Once you have created the game, group or piece of clothing of your dreams, it's time to get the word out so that other players can start enjoying the fruit of your labors. While word of mouth is a powerful tool on its own, Roblox offers several tools to help get you started. One of these tools is the User Ads feature.
What are user ads?
Ads are images that players upload that can be use to promote their places, clothing, models, decals, groups, etc. These will be displayed at the top and sides of Roblox.com. When the image is clicked, it will take you to the thing that is being advertised.
Advertising is a good way to bring attention to the awesome stuff that you have built or made. You may even be able to make Robux by bidding on ads for an item which other players may then purchase or visit.
How advertising on Roblox works
The User Ads feature utilizes a bidding system similar to the one seen in Sponsored Games. Developers can use their image editor of choice to create an awesome looking ad for a specific place or item and then bid in Robux on the frequency that that ad will display.
How the auction system works
Advertisers don't buy ad space on Roblox. They bid for it in an auction and do so on every day they wish the ad to be shown. There is a limited amount of ad space to go around (we only show so many ads per day), so an auction is run and the frequency that an ad is displayed is determined by how much is bid and how much other players have also bid.
In general, if you spend twice as much, your promotion will be seen about twice as many times. For example, say three developers are all bidding to have their ads featured. The bids are as follows:
- Developer A bids 50 Robux
- Developer B bids 100 Robux
- Developer C bids 300 Robux
In this example, Developer A bid the least amount of Robux, so their ad will appear the least amount of times. Developer B bid twice as many Robux so their ad will appear twice as often. Developer C bid six times as many Robux as Developer A did so their ad will appear six times as often.
Things to know about the auction system
There are 3 different sized ads: banners, skyscrapers, and large rectangles. A banner ad can't go in a skyscraper slot and vice versa. So, unlike the example in the section above, there are actually 3 separate auctions going on at all times for each of the different sized ads.
There are different numbers of slots for each of the ad types on Roblox. For example, the large rectangle only appears on the Home and Profile pages. The banner, on the other hand, is on nearly every page. In theory this means that you should bid less on the large rectangle slots, because even if you win a large percentage of all rectangle auctions, you are still getting fewer relative impressions.
Definitions
Impression - Every time a player sees your ad, that is 1 "impression".
Clicks - Every time a player clicks on your ad, that is 1 "click".
CTR - CTR is short for Click Through Rate. Simply, it is the percentage of people who see your ad that also clicks on that ad (clicks / impressions). If everyone who sees your ad clicks on it, you have a CTR of 100%. Good ads have a high CTR. A high CTR means you are buying clicks for cheap. A low CTR means you have to show your ad to a ton of people to get many clicks at all; and this is expensive.
Run - When you bid to display an ad, you are launching the ad on a "run". Currently all runs last for 24 hours.
Banner - A banner ad is a 728 x 90 pixel ad.
Skyscraper - A skyscraper ad is a 160 x 600 pixel ad.
Large Rectangle - A large rectangle ad is 300 x 250 pixel ad.
Campaign - A ad campaign is a series of ads that are all advertising the same thing. The Roblox ad system doesn't support campaigns specifically.
CPC - "Cost Per Click". The Roblox ad system does not currently show you your CPC, but it is a very useful concept. Put plainly, it is the number of tickets you have to bid to get a single click. CPC = CTR * Bid. Good ads will have a low CPC. Bad ads will have a large CPC.
How do I participate?
If you would like to make an ad for your creations, you can do so in the following way:
- Log into your account on roblox.com
- Click on Create in the blue bar at the top of the screen
- Click on the section corresponding to the type of item you would like to advertise in the left column
- Find the item you would like to promote and click the gear icon to its right
- Select Advertise in the menu that pops up
- A screen will display that looks like this:
- Click the download button next to the type of ad you would like to make to get its template
- Use your image editor of choice (such as MS Paint) to edit the template and make your ad. Be careful not to change the template's size Make sure that you save the ad in .png format and that it adheres to the Roblox Community Rules
- Back on the website, click the Browse button next to "Upload an Ad" to find the file you just made
- Title your ad by typing a name into the Name Your Ad box
- Click the Upload button
This will then create an entry in the User Ads tab of your Create section. To activate the ad, do the following:
- Click on the gear icon to the right of it and select Run in the menu that displays
- Enter in how many Robux you would like to bid and click the Run button
How do I tell how well my promotion is doing?
Once you have everything up and running, you can come back to your Create section's User Ads tab later in the day to see how much it has paid off! Underneath the ad's entry will be a series of numbers:
- Impressions: this is the number of times that people have seen your ad
- Clicks: the number of times people have clicked on it
- CTR: of the people that have seen your ad, this is the percentage of them that clicked on it
- Bid: the amount of Robux that you bid for the promotion
Additional Help