17.2% Lower CPR by Putting the Right Prize in Front of the Right Gamer

Gaming

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17.2%

17.2% Lower Cost Per Registration (US)

13.1%

13.1% Lower Cost Per First Game Played

What Brands Say About yellowHEAD

Working with us, in their own words, across strategy, execution, and growth.

“In a crowded auction, anyone can buy installs. But a cheap install gets expensive when the player never comes back. We wanted gamers who play across titles and stay. yellowHEAD turned our rewards strategy into creative at AI speed, measured by acquisition cost, activation and retention. They understood the business behind the creative. That’s not a vendor. That’s a growth partner.”

Tal Gross

Director of Marketing, BUFF

The Challenge

Desktop gaming user acquisition is a crowded auction. Rewards apps, survey platforms and game publishers compete for the same gamer, often with the same promise: “get paid to play.”

Cheap conversions can attract people more interested in collecting rewards than playing games. On PC, every install also requires commitment: download, install, register and play.

BUFF’s team, led by Director of Marketing Tal Gross, set a higher bar:

Win the right gamer: Active PC players who play across multiple AAA titles.
Earn the download in seconds: Stand out in feeds filled with similar rewards promises.
Measure beyond the install: Judge performance on deeper funnel events, first game played and D7 retention.

The challenge wasn’t buying installs. It was acquiring the right players.

The Approach

BUFF and yellowHEAD built the campaign around a simple insight: the prize is part of the targeting.

Lead with a ticket

The campaign led with 100+ monthly raffles and 20 free tickets with code LUCKY20, turning a broad rewards promise into one concrete offer and one clear call to action.

Let the prize pick the player

Gaming rewards and messaging rotated by community, giving relevant PC players a reason to respond and making creative part of audience qualification.

Create at AI speed

yellowHEAD translated the strategy into gamer-native creative variants, using AI-assisted production to accelerate testing and iteration.
Consistent messaging from ad to landing page connected the offer that earned attention with the experience that drove registration.

Let the funnel decide

BUFF’s AI models evaluated concepts daily, selecting winners by market based on cost per registration and cost per first game played, with retention as the quality bar.
Performance insights fed back into creative iteration, helping both teams refine and scale promising concepts faster.

The Results

17.2% lower cost per registration (US) | 13.1% Lower cost per first game played | Decisions in days, not weeks

More efficient acquisition: Raffle-led creative outperformed business-as-usual campaigns on registration and first-game costs in the US and Australia.
Players who stayed: Acquired users played and returned, supporting BUFF’s focus on engagement beyond registration.
The right audience: New players skewed toward the multi-game PC gamers BUFF wanted to reach.
Faster learning: AI-led analysis shortened the time from launch to decision from weeks to days.

The raffle became one of BUFF.GAME’s leading acquisition messages, combining yellowHEAD’s creative expertise with BUFF’s audience knowledge and full-funnel measurement.

Key Takeaways

The prize is part of the targeting: Relevant rewards help attract relevant players.
Specificity converts: A tangible offer and a memorable code give gamers a reason to act.
Quality is the KPI: First game played and retention validate acquisition value.
AI for speed, funnel for truth: Faster testing finds opportunities; player behavior guides what scales.