U.S. consumer spending on video game products totalled $56.6 billion in 2022 with no signs of slowing down. The uptick can be attributed to AI and virtual reality gaming innovations, as well as media companies like Netflix expanding into the gaming industry. 

Perhaps one of the most significant impacts on the popularity of gaming is from influencer marketing. According to Business Insider Intelligence, influencer marketing in games was worth $822 million in 2019 and $2.5 billion in 2021, and was expected to reach over $4.4 billion in 2022. Gaming companies are benefiting from influencers because of the rise of streaming platforms like Twitch and the increasing number of people playing games.

The best way to think about gaming right now is that gaming organizations are not the owner of their own brand. The gaming industry has shifted in favor of influencers impacting the success of gaming brands.

To stay ahead in the gaming industry, organizations must stay on top of evolving trends like influencers to be aware of how they can capitalize on who is playing games and what types of games they are engaging with so they can provide a seamless experience for gamers. But many gaming organizations need to find out who their audiences are and how to leverage them best. 

At Silverline, we’ve partnered with companies like Zynga, Activision, and Electronic Arts to show them the advantages of using Salesforce for gaming. Let’s dive into some of the ways Salesforce can help transform gaming companies. 

The gaming industry has evolved

Statistics vary, but most put the number of digital gamers worldwide at more than 3 billion, whether that’s on a console, computer, or mobile device. The gaming industry is expected to continue to boom largely due to the pandemic, where players were looking for social connections beyond their homes. The working-from-home trend has also affected gaming as workers find it easier to play games without the prying eyes of managers.

Gaming has come a long way since the days of Atari and is no longer just about getting players to move a joystick around a screen. It now must cover deeper dives into the demographics of the players and the games that will resonate with them in order to achieve success. It’s delivering on player expectations by creating multiple extensions beyond the game itself, like Minecraft cereal or the Halo TV show. These marketing and licensing initiatives drive players to the product, and the product will guide players to the game.

There are four areas of gaming with which Salesforce can help:

• Advertising management: Overseeing the ad sales process for in-game or mobile ads
• Revenue share management: Managing the payout process for advertising revenue between developers and publishers
• Subscription management: The ongoing subscription payments by players to access games, for game pass services like PlayStation or online gaming functionality like Xbox Live
• Rights and product management: Administering all aspects, such as sales, licensing, and legal/contracting

Data Cloud helps gaming organizations understand audiences

Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Data Cloud is one of the best Salesforce tools that can help gaming organizations across advertising, offers, subscriptions, and rights. Data Cloud is a customer data platform (CDP) that aggregates and organizes customer data across various touchpoints so you can manage and pull insights from the data. Gaming organizations can deliver more effective marketing strategies and campaigns with access to a single, comprehensive view of each customer in real time.

With Data Cloud, gaming companies can develop a better understanding of their players with a single source of truth. You can automatically connect all your data in real time and use it to make every engagement with your subscribers personalized, cost-efficient, and scalable across email, mobile, web, and more. Identifying audiences helps with influencer marketing since a CDP allows you to enrich customer profiles and use that information to determine the best gaming influencers that will reflect your audience.

This customer data can be mapped and analyzed to create segments for audience insights and analytics. Ad sales can present this data to potential advertisers to give them visibility into the audiences they will reach on their gaming platforms, thus driving ROI and advertising efficiency. The rights and product management team can also use customer data insights to empower them to sell customer profiles for licensing opportunities.

Take your game to the next level with Silverline

The Silverline team has extensive experience designing and building custom solutions for industry-leading gaming organizations across the globe. From strategy and implementation to managed services, we optimize your Salesforce journey with a suite of custom Salesforce applications designed to manage every aspect of your gaming business. Find out how we can help your team.