X Campaigns to target Gamefi Users

Guide for growth leaders in gameFi ecosystem

Playbook targets GameFi dApps launching new products, dApps seeking users for beta, and teams aiming to scale community engagement via quests and rewards.
Identify users using on-chain and social data, and how to reach them with targeted campaigns. It details best marketing practices and sets key metrics for each to track success.

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GameFi dApps - The driving force behind web3 popularity

GameFi dApps lead Web3 by merging rewards with gameplay and turning assets into tradable NFTs. They hold 77.1% of the NFT market and attract Gen Z, who invest 52% of net worth in gaming tokens.

With 4.4 hours/day user activity and cross-chain use, GameFi drives interoperability, organic growth, and generates $8.58 per user/month. This ownership and monetization focus makes GameFi the entry to Web3’s economy.

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Which projects are leading in gameFi user engagement?

1. Web3 game development studios: Building blockchain-native games with P2E, C2P mechanics, and NFT integration.
   Examples - Illuvium, Animoca Brands, Gala Games, Axie Infinity, Star Atlas‍
2. NFT marketplaces: Provides buying, selling, and trading of in-game NFTs and digital assets.
   Examples - OpenSea, Immutable X, Magic Eden, LooksRare, AtomicMarket‍
3. Gamified deFi protocols: Offers staking, lending, liquidity mining, and yield farming for gaming tokens.
   Examples - Aave, Curve, Yield Guild Games (YGG), Bluzelle‍
4. Metaverse & Virtual World Platforms: Provides marketplace platforms where digital assets and virtual land hold real-world value.
   Examples - The Sandbox, Decentraland, Somnium Space, Cryptovoxels

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Types of gameFi users

1. Pro Web3 Gamers (Esports Pros): High-frequency traders streaming competitive P2E gameplay (6-8hr/day), optimizing cross-chain arbitrage and DAO governance while staking in 15%+ APY pools, active in Discord AMAs and Seedify/EnjinStarter launches.
2. Casual Web3 Gamers (NFT Flippers): Low-gas NFT collectors streaming sandbox games 2-3x/week, engaging in whitelist mints and passive staking (3-5% APY), active on telegram and Decentraland/The Sandbox communities.
3. Alpha/Beta Hunters (Ecosystem Testers): Testnet power users stress-testing zkRollups via 50+ weekly transactions, streaming pre-release builds, and submitting bug reports, active ChainPlay/GameFi.org betas.
4. Game developers (Ecosystem Builders): Blockchain architects building Web3 games, smart contracts/tokenomics, and infra. Active on GitHub, follow launchpads like Seedify/GameFi.org, participate in hackathons like ETHGlobal, Chainlink Constellation, and communities like Buildspace and Encode Club.

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GameFi user onboarding - Strategies, Stages & Metrics

Growth Roadmap for Gaming Studios

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Growth Roadmap for GameFi dApps

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How to set-up campaign and best marketing practices

1. Peer Groups/Communities

Targeting Criteria - Wallets interacting with similar games (e.g., Decentraland for metaverse projects, profiles using #PlayToEarn hashtag + following competitors.

Sequence Setup

‍CTA - Join Discord/TG, fill a quick form, or participate in a community event.

Best practice to follow

1. Personalize DMs using custom fields, tag founder/investors, collect opinion/feedback or share peer recommendation (UGC) in opening message to get 2x reply rate (10%).
2. Don’t use generic CTA (Join discord community) rather offer specific community roles “Beta Tester”, “Community Advisor” getting 1.2x join rate (10%).
3. Use Community Manager’s/Founder’s account with at least 5K followers, verified profile, links and relevant experience to get 1.5x reply rate.
4. Warm up sender accounts with 10-15 daily actions (posts, likes, comments), increasing activity over weeks to increase DM sending limit - [warmup your account].‍
5. A/B test DM structure - follow-first, direct DM, Multi step DM (3% reply rate) and follow-first with multi DM (10% reply rate)
6. For message ideas refer - [Blaze's DM Ideas]‍

Blaze's insights

1. Warmed up account (>15 daily actions and > 5K followers) can send 200+ daily DM. (Set initial limit to 50, scale to 100 and more)
2. Using Department Head’s/Founder’s account get 2x link-click rate (10-12%)
3. Follow-first step in DM structure get 3x better reply rate (9%).
4. Follow step is recommended for business/professional accounts and not when reaching out to retail accounts. (Follow/unfollow step rate limit campaign speed)

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2. Incentivization Campaign (Token Giveaway, New Launch)

Targeting Criteria - Wallets completing 3+ quests in other games, profiles with “Quest Hunter” or “APY Maxi” in bio.

Sequence Setup

CTA - Landing page with wallet connect, form for email/discord, or direct link to quest.

