Can I Automate Marketing?

Tools That Change the Biz Stategy

Game business teams and marketers may not execute ads directly, yet they remain accountable for the results. They must design strategies without placing additional burden on development resources. What they need most today is the ability to understand AI marketing automation tools and apply them strategically.

ℹ️Market and Channel Strategy with AI

“Where should we advertise first?”

This is the first question a publisher asks when preparing for a global launch. There is only one video, a limited budget, and a small pre-registration pool. Yet expectations are clear: deliver results quickly.

The reality is challenging. Player tastes are increasingly fragmented, and what people watch and what they buy are often disconnected. What business professionals now need is accurate prediction and rapid execution — knowing who to target, at what moment, with which message. AI-driven marketing automation provides the most practical way to make that crucial first decision.

Game companies most often turn to AI-powered tools on Google, Meta, and TikTok to build efficient strategies. Below is an overview of how these tools work, beginning with Google.

(1) Google’s AI-based Full-Funnel Marketing: Designing Performance-Driven Strategies for Complex User Journeys

Game user journeys are multi-layered, involving YouTube videos, streamer reviews, community reactions, and price comparisons. Because of this, a simple linear flow such as clicks → install → purchase is not easy to achieve.

However, with the emergence of Google’s AI-based full-funnel marketing strategy, these limitations are becoming less relevant.

The core of this strategy is full-funnel marketing, meaning AI optimizes the entire user journey — awareness, interest, consideration, conversion, and retention — in real time. Google integrates YouTube, Search, Discovery, Gmail, and Display into a unified operation, automatically adjusting creatives, budgets, and targets.

For PC and console games, Demand Gen (DGen) campaigns generate user interest at the early stage, followed by Performance Max (PMax) campaigns, which complete the funnel by focusing on users with a high likelihood of conversion across all channels.

In the past, performance marketing automation was considered most suitable for mobile games. But today, even with complex user acquisition paths, PC and console titles can benefit if they have clear conversion goals and creative assets such as video.

A representative case is 《Lies of P》 by NEOWIZ, which leveraged Google’s full-funnel strategy effectively. A long-form video was repurposed into short ad clips and distributed simultaneously across YouTube, Search, Gmail, and Discovery. AI then automatically connected the path from “ad click → Steam wish list registration → purchase.” This strategy drove strong response particularly in North America and Europe, proving that even PC and console games — traditionally difficult to measure in terms of performance — can build conversion-driven funnels.

This approach is especially useful for teams with limited marketing resources, since global expansion can be managed by a small number of staff. AI automatically optimizes video-based content, while adjusting budgets and channel operations in real time based on performance data. As a result, it delivers strong impact during early launch phases where fast conversions (e.g., subscription packages, season passes) or ROI are critical.

That said, there are also points of caution.

PMax campaigns do not provide detailed conversion data by individual channel. If granular analysis is required, Search or Display campaigns should be run alongside. As a machine-learning campaign, it requires at least two to four weeks of learning before results stabilize. In addition, to allow effective AI optimization, it is essential to prepare a sufficient variety of creative assets, including video, images, and text.

Because of these considerations, the strategy may not apply equally to every game. However, it can be especially effective in the following cases

PC/console titles with limited direct user acquisition channels or small teams

Package games that require fast sales conversions at launch

Teams with abundant video content but little experience in conversion-centric funnels

For games with clear conversion goals and journeys that AI can design, Google’s AI full-funnel strategy offers more than exposure — it provides a proven approach for performance-driven growth. Still, its data limitations must be considered.

(2) Meta Advantage+: Automated Optimization from Budget to Targeting

In game publishing, this challenge often arises:

“I’m responsible for the results, but I don’t have the resources to design or run ads myself.”

Meta’s Advantage+ campaign is designed exactly for professionals. Once you set the campaign objective and budget, AI automatically optimizes creative combinations, targeting, and budget allocation in real time. Post-install events such as in-app purchases are also modeled, enabling more precise acquisition of high-LTV (Lifetime Value) users compared to traditional click-based ads.

