Using the Roblox Advertising System

[nsgriff (griffted)]

This is just a brief overview of the Roblox advertisement system and how to make it work in your favor. I have posted this in a couple individual threads but I thought I would finally make a post about it. Shoutout to @Polyhex for allowing me to use his ads as examples.

Keep in mind that a lot of this is subject to personal interpretation and if you have a different way of marketing on Roblox I highly encourage everyone to make their own post!

There are 3 ad styles on Roblox. These have been around since the dawn of the advertisement system.

Ad Setup

Banner

Skyscraper

Rectangle

When first launching your game I recommend making 5-8 ads (you can change this number) with different styles and shapes to each of them. You want to reach as wide of an audience as possible to see what works and what doesn’t. Make sure and upload your ads ahead of launch to make sure they get approved by the Moderation Team.

Testing the Waters

We are now going to run all 5-8 ads at the same time with the same amount of Robux dumped into each one. I recommend doing 1000 Robux (or more) for each ad for the best effect.

You’ll probably see a screen with some stats that look like this while you are checking up on your ads.

The number you want to pay attention to is CTR which is Click Through Ratio. Its a percentage based off the amount of people that see your ads and click on it to go to your Games detail page. You want this as high of a percentage as possible. Average CTRs usually hover around the 1-1.50%.

Results & Next Steps

If you were profitable on those ads then its time to move onto the next step. Rerun your 3 best ads (highest CTR) for 2x the amount of money you originally ran them. You will repeat this process until you are no longer profitable off those ads because you will lose efficiency at scale.

If you were not profitable on those ads then do not spend any more money on ads because you are pouring money into a leaky bucket. Don’t give up! Go work on your game and its monetization features then try again.

Ad Fatigue

At some point Players will get tired of seeing your ads and stop clicking on them which will increase your volume costs. At this point you start back up at Step 1 and repeat the process. Because of Ad Fatigue it is much better to have 2 ads with high CTR rating than 1 ad with a high CTR.

Using Sponsored Games

Sponsored games are a recent addition compared to the Roblox Ads system. Its a very powerful tool that allows you to reach audiences in a completely different way.

Depending on how muchg you pay to Sponsor your game (and demand on Sponsored slots) you have the potential to show up between front page titles when player are scrolling through sorts such as “Popular”. It will look like this:

Sponsored games have a different approach because you will be using your places Title and Game Thumbnail to drive traffic. You will need to be weary of how often you are sponsoring your game if you have the same thumbnail as users may start to skip over it.

Remember, your visibility is now based on your Game Icon so if you feel like you aren’t reaching potential players consider trying something new.

That's about it.

This tutorial is mostly for new developers who may be a bit lost in all the noise. I hope you all gained something out of it and I truly encourage other developers to share their experience either in the comments or making their own tutorial. Have a good one!

[MetaProx]

I’ve been really interested in seeing how Sponsored games can be used over regular advertisements. Safe to say if you’re going to sponsor your game, you need quite the attractive thumbnail and title. Either way, thanks for making this! I will be sure to share it with a few of my fellow developer pals.

[Stelrex]

Thank you for this tutorial! I learned from it.

Although I did chuckled a little bit here.

@nsgriff

I recommend doing 1000 Robux (or more)

How well will 11 Robux work for one ad?

Overall, great tutorial, very easy to understand!!

[roboticroby]

thanks for this!

[DanielH253]

Thanks for making this.

As someone who uses the Roblox advertising system a lot, I have two quick questions.

1. If NBC users can see only irl advertising on their profiles, why do nbc users join my group after I run ads? Is there a way they can see the ads that I run?

2. What is the overall average/median CTR for Roblox games? I know that my average is like 1.2% but then again a month ago I got a random 5% CTR, so I am just wondering.

[tommysalami68]

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think NBC users have a chance to see user ads, just much rarer than for BC users.

[buildthomas]

The post explains that you can diagnose ad fatique by a decreasing CTR with a similar number of impressions.

[HealthInMind]

I think it’s also to recognize peak times of advertising. I know from personal experience, bidding on an advertisement on a Friday will be much more expensive (per impression) as to compared Monday-Thursday.

[FrankieTheDino]

Amazing tutorial. Thanks!

[TheAmazeman]

There is a glitch (or feature) where after sponsoring a game, you do not see how well it did. Only the next time you run that sponsored ad, do you see the effects of the last time you ran the sponsored ad.

You have to be lucky enough to remember to check your sponsored ad ~23 hours after you ran it to see the almost full effects.