Best practice to follow

1. Personalize DMs using custom fields, tag founder/investors, share peer recommendation (UGC) and send 2 follow-ups and avoid links in opening message.
2. Use Department head’s/Founder’s/Ambassador’s account with at least 5K followers, verified profile, links and relevant experience to get 1.5x reply rate.
3. Warm up sender accounts with 10-15 daily actions (posts, likes, comments), increasing activity over weeks to increase DM sending limit - [warmup your account].‍
4. A/B test DM structure - follow-first, direct DM, Multi DM (3% reply rate) and follow-first with multi DM (10% reply rate)
5. For message ideas refer - [Blaze's DM Ideas]

Blaze's insights

1. Warmed up account (>15 daily actions and > 5K followers) can send 200+ daily DM. (Set initial limit to 50, scale to 100 and more)
2. Using Head’s/Founder’s account get 2x link-click rate (10-12%)
3. Follow-first step in DM structure get 3x better reply rate (9%).
4. Follow step is recommended for business/professional accounts and not when reaching out to retail accounts. (Follow/unfollow step rate limit campaign speed)

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3. Gamification (Quest Campaign)

Define Your Quest Goals & Structure - Drive onboarding, retention, or specific behaviors (e.g., NFT trading, staking, community voting).

Type of Quest

1. Educational: Complete a tutorial or read a guide.
2. Engagement: Join a community event or participate in a poll.
3. Trading/Action: Make your first NFT trade or stake tokens.
4. Referral: Invite friends to join your ecosystem.

Reward Type

1. Tokens (e.g., $GAME, $GALA)
2. NFTs (exclusive or limited-edition)
3. Access to beta features or early content
4. Badge or reputation points

Best practice to follow

1. Embed educational content, tutorials, or videos within the quests.
2. Use gamified elements like progress bars, timers, and badges to motivate completion.
3. Send follow-up & Reminders via integrated channels (e.g., Discord, Twitter DMs)
4. Collect feed back to engage users.

Follow-up message:
You’re halfway through the ‘First Trade’ quest!
Complete it now to earn your reward.

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4. X Ads Campaigns

Define Your X Ads goal - Begin with Reach or Engagement to build top‐of‐funnel awareness, then for second campaign go for Website Traffic, App Installs, and finally Sales conversion.

Audience Segmentation

1. Custom Audience: Built from a targeted list of existing users or customers (e.g., wallet adressess or account followers), matched with platform users to form a precise target group.
2. ‍Lookalike Audience: Generated by analyzing a source audience (e.g., followers of specific accounts or a Custom Audience) based on demographics, interests, and online behaviors, then targeting new users with similar traits.

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Pre Launch setup

Whitelist Your Account - Based on AD type (Educational, token launch, promotional, etc) to avoid ad rejection and bans.

1. For educational content - No whitelisting required
   What X ads refer as educational crypto/web3 ads - Cryptocurrency Education, these are the contents that are purely informational or educational without any intentions to market or promote cryptocurrency-related products and services. For example, tutorials, "how-tos", and explanatory articles that do not reference a specific brand's product and service.‍
2. For running ADs with any other content refer - [Blaze whitelisting form]
   

Budget Allocation - Set a daily and total campaign budget (the more you spend more engagement you get)
Creative Selection - Test Text Only, Image, Carousel, and Video ads

Campaign Launch & Testing

1. Initial Campaign (2 Weeks) - Launch and monitor campaign for 2 weeks to collect data
   
   • Objective: Reach or Engagement
     
   • Creative: Mix of Image and text ads
   • Audience: Both lookalike and custom
   • KPI: Engagement rate, click‐through rate (CTR), Cost per click
2. Two-Week Review & Optimization - Optimize campaign based on ADs targeting (demographics, user behavior) and ADs content (AD creative type)

ADs Targeting

1. Location - Remove countries at lower end consuming 90 percentile of budget with low engagement rate (<1%); test low‐spend regions next week .
2. Age Group - Focus on 24–40 age bracket; exclude underperforming cohorts.
3. Gender - Compare male vs. female engagement; allocate more budget to top‐performing.
4. Device - Optimize for iOS vs. Android vs. Desktop based on conversion rates.
5. Targeted keyword - Pause keywords with low engagement; double down on top 20% performing keywords.
6. Retargeting - Re-engage audiences who previously interacted with your ads by showing tailored follow-up ads to increase conversion

ADs Content

1. Text and Image Ads: Use concise, engaging text with questions, test tailored CTAs, and pair with mobile-optimized images, testing overlays for 20-32% lower CPC and 20-47% more clicks.
2. Carousel Ads: Leverage carousels with storytelling, mixed formats, optimized first cards, and up to 10 CTA variations for different segments, using a 1:1 ratio.
3. Video Ads: Create 15-second videos with captions, vertical format, instant hooks, interactive elements, and varied formats/CTAs for distinct ad groups.

