Paid media and influencer marketing work better together

Second Stage argues the classic "paid ads or creators?" debate is the wrong question: the two channels do different jobs in the player journey and compound each other when run together.

Each channel has a natural strength and a natural ceiling. Meta is a volume engine with precise targeting, but its audience is not in a gaming mindset. TikTok rewards native creative and drives discovery rather than immediate conversion. Reddit reaches players already engaged in a genre and posts surprisingly strong wishlist efficiency and retention. YouTube reaches viewers already in a gaming context, with better post-install retention but higher creative production demands.

Influencer marketing plays a different role again: creators provide credibility and context that an ad unit cannot buy. A player who has watched someone actually play the game arrives with a far clearer expectation — and that expectation is what shows up later as retention.

The compounding effect is the point. Paid campaigns running alongside creator coverage perform better than either in isolation, because familiarity from creator content lifts the response to paid placements, and paid reach extends the lifespan of creator moments well beyond their publication window.

None of this is visible without attribution. On PC and console, media platforms see clicks and nothing after them; without server-side install attribution and postbacks, channel comparisons are made on numbers that cannot honestly be compared.

Our takeaway at Lev3lUp: plan paid and creator activity as one campaign with one measurement layer, not as two competing budget lines. That is how our Virtual PR Agency and Media Mailing services are designed to be used.