-is, I recommend other developers that became absolutely screwed over by this situation start following that one 11-and-a-half hour Clear Code video. You know which one.

ChipioIndustries · October 26, 2023, 9:23pm

a) A tax deduction is not additional income - it simply means the government taxes a smaller percentage of your income. For example, a $1000 tax deduction on $10k of income means the government only taxes $9k of your income for that year. It does not mean you get $1000 or save $1000 in taxes.
b) Robux spent on ads never counted as income anyway because it was never converted to fiat currency.

In conclusion, this update does not make taxes simpler or cheaper.

Obligatory “I am not a lawyer and you should consult an accountant” disclaimer.

NodeSupport · October 26, 2023, 9:53pm

I highly doubt ROBLOX themselves are extremely excited for this update either, however this is a change in which has been long coming, and something that they legally need to do. Any form of online advertisement is slowly becoming more and more restricted in numerous countries (such as the United States), ensuring safety and privacy for minors. I assume it was either, restrict advertising from children, or remove it all together.

Not entirely sure how this is a privacy violation either- the third party software that ROBLOX uses in order to verify your age not only encrypts the information given to them, but it also hashes and bins information that isn’t relevant. It’s not like they save a picture of your identification on their storage. At most they have your name associated with whether or not you are within a confines of a particular age set. (Which they already have assuming you use any sort of billing and are truthful when asked about your age.)

I highly doubt ROBLOX was the cause for you being “doxxed”, not sure what your experiences are, but there has been no data leak in which would put your address on public display, etc… But I can’t speak for your alleged experiences.

PeZsmistic · October 26, 2023, 10:05pm

I’m optimistic about this and I think the ultimate outcome of all of this will be net good for everyone. The only thing I don’t like is the weird overreach in asking for so much personal information from developers who may not even be intending to buy ad credits outside of robux. I don’t see why what looks like a billing address is required for these users.

Maybe the hidden devex behind the scenes?

xChris_vC · October 26, 2023, 10:06pm

This new bidding system gives me some hope that the new sponsored ads are much more effective (compared to the 0.007% CTR I usually get). Bought some ad credits, we’ll see how it’ll perform…

xChris_vC · October 26, 2023, 10:45pm

r/unpopularopinion, but I don’t think it’s much of a concern though.

Look, you need to verify your ID & submit tax forms when you DevEx. Most professional game developers have been through this process, as we want hard cash, not some arbitrary number. And I hope it makes sense why companies need proper ID verification for payouts. (~~money laundering~~)

The same group of developers are the primary audience for sponsoring experiences. New developers starting out will have to identify themselves in the future either way. If you’re unable/unwilling to identify yourself, are you sure this business is the right place for you?

KYC laws are inevitable, and ~~I’m glad the lowest level of garbage is held back by this barrier.~~

EDIT: oh wow nevermind, you don’t need an ID at all to publish ads