Young people get Roblox. Advertisers … not so much.
Roblox hopes to rectify that with its recently launched partner program.
The program connects advertisers with agencies and game developers that are already versed in creating experiences that fit Roblox’s immersive game worlds. That way brands can ease into spending on Roblox’s ad platform without channeling the “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme.
Though some early media coverage of the program suggested participants will get greater access to Roblox-provided data, that’s not actually the case. Neither partners nor advertisers that take part in the program will receive data from Roblox that wouldn’t be available otherwise, clarified Ashley McCollum, the company’s head of immersive media solutions. She chalked it up to miscommunication.
But partners will get a direct line to Roblox personnel for support in educating brand clients and developing campaigns so advertisers are better positioned to take advantage of Roblox’s new in-game ad placements.
Campaign insights and guidance
Roblox’s new immersive ad platform includes in-game billboards, as well as in-game Portals that teleport players to different experiences within Roblox’s various game worlds.
Today, any brand can use Roblox’s self-serve ad manager to buy immersive ads as part of a private marketplace deal, whether they work with participants in the partner program or not, McCollum said. Brands can also access reporting on campaign performance through the self-serve dashboard.
But if a brand conducts its campaign through the partner program, Roblox’s team will assist the partners in organizing the campaign reporting into a “more palatable” marketing deck, McCollum said.
“I wouldn’t describe it as exclusive access to data, where we give certain access to certain people,” she said. “Our team helps contextualize that data in a way that the dashboard doesn’t.”
That includes benchmarking across a variety of campaigns and branded activations, said Avery Akkineni, president of Vayner3, a metaverse-focused ad consultancy and member of the partner program.
Roblox’s agency and game dev partners can use that benchmarking to advise brands on which immersive ad placements to target for their campaign in keeping with the program’s goal of providing wider, deeper campaign distribution.
Changing ad experience
But even brands that were already familiar with advertising on Roblox will need advice on how to get the most out of the platform’s new in-game ad formats going forward.
Previously, some branded experiences were promoted for free in a sidebar on the Roblox login page, said Nic Hill, owner and CTO of creative consultancy Sawhorse Productions, another member of the partner program. All Roblox users would see these promotions when they first logged in.
But Roblox discontinued these free sidebar placements in late 2022. As a result, brands will have to rely more on Roblox’s paid ad products to promote their in-game events and experiences.
That means brands now play a more active role in campaign promotion, and on a platform like Roblox that’s built from a variety of developer-created and user-generated gaming experiences, the sheer number of options can be daunting.
Ultimately, brands want to draw users to their corner of the game world. Roblox’s preferred partners assist with that sort of user acquisition.
For example, say Invisalign is looking to purchase Portal placements that teleport players to the branded experience it built within Livetopia last year.
Livetopia game developer Century Games worked closely with Invisalign on designing its in-game experience. But Century also has a wealth of user acquisition knowledge to share from having designed Roblox environments going back to the earliest days of the platform, said its CTO Xiang Shen.
So, in addition to helping brands design a gamified experience, Century also assists in driving users there.
Roblox’s partner program makes the close collaboration between Century and a brand like Invisalign available to a wider range of advertisers and through a wider variety of partners, Shen said.
“A brand doesn’t need to learn anything about the Roblox platform,” Shen said. “They can just say, ‘I want this many players from these geolocations.’”
Mix of partners
The partner program has been growing since it was launched at this year’s Cannes Lions.
Last week, metaverse and game publishing and monetization platform Super League Gaming became a member. In addition to Century, Sawhorse and Vayner3, the partner roster also includes game developers Dubit and The Gang Group, monetization platform Playwire and ad agency holding company Dentsu.
Although each of these partners has its own areas of specialization, the way brands interact with them through the partner program is blurring the lines between game developers, consultancies and ad agencies, said Sawhorse’s Hill.
“We are operating as more of an agency now out of necessity because there aren’t enough agencies that can help brands market and strategize [for Roblox],” Hill said.
Brands want to work with partners that can design gamified experiences and offer advice on how to promote them.
Having partners that understand both the platform and how audiences use it is key when trying to reach notoriously ad-averse communities like young people and gamers, said Vayner3’s Akkineni.
“These players can sniff out a BS ad very quickly,” she said. “Coming up with the right concept, then coming up with the right developer partners who can build it – and creative partners who can amplify it across platforms like YouTube – is important.”
Update 8/7/23: This article was updated to clarify that Roblox’s Immersive Ads platform includes both in-game billboards, as well as Portal placements that teleport users to different environments.
Roblox also clarified the timing of when it discontinued promoting branded in-game events within the homepage sidebar. That switch happened in late 2022, not the beginning of 2023 as originally written. And the company clarified that only some branded experiences received this promotion, rather than “almost all,” as was originally written.