A representative case is Snail Games 《The Legendary Snail》. Using country-specific, interest-based auto-targeting and video-centric creative tests, the game rapidly expanded brand awareness in the global market. High-value user acquisition increased significantly, and when combined with influencer marketing, ROI also rose sharply.

Another case is Qublix Games 《Solitaire Forest Rescue》. Advantage+ AI identified behavioral lookalike groups in real time, automatically tested short, clear video ads, and focused exposure on users with high conversion potential. As a result, CPI decreased, purchase conversions increased, and ROAS improved.

Similar performance has been observed across puzzles, card, and RPG genres. AI learns hardcore user patterns and optimizes targeting toward users who are more profitable in the long term. Even casual puzzle games-maintained CPI in the 300–500 KRW range while achieving higher spend-to-install ratios.

Advantage+ automates the entire advertising process. AI adjusts targeting, budget allocation, creative testing, bidding, and ad placements in real time. This allows marketers to remain accountable for performance without having to execute campaigns manually. Since the model incorporates post-install behaviors such as spending and long-term play, optimization goes beyond simple conversion rates to focus on users more likely to drive real revenue.

Compared to manual campaigns, ROI increases, CPI decreases, and conversion rates improve across multiple game titles. Automated targeting and creative optimization also minimize wasted budget. For these reasons, Advantage+ is especially effective in the following cases:

When you need to test many creative combinations but have limited resources

When you must quickly acquire high-value users in a global UA campaign

When you want efficiency and performance while minimizing manual intervention

In short, Meta Advantage+ enables value optimization based on user behavior, making it highly effective for acquiring high-value users, while its creative-learning-based targeting delivers strong predictive performance.

(3) TikTok Smart+: Automation That Designs In-Game User Behavior

The early stages of global game marketing campaigns are always tight. Budgets are set, but targets are unclear, creative testing is limited, and channel operations are often stretched thin.

TikTok’s Smart+ emerged as an automated advertising solution to fundamentally resolve these structural limitations. Once you set the campaign goal and budget, AI automatically manages the entire campaign — targeting, creative mixing, bidding strategy, and performance optimization.

Crucially, Smart+ does not stop at driving installs. It incorporates actual in-game behavior data into its modeling, selecting and optimizing for users most likely to convert and stay engaged long-term. This is a fundamental strategic shift from conventional UA campaigns.

► Case 1: VicGames – 《Black Clover Mobile》

In its global campaign, Smart+ delivered performance that exceeded expectations. Even when the budget was doubled, CPI remained stable, while ROAS increased by 6.8 times. The conversion rate reached 9.8%, with more than 670 in-app purchase events recorded. In its first week, the game ranked seventh on Google Play revenue charts, proving that performance efficiency did not collapse even under expanded budgets.

The reason Smart+ is so powerful lies in its ability to model user behavior beyond the click. Instead of merely driving traffic, targeting is automatically refined toward users more likely to purchase or play for the long term, which naturally improves efficiency.

► Case 2: AppQuantum – 《Gold and Goblins》

This campaign demonstrated Smart+’s ability to drive deep-funnel conversions. The publisher first secured a wide user base, then shifted optimization toward in-app purchase events. Marketers only set budgets, objectives, and creatives; execution, analysis, and budget adjustments were handled entirely by Smart+. Despite minimal manual input, the campaign achieved three outcomes simultaneously: high-LTV user acquisition, longer campaign life, and consistent performance.

► Case 3: 《Fidget Town》

This example shows how Smart+ goes beyond UA to promote in-game content and activate communities. By combining Smart+ with Spark Ads, the campaign focused on new items and events. UGC content spread organically beyond the official account, generating over 1 million installs and more than 80 million hashtag views worldwide. CPA held at around $0.20, while in-game engagement rates also rose.

Together, these cases demonstrate that Smart+ is not just an automation tool, but a strategic solution for building performance-driven revenue structures. As in VicGames’ case, CPI remained steady while ROAS soared with increased budgets. This is possible because AI continuously reallocates spend, optimizes targeting in real time, and tests creative effectiveness.

