The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Game Influencer Marketing for 2025

Diversifying Mobile Game Ua With Influencer Marketing Media Bodies

How to Diversify Mobile Game UA with Influencer Marketing: Webinar Recap

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, diversification is the cornerstone of a resilient user acquisition (UA) strategy.

Whilst there are several alternative UA channels brands can tap into for diversification, one stands out with particular promise – Influencer Marketing.
But Influencer Marketing is very different from traditional UA channels, and it can be difficult to know where to start.

That’s why in our exclusive Webinar with UA industry veteran Matej Lancaric, our CEO Edward Fuller broke down all the fundamentals of using influencer marketing for diversifying the UA mix, and this serves as brilliant guide for anyone looking to explore the channel in 2025.

In this article, we recapping the key takeaways from the session and provide an overview of everything you need to know to get started with leveraging Influencer Marketing to acquire new users for your mobile game!

Why is diversification important?

In a digital age where platform algorithms, data privacy laws, and consumer behaviours are constantly changing, diversification is extremely important. Spreading marketing spend and activations across platforms, markets, and audience segments reduces the risk of relying too heavily on a single source for acquiring users.

This means that if one platform stops driving conversions because of these changes in platforms or behaviours, there is an alternative source still driving a consistent stream of users while you adapt your strategy.

Diversifying user acquisition channels also ensures more stable and sustainable growth by tapping into various markets and demographics.

Benefits of Influencer Marketing as a User Acquisition channel for Gaming

While Meta is usually the go-to channel for most UA managers as a starting point – when it comes to diversification there are several alternative options- influencer marketing being one promising one.

There are several advantages of using influencer marketing for new user acquisition.
One massive and unique advantage of Influencer marketing as a UA channel stems from the consumer behaviours associated with the consumption of influencer content.

Consumers tend to trust Influencers’ recommendations more than ads and content directly produced by a brand. Additionally, consumers may be more motivated to take an influencer’s recommendations if they’re convinced the influencer actually enjoys playing the game.

This stems from the aspirational qualities they ascribe to the creator or the para social relationships they feel with them.

This means that the purchase intention stimulated by influencers promoting a game goes beyond the followers actually liking or being interested by the game- it’s driven by their followers wanting to be more like them and/or feel closer to them and their communities.

This is unlike the aspirational qualities a celebrity ambassador might represent – influencers are somewhere in between celebrities and regular people in that they are aspirational in a way that might even be achievable- people can actually imagine being friends with them and being like them.

This behavioural impact of influencer endorsements is unique to Influencer Marketing, which makes it powerful in a very unique way.

Other advantages of influencer marketing for UA include the ability to tap into various niches, leverage multiple unique creatives in a single campaign, and target audience segments with different interests at once.

2.5 Gamers on YouTube – Diversifying your mobile game UA with Influencer Marketing

When is the right time to introduce Influencer Marketing into the UA mix?

If you’re thinking about diversifying your UA mix, you’ll probably be wondering if there are specific stages in your game’s lifecycle when it may be more appropriate to integrate influencer marketing.

When it comes to diversification, Matej’s advice is to do it as soon as your budget makes it possible to do so- after all, it’s never too soon to risk-proof your strategy.

But is influencer marketing just for new games? Or on the other hand, does it only work for established games? These are common concerns for teams new to influencer marketing as a UA channel.

The fact is, Influencer marketing can work for games in any life-cycle stage- some teams use it as a part of a global launch mix, while others use it as a re-engagement tactic!

As long as there are no fundamental issues with the gameplay and monetization and the LTV is not significantly low, there is potential to scale user acquisition with Influencer Marketing!

There is a massive opportunity to serve performance objectives around different occasions or game life cycle stages with Influencer Marketing including:

But while there is scope to explore influencer marketing right from the early stages of launching a game, it is important to ensure that there is sufficient budget in order to actually execute it effectively.

In order to use Influencer Marketing as a performance driven UA channel in the long term, it is important to gather sufficient data through strategic testing and iteration to understand what works and what doesn’t.

When budgets are too low, it means you will never be able to reach as many people or work across as many influencers or content verticals to really draw any reliable conclusions that can inform your strategy going forward – and while you may see short term benefits, it becomes impossible to be certain you can replicate the outcome and use influencer marketing to drive user acquisition at scale.

