Flaunt Launches New Shopify Loyalty App for Brands on Roblox to Drive E-commerce Sales
- Brands have been using Roblox to get more people to sign up for CRM & loyalty programs by giving away avatar items.
- With recent increases to avatar item minting fees, brands need a better way to make money on Roblox.
- Flaunt is launching a new product to help brands use Shopify to reward IRL product purchases with special avatar items.
The state of the union for driving ROI on Roblox
If you are a gaming or innovation lead for a brand on Roblox or serving these teams on the agency side, you are aware that the last six months have seen an explosion of innovation for driving ROI on Roblox.
Driving loyalty sign-ups with Roblox!
E-commerce on Roblox!
Video and portal ads!
In case these are new to you, let’s break down what has happened.
“How can we start making money on Roblox?”
The era of launching a Roblox experience for a press release is not quite over, but it is getting there. At least internally for brands, more executives are starting to ask the question, “When can we actually make money on Roblox?”
The three major things that have happened in 2024 that tee up what’s next:
- Case studies of driving loyalty sign-ups
- Roblox launched its first e-commerce test
- Avatar item fees increased by ~5x
Flaunt enabled loyalty program sign-up campaigns
In November, Flaunt launched the industry's first Loyalty Cloud for Roblox. This solution primarily helps brands run acquisition campaigns, rewarding Roblox players with free avatar items for signing up for loyalty programs.
These campaigns worked very well.
Brands like PepsiCo’s bubly Sparkling Water, Hilton Hotels (in partnership with Paris Hilton), and Wow Bao drove sign-ups - cost effectively and at scale - enabling them to remarket to these players with personalized CRM campaigns and offers that are proven to convert and drive sales.
Other use cases emerged too – Flaunt helped Lamborghini sell the most expensive avatar items in Roblox history at ~$17,000 per item by attaching real-world experiences to buying the item!
There was a catch, though. The player experience was riddled with friction.
To follow Roblox’s terms of service, brands were required to direct users to social channels, where coordinated messaging would eventually direct them to Flaunt-powered campaign sites, then ultimately back to Roblox. While drop off rates were surprisingly low, the burden of coordinating across several different teams was quite high.
Then…e-commerce on Roblox!
The next biggest innovation was brought to life by the all-star cast of Roblox, Sawhorse Productions, and Walmart, enabling the first-ever IN-GAME e-commerce test.
Here is how it worked.
In Walmart’s Roblox experience, “Walmart Discovered”, there was an visual cue that showcased the opportunity to claim a digital avatar item by buying the physical item.
Then, Roblox did something that they have never done before – they allowed players to access another website from within the game. In this case, it was a Walmart.com-powered e-commerce experience! This was highly controlled, and there was no way to navigate to any other websites.
After pulling out a credit card and purchasing the item, players were told that their avatar item would arrive within ~2 minutes. As a player in Roblox, claiming this “gift with purchase” proved a significant motivation to buy the physical item.
Roblox has made it clear that this was an early test and the ability to surface an in-game webview is not generally available. We will surely see more testing roll out soon.
This is 100% the future of how brands should be driving ROI on Roblox.
Then…Roblox increased the cost to give away avatar items
Roblox is building an ads business. That means they need to charge money for things that drive traffic and behavior on the platform. Free avatar items have proven to be one of the most effective tools for driving behavior on Roblox.
And until recently, these items were extremely cheap for brands! They could give away an avatar item for $0.20-0.30, and when matched with Flaunt’s ability to drive players to sign-up for loyalty programs, this yielded a compelling lead-acquisition recipe.
But that recipe got disrupted. Roblox increased the avatar item "minting" costs by nearly ~5x. And amidst tight innovation and gaming budgets and other significant up front costs to launch and promote Roblox experiences, this has and will continue to impact all brands accessing the platform.
Where does that leave us?
- Individuals leading Roblox initiatives for brands are still under pressure to drive sales.
- UGC items drive behavior, but they are more expensive and must be used wisely.
- Loyalty sign-ups are nice, but selling products is better.
The new recipe that’s needed – drive sales by gifting a free avatar item with purchase.
Flaunt launches Shopify app to run Roblox UGC promotions
Flaunt is a Shopify e-commerce loyalty platform that powers both brand engagement campaigns and fully-integrated Shopify loyalty programs.
We serve non-Roblox clients like Barefaced - a DTC skincare brand that has seen a +17% incremental lift to top-line sales since migrating to a Flaunt-powered loyalty program.
We also power one-off promotions that help drive more ROI from marketing campaigns, and the newest one to our platform helps use Roblox avatar items to drive more sales with your business.
How Flaunt’s Shopify x Roblox integration works
How it works for players:
- They hear about your Roblox gift-with-purchase promo from influencers, Roblox video ads, or within your Roblox experience
- They are directed to your dedicated product page, showcasing the Roblox avatar item promo that comes with purchase
- They buy the item, and post-purchase, they connect their Roblox account to claim their free avatar item
How to set up this campaign:
- Install Flaunt’s custom Shopify app
- Select the product(s) that you want to sell and the avatar item(s) you want to give away
- Publish and promote the campaign, then quantify the sales from Roblox in real-time
How to get started with Flaunt’s Shopify integration
As of writing this, Flaunt has 5 remaining slots available for the pilot program for this new feature. Each pilot program participant will receive special white-glove service configuring and setting up their promotion.
Get in touch with us at contact@flauntloyalty.com to learn more.