In summary: TikTok Smart+ delivers strong automated performance with video-first content and community-driven spread. It is optimized for funnels that extend into in-app conversion, making it particularly effective for early testing and rapid scaling.

ℹ️ Creative Production, Now Automated by AI

“How many videos do we have ready for testing?”

Most marketing campaigns begin with this question. To drive performance, you need testing, and to run tests, you need a wide range of ad creatives.

But it’s rarely that simple. Video teams are busy, outsourcing costs are high, and even when requests go to the design team, the only assets often available are basic UI captures.

Today, however, the industry is shifting to an era where AI creates ad creatives directly.

Now, even with a single in-game video, AI can automatically edit dozens of versions, run campaigns only with combinations predicted to perform well with each target segment, and handle everything from editing to optimization and prediction.

The old excuse — “We can’t run ads because we don’t have enough videos” — no longer applies. AI now takes care of automatic editing, target optimization, and performance prediction.

❓ How does it work?

AI-based creative automation works in the following way:

① Automatic segmentation and highlight extraction: Detects key in-game moments such as battles, boss fights, or reward scenes, and splits them into short clips (6–30 seconds).

② Emotion and interaction cues: Inserts captions like “Ultimate ready!” or “Choose within 10 seconds!”, along with subtitles, sound effects, and animations.

③ Target-specific versions + performance prediction: Generates optimized versions for different segments (e.g., action-heavy for teen males, reward and UI-focused for women in their 30s), creates multilingual variants, and automatically runs only the combinations predicted to have the highest conversion rates.

This approach is especially valuable for indie or small teams that lack abundant video resources, for global campaigns that cannot afford the cost of producing multiple language versions, or for campaigns that need many variants to reach wide target segments. With just one gameplay video, AI can automatically design segment-specific versions, multilingual combinations, and prioritize ad delivery based on predicted conversion.

So, how are these creative automation capabilities being applied across platforms today?

(1) Google VVC / DGen: Useful for Auto-Remixing PC and Console Game Videos

Google provides the VVC (Video Creation Tool) and DGen (Dynamic Creative Generator) to automatically generate multiple ad versions from a single trailer or video.

For example, in the case of 《Lies of P》, a single long-form video was automatically remixed into multiple lengths, languages, and styles, adapted for YouTube, Display, and Search ads. These were then linked into a PMax campaign and delivered automatically across each channel.

This kind of AI tool is especially powerful for PC and console games, where video assets are often limited. With just one trailer, Google AI can automatically produce ads in different styles — reward-focused, emotion-driven, or action-inducing.

(2) Meta Advantage+ Creative: Real-Time Performance-Based Combinations

Meta’s Advantage+ automatically assembles all ad assets — videos, images, and text — into countless combinations. It then tests them in real time, exposing only the highest-performing versions to each audience segment.

For example, even for the same game, short combat-focused videos may be shown automatically to teenage male audiences, while customization features and reward UI videos may be delivered to women in their thirties.

By simply uploading a few images and lines of copy, AI generates and experiments with hundreds of combinations. This greatly reduces the burden for teams that previously struggled with “our user base is too broad to create tailored ads for each target.”

⏩In Summary

Thanks to AI, one of the biggest challenges in preparing launch campaigns — producing enough ad creatives — is becoming less of an obstacle.

AI now extracts key moments from long-form videos, recombines them into multiple ad versions, and automatically serves only those predicted to drive conversions.

Major marketing platforms such as Google, Meta, and TikTok have already reached the stage where, with just a single video and a clear campaign objective, they can automate the entire process: creative production → version testing → performance optimization.

The success of marketing today depends less on the creatives themselves, and more on how strategically these AI-based tools are utilized.

AI is becoming the most practical way to improve advertising performance — and a core tool that enables game business teams to focus on overall strategy rather than ad execution.

In the next section, we will explore how these AI tools are being used to extend into marketing automation, user-tailored campaigns, and full personalization, along with real case studies.