Does influencer marketing work for all types of games?

Most UA teams considering Influencer Marketing for the first time will start by looking for examples of their competitors using the channel- and with good reason. Not every UA channel will be equally effective for games across categories.

When it comes to influencer marketing, it may work as a brand awareness marketing channel for all types of games, but will not produce the same type of long-term ROI impact.

Hyper casual games in particular, are not suited for performance driven influencer marketing. This is because they tend to have a lower LTV. Casual, mid-core & hybrid games on the other hand, are ideal for performance influencer marketing.

On the genre side, the biggest spenders on Influencer Marketing in 2023 were:

  • RAID Shadow Legends
  • Marvel SNAP
  • Clash of Clans
  • Genshin Impact
  • AFK Arena

Naturally, not all of these may have performance objectives. Additionally, these may be more concentrated higher spends during specific periods rather than consistent, frequent spend. In fact, while the pattern above seems to suggest that more male -oriented games are the only games that do well with Influencer Marketing,

But contrarily, at Media Bodies, the top games we have worked on across 2023-24 were in the female-oriented merge and hidden object categories.

Naturally, these figures change year on year, but the interesting takeaway is that more female oriented casual games are increasingly leveraging influencer marketing for UA- a key indicator of how Influencer marketing for game marketing goes beyond just collaborations with gaming influencers. At its best, influencer marketing not only taps into existing demand, but creates it.

Does Influencer Marketing Work For All Game Types
Does Influencer Marketing work for all types of games? Media Bodies’ Internal data on game genres employing Influencer Marketing

Can Influencer Marketing produce ROI?

Branding vs performance – this is the most pressing question when it comes to considering influencer marketing for UA.

It is now commonly accepted that Influencer Marketing has potential to be a powerful Brand Awareness platform – but there is still significant cynicism around its potential for actually driving ROI. The reality is, it can certainly be used to achieve performance goals; but it comes with a caveat- it has to be approached strategically.

Performance oriented Influencer marketing is actually a highly data led process – This includes analysis of multiple touchpoints across different stages of campaign planning execution and reporting. In fact, a strategic performance influencer campaign will involve an analysis of at least 700 data touch points even to just work with 10 influencers.

Performance Influencer Marketing is ultimately a long-term process of consistent Testing, Iteration, & Optimisation based on consistent data collation & analysis. Positive and scalable ROI is not an instant outcome, but it is achievable, and makes influencer marketing a powerful channel in the UA mix when approached strategically.

Data Touchpoints Involved In Optimising Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Which social media platform is best for influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a promising alternative UA channel, but the current digital landscape means there are multiple platforms to explore within influencer marketing itself.

Different platforms can work great for different target audience segments and different objectives. Generally, from a scalable performance perspective, YouTube and Podcasts are ideal due to their features that allow more comprehensive tracking and attribution capabilities, and their older and more engaged consumers.

On the other hand, if looking to target younger consumers, Instagram and TikTok may be better options. Meanwhile, if you’re aiming to display more detailed gameplay or reach highly engaged communities, Twitch may be a good option. But the data touchpoints for tracking on these platforms can sometimes be limited without using tactics and benefits like dedicated coupon codes.

Starting with a platform that allows more comprehensive data collection and performance analysis is ideal as it allows you to use the learnings and audience and targeting insights to shape and optimise your strategy for other platforms from the outset.

Media Bodies Which Platform Is Best For Influencer Marketing

Traditional UA vs. Influencer Marketing – What is the difference?

Influencer Marketing is quite distinct from traditional UA channels. Right from the timelines and execution to the KPI benchmarks, it’s important to take the variances into account.

Some metric benchmarks may be transferable – for instance, ROI, retention D1, D7, etc. can be the same as your benchmarks for other UA campaigns. On the other hand, metrics like CPI, CPM, CVR and so on for influencer marketing are very different to other channels. In fact, these can even differ between social media platforms or even influencer types.

Influencer marketing is ultimately a long term iterative process that requires testing and data-collection in order to reach a stage of sustainable scaling. And it’s important to approach it with a tailored approach that takes into consideration the unique nuances of these platforms and the behaviours that define interactions with them.