Best Practice

1. Wait 7 days before making changes(Adding/removing countries, keywords, age group, etc) to allow data collection.
2. Limit location removals to one/two countries per week.
3. Document all changes in a central dashboard to compare metric trend.
4. For detailed Twitter ADs campaign guide refer - [Blaze's X ads playbook]

Blaze's Insights

1. Baseline engagement rate is 0.8%–1% without optimization, which should grow to 3% within 1 month post-optimization.
2. X does not equally divide campaign budget across countries. Action: Remove countries in the top 90 percentile of budget spend that have engagement rate <1% to optimize overall campaign performance.
3. Targeting the 24–44 age group delivers 2× better engagement rate compared to other age brackets.
4. Running the ad only for males reduces weekly spend by 25% while delivering a 1.3× increase in engagement.
5. Desktop/laptop devices yield 2× engagement compared to Android/iOS, with accounting for only 2% of total weekly spend.
6. Tweets with video generate 10x more engagement and save over 30% on cost-per-click.
7. Keep AD content length under 200 and use max 2 hashtags to get 1.2x engagement.

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5. Signal based outbound (Twitter DM Sequence)

Targeting Criteria - Wallets with 5+ NFT trades/month, 1K+ followers, bios with “P2E”, “NFT Trader”, “Metaverse”.

Sequence Setup

CTA - Landing page with wallet connect, reply to DM, or form fill.

Best practice to follow

1. Personalize DM using custom fields, tag founder/Active members/investors, ask for opinion/feedback, send 2 follow-ups and avoid links in opening message.
2. Use Community Manager’s/Founder’s/Ambassador's account with at least 5K followers, verified profile, links and relevant experience to get 1.5x reply rate.
3. Warm up sender accounts with 10-15 daily actions (posts, likes, comments), increasing activity over weeks to increase DM sending limit - [warmup your account].‍
4. A/B test DM structure - follow-first, direct DM, Multi step DM (3% reply rate) and follow-first with multi DM (10% reply rate)
5. For message ideas refer - [Blaze's DM Ideas]‍

Blaze's insights

1. Warmed up account (>15 daily actions and > 5K followers) can send 200+ daily DM. (Set initial limit to 50, scale to 100 and more)
2. Using Head’s/Founder’s account get 2x link-click rate (10-12%)
3. Follow-first step in DM structure get 3x better reply rate (9%).
4. Follow step is recommended for business/professional accounts and not when reaching out to retail accounts. (Follow/unfollow step rate limit campaign speed)
5. Optimize campaigns by first warming up accounts(2-3 weeks), then test on campaign structures (follow-first, direct DM, Multi step DM), and lastly set clear and personalized CTAs. This gets you an avg. and best reply rate of ~10% and ~12%.

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6. KOL Campaigns

Targeting Criteria – Profiles with high engagement on GameFi, #PlayToEarn, #Web3Gaming hashtags; YouTube/Twitter/Telegram influencers with niche follower base (5K–100K); prior collaborations with similar projects or launchpads like GameFi.org, Seedify.

Sequence Setup

CTA - Invite to Calendly link, Teaser deck (quest preview/campaign rewards), Google Form(capture audience size, past collabs)

Best Practice

1. Personalize DM using custom fields, tag founder/investor, ask for opinion/feedback, include clear CTA and up to 2 follow-ups.
2. Use Lead Marketing's/Founder's account with at least 5K followers, verified profiles, links and relevant experience to get 2x reply rate
3. Warm up sender accounts with 10-15 daily actions (posts, likes, comments), increasing activity over weeks to increase DM sending limit - [warmup your account].‍
4. A/B test DM structure - follow-first, direct DM, Multi DM (3% reply rate) and follow-first with multi DM (7% reply rate)‍
5. Send KOL Kit (with sample posts, posting schedule, timelines, FAQs, and rewards) getting 2x posting cadence and 20% higher CTR.‍
6. Track performance (sign-ups, ROI >1.5x, engagement rate >3%) with unique links/codes per KOL.
7. For message ideas refer - [Blaze's DM Ideas]

Blaze's Insight

1. On average, 40% of KOL followers are bots. Prioritize KOLs with >10K avg. impressions and >300 avg. engagements; avoid those with <1% engagement rate.
2. Ensure ≥14% of followers of KOL are crypto-verified accounts.
3. 4% of KOL accounts with at least 20,000 have CEX/DEX links in bio (use this as a quality benchmark)
4. Choose KOLs with >10% mindshare (share of total engagement across all KOLs).
5. Target KOLs with >6.5% smart followers (genuine, active and verified users).
6. Use Δ Engagement (7d) and Δ Impressions to spot trending KOLs - look for >15% weekly growth.
7. Blaze Follower Insights helps map KOL audiences by segments (e.g., meme, chain, GameFi), driving up to 2x better conversion.

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