PROOF:
*Note how the “total bid” goes from 24k to 31k. Where was that extra 6k? It was from the last time I ran that sponsored ad.

[Ben_Est]

This validates a lot of the methods I’ve been using. Great tutorial! I’ve yet to be successful on Sponsored games but the impressions are significantly higher at any given time.

If you go the extra mile with ads, you can calculate things like avg earnings per player, click/sell ratio if it’s paid access, etc. I’ve had my cost per sale as low as 3 R$ but with ad decay, it usually hovers around 6 - 8 robux, when the ad dies it raises at or above the earnings per player. That’s when it’s time for a fresh ad.

I usually get around 1.75% CTR on a good ad these days. That’s after the initial 3% CTR when it first starts. That’s always fun to sink robux into. I may make a thread about ads and make the tool I use to automate earnings data public.

[complexo]

Ad fatigue applies to what the advert is for, not the advert itself.
Tricking a user into clicking an advert for something they’ve already clicked on an advert for may increase CTR, but it won’t translate into a popularity boost.

Mad Murderer 2 goes absolutely crazy with trying to avoid ad fatigue by using a wide variety of adverts that avoid indicating they’re for MM2.
Their CTR must be crazy-high compared to other adverts for heavily-advertised games, but I doubt it translates into a popularity boost.
With me ad-fatigue avoidance is something like:
“Oh, an advert! I wonder what it’s for? Yep, it’s another MM2 advert, and I still won’t touch that game with a twelve-foot pole.”

[TheAmazeman]

@nsgriff

Results & Next Steps
If you were profitable on those ads then its time to move onto the next step. Rerun your 3 best ads (highest CTR) for 2x the amount of money you originally ran them. You will repeat this process until you are no longer profitable off those ads because you will lose efficiency at scale.

If you were not profitable on those ads then do not spend any more money on ads because you are pouring money into a leaky bucket. Don’t give up! Go work on your game and its monetization features then try again.

I created a tutorial for where this one stopped. This one is very good for beginners, but if you’re ready for the next step, read this one

The Economic Guide to Profitable Game Advertising

Hello fellow developers, in this tutorial I will be unraveling what I’ve come to see, through experience and economic insight, as the most concrete guide to profitable game advertising on Roblox. A bit about my background, I have a BA in Economics from the University of Arizona, and have maintained a Roblox game that has earned at least the floor DevEx cashout since October 2013 when DevEx began. First question, I’m a developer too, why would I want to show all this work to make others more pro…

[DesolatedLight (ANutForAJarOfTuna)]

Good, however, some more description about the actual process of creating them would be useful, even though it has been said before.

[Sutik]

I think that if your game is good enough to be on the FP, people should be playing it already (one it’s noticed). This will keep drawing more and more attention and you may not even really need to use ads anymore.

[Samchan77 (sam)]

What is good amount of robux to spend on one ad for a game (if it is good quality) for at least like 10 people be playing it every second?

[Microsoft_Net (Joe_mama)]

I am making a game right now, and this will definitely come in handy for sure!

[RuizuKun_Dev (Kitsune)]

TL;DR

Don’t use Rectangle Ads, they have been removed!

More Info

I was looking into this and doing some research on where each type of Ad would appear on the web

then I discovered something;

There were changes made to the Game Page recently, the Game Slots Display width was increased and there is no space left for Rectangle Ads

Are Rectangle Ads being removed from Roblox? @nsgriff

If this is the case shouldn’t there be an announcement or a notice before it’s removed or even better remove the Rectangle Ad option,
Not a lot of People are going to be aware of this and will waste a lot of R$ on Rectangle Ads

I also went a step further with this by spending R$ on my Old Rectangle Ads, they haven’t receive a lot of Impressions

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[SovereignFrost]

They seem to appear for me on my profile.

However, as you said on the games page they seemed to of vanished. Shame, they did really good for me when it came to impressions.

[RuizuKun_Dev (Kitsune)]

Thank you for the insight, I’ve totally missed and forgot that Rectangle Ads are displayed at the bottom of Player’s Profiles.

So that’s probably the only other place where it’s shown on the Web, by saying that it’s completely removed is an exaggeration nonetheless showing it on the bottom of Player’s Profiles is like playing Hide and Seek thus it’s still not worth it to advertise Rectangle Ads at the moment.

I’m pretty sure Impression rates has been negatively effected and is very low compared to other options available.

It also seems like they made changes to Sponsored Game Slots as well, would be nice to know more about these changes when we are paying for it.