Influencer Marketing Vs Traditional Channels Which Kpis Are Transferable
Influencer Marketing vs Traditional UA – What KPI standards are transferable?

How much does Influencer Marketing Cost

When committing to diversifying the UA mix, an important consideration that comes up is deciding appropriate budget allocations for each channel.

Specifically, when it comes to influencer marketing, budgets are actually a key part of optimising performance outcomes in Influencer Marketing.
But allocating appropriate budgets starts with acknowledging that there is no uniform ideal ‘minimum budget.’

Recommended budgets depend on a variety of factors, and will be different for different games, objectives, and KPIs. But before examining these factors, it’s important to understand why a sufficient budget allocation matters.

Profitability and Scalability in influencer marketing comes down to collecting sufficient data and insights to optimise strategy and inform future iterations.

Typically, in most other UA channels, this data comes from majority tracked sources. However, in Influencer Marketing, only about 10% of the traffic is actually tracked. This means that despite including features like tracking links or pixels in influencer Campaigns, you still can’t guarantee users will be converted through these channels.

How Much Does Influencer Marketing Cost Budget Considerations
Budget considerations – How much does Influencer Marketing cost?

Summing up

Diversifying the UA mix has become more important than ever- not simply to protect against risks and failures in traditional channels, but also to improve the performance of these traditional campaigns.

Seeing your favourite influencer promote a game you may have previously seen a digital ad for lends much higher authority to that brand, and makes your digital, CTV, social media, or other ad more trustworthy and memorable.

Besides, influencer marketing is a brilliant way to maintain consistently fresh creatives that resonate with your core target audience – all with minimal effort and input from the internal creative teams.

There are clearly massive performance and benefits for integrating Influencer Marketing into the UA mix, but this must be approached strategically. This article and webinar aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of what strategic decisions getting started with influencer marketing entails, and how this differs from traditional UA channels.

You can watch a recap of the entire session here- Diversifying Mobile Game UA with Influencer Marketing Webinar Recording.

If you’ve got any questions, reach out to our webinar hosts Edward Fuller & Matej Lancaric!

Want to discuss a data-led Influencer Marketing strategy curated by game marketing veterans? Book a free consultation with our team today!

FAQ

Determining the right influencers for your brand starts with defining factors like your target audience, campaign objectives & KPIs, an estimated budget, and your key competitors. This provides a good foundation to focus your influencer search in the right direction and find the creators who will be the best fit for your brand and your audience.

Whether you need an influencer marketing platform depends on the scale of your influencer marketing campaigns! For smaller campaigns with fewer creators, an organic search using hashtags or ‘similar profiles’ on the social media platforms may be enough. For larger scale campaigns, you may need to invest in an influencer marketing platform or work with an agency!

You can find influencers for free using search engines, or hashtags on social media platforms. This would require you to have some idea of the interests of your target audience or the content category within which you would like to find influencers. Another means to find influencers at no extra cost would be to use the social listening tools your PR department may have to find creators who have organically mentioned your brand, or alternatively your competitors. This may help you discover creators who have a genuine interest in your brand or general product or brand category.

This depends on your resources, scale, KPIs, and the audience niches you are trying to reach! If you have a large internal team, a common content vertical and accessible target audience, the top Influencer discovery tools and a modest budget, you may be able to find influencers in as little as a day or two! However, these factors are all rarely aligned with the ideal scenario, which can make finding influencers challenging for internal teams.

Working with an influencer marketing agency can help finding a list of influencers within a week for up to six figure budgets. Larger budgets with performance oriented KPIs may require a slightly longer timeline. However, this is always comparably smaller compared to the time smaller internal teams may require.

Absolutely! As a full service Influencer Marketing agency with 11 years of experience, Media Bodies has access to multiple tools and platforms to find influencers for your brand. We also consult performance data from the hundreds of prior campaigns we have run and analyse competitor strategies to ensure we are finding the RIGHT influencers for your brand.

Further, Media Bodies’ global networks with managed and unmanaged creators across the world and frequent collaboration opportunities. This eliminates a lot of the risk involved in the outreach stages. Moreover, allows us to deliver campaigns with quick turnarounds, and to do so at preferential rates, helping lower CPMs and produce the best ROI for your influencer marketing campaign.

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