Mobile game marketing on TikTok, beyond gameplay clips.
Most mobile game marketing advice is about paid user acquisition. On TikTok there's a cheaper first move: photo slideshows where your game is part of a sleepover, a long car ride or a slow evening. ClonBot makes them from slideshows that already went viral, and we use it for our own party game.
Free, no sign-up. Type your game's App Store name and get three slideshow ideas for it in about 20 seconds.
65 viral formats with a natural spot for a game5.4% median save rate on game list posts2 posts a day from $99/mo
People don't share a game. They share the night.
A sleepover ideas post got 3.5M views on an account that usually got about 1,100, and slide four was already a party game. We remade it for Dronk, our own party game, and moved the game from a pasted store page into the room.
The original, slide 4 of 6Another party game's store page and question cards, pasted in as a collage.The remake, slide 6 of 8Music jeopardy on the TV, mid-round, in the same pyjamas as every other slide.
The real screenThe board on the TV is the app's real screen, not a drawn one.
1,008
comments on the original. Ideas lists get tagged and sent to the group chat, which is how party games spread anyway.
1 of 7
plans in the night. Pyjamas, makeup, cookies, a blanket fort, the game, tarot, passing out at 3am. Nobody reads it as an ad.
0
app names in the overlay text. The screen shows the game, viewers ask in the comments, and the account answers.
How to market a game on TikTok, genre by genre.
The question for every genre is the same: what moment in someone's life does your game belong to? Some genres have an obvious one. Some barely do, and slideshows are the wrong main tool there.
Bars show how well organic slideshows fit the genre.
Party and social games. The night is the post.
Sleepovers, game nights, birthdays, hen parties. The post is a list of plans and your game is one of them, on the TV or a phone passed around. Group reactions do the selling.
sleepover ideas
matching pjs
bake something
blanket fort
the game on the TV
pass out at 3am
Formats that fit
43
Median views
3.6M
Median saved
3.0%
Mostly photo dumps (15) and tips lists (12). Hooks: "things to play at your next sleepover", "birthday ideas that aren't dinner".
Maya's game night post: the game is the last three slides
Playing music jeopardy, a friend who knew it in two seconds, the team that lost.
Puzzle and cozy games. One entry in a list she means.
Here the post is openly about games, like "cozy games for different kinds of tired". Your game is one entry with a personal line, between real games the creator plays. A list of only your titles reads as an ad.
cozy games for every kind of tired
brain too noisy tired
only have this evening tired
everything is too much tired
take me back tired
which one are you?
Game list posts
9
Median views
3.5M
Median saved
5.4%
Well above the library's 3.5% median: a game list is a download list people keep. More openers in TikTok hooks.
From the library
Casual games. The boring hour it fills.
Casual games fill dead time: a long car ride, a flight with no wifi, a waiting room. A "things to do on a long car ride" list has room for one phone slide with your level on screen.
things to do on a long car ride
spot a car in every colour
make the playlist
the level you're stuck on
rank the snacks
window pics
"Long car ride" views
1.0M
Saved
5.9%
"Offline games" views
3.5M
Both are real library formats. Fit is good, not strong: the moment is solitary, so posts get saved more than shared.
From the library
Mid-core games. Anticipation, not the gameplay.
Mid-core players choose on gameplay and community, so clips, creators and Discord do most of the work. Slideshows fit around the edges: release wishlists, setup photos with your game on screen, tier lists.
games I'll vanish into on release
the co-op one
your game on the monitor
the city builder
the roguelike
which first?
"Disappear on release" views
3.2M
Saved
6.7%
Fit
Partial
Use slideshows for wishlist and pre-launch buzz, and keep gameplay video as the main channel. A slideshow can't show how a game feels to play.
From the library
Hyper-casual games. Mostly the wrong tool.
A hyper-casual game is one mechanic you get in two seconds, and the business usually runs on cheap paid installs. There's little life around it to tell a story about; the natural slot is one entry in a list like "games for when you can't sleep".
games for when you can't sleep
a cozy one
a puzzle one
the satisfying one
a word one
save for tonight
Where slideshows still help: testing words. Post candidate opening lines as organic hooks and put the one people stop for on the first second of your gameplay ads.
Organic slideshows next to paid UA, not instead of it.
If your game makes money on ads or in-app purchases at scale, paid user acquisition stays. Organic posts make it cheaper by finding the hooks before you pay for them.
Post many hooks
One account, one creator, a new hook each post. On ClonBot's Starter plan a post costs about $1.65.
things to play at your next sleepovergirls game night inrating our game night snacks
Read against your usual
Compare each post with the account's median views. One that does three times better is a hook worth testing with money.
things to play at your next sleepover1脳girls game night in3脳 usualrating our game night snacks1脳
Pay for the winner
Run the post itself as a Spark Ad, or open your next gameplay ad with the winning line. Either way it has already worked once for free.
How do I market my mobile game with little budget?
Start organic. Run a TikTok account as a person whose life your game fits into, post one or two slideshows a day built on formats that already went viral, and show the game as one moment in each. Put money only behind posts that already beat the account's usual views.
Do gameplay clips or slideshows work better on TikTok?
It depends on the genre. Gameplay clips show how a game feels and suit mid-core and hyper-casual games. Slideshows suit games with a social or cozy moment around them, and they're far cheaper to make every day. Many studios use both.
How much does it cost to market a mobile game?
With paid campaigns you pay for every install, so the budget scales with your goals. Organic posting costs