How to steer players to your web shop

Web shops and direct-to-consumer strategies are set to be a big trend again in 2025 as publishers look to keep a larger revenue share.

To help guide the companies looking to launch their own web shops, at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco, Stash head of product Archie Stonehill offered a guide on how to steer players to your own direct-to-consumer platform.

Discussing in-game strategies to get users to a web shop, Stonehill said that due to App Store rules, developers can’t directly link to a web store or talk about the shop within the app. That means games need to instead link to non-store, non-commercial features.

Stonehill suggested building other ways to engage players, such as rewards pages, surveys, blogs, news and loyalty programmes.

Summarising Stonehill’s top tips:

Link to your loyalty programme

1. Make sure you always have something valuable for players to engage with from the get-go
2. Notify players in game about unclaimed loyalty points that redirect them to the web
3. Send notifications when: Players complete in-game milestones in the core game loop (like a battle). Daily check-ins (recurring)
4. Auto enroll high value players, even if they haven’t visited the web shop

Stonehill said one of the most important things to do is to collect email addresses and other ways to communicate with players that can be used later to promote the web shop. One incentive developers can use for this is to offer rewards in return.

Out of games comms tips

Organic social media

1. Use all available real estate
2. Update players about new offers and exclusive deals
3. Promote cheaper resources during live ops events
4. Never miss a chance to talk about the shop in regular posts
5. Push players to bookmark the shop on desktop or on mobile as a PWA

Paid advertising

1. Google Search

   • High volume, longtail keywords for existing players that show intent (codes, events, league)
   • Branded keywords until it ranks higher organically

2. Retarget existing players on cheap inventory like Meta

   • Promote live ops events
   • Evergreen bonuses

3. Allocate marketing budget based on the ROAS of the additional margin

   • Web shop user LTV x margin benefit (30%-fees)=max CPA

Creator partnerships

1. Great opp to reward loyalty creators who actually play your game
2. Set up a risk free incentive programme (% of shifted spend)
3. Track engagement with direct links and web-based attribution
4. 3 strategies:

   • Evergreen promotion
   • Creator codes
   • Creator bundles

Email marketing

1. Promote web shop incentives in every weekly newsletter
2. Promote incentives in live ops email campaigns
3. Add a FAQ so players understand how to use the shop
4. Target specific segments with different messages

   • Lapsed web store users still spending in game > give a web-exclusive promotion

Direct messaging

1. Direct message VIPs with exclusive, personalised offers
2. Send outbulk messages to your follower base
3. Give away personalised offers
4. Segmented high spenders

Attribution and performance

1. Measure your performance like you do with UA or retargeting
2. Create targeting segments based on in-game behaviour to identify users you want to shift
3. Use a multi-channel strategy to reach players
4. Allocate budget to sources that may not work for new UA but where your existing players gather – Reddit or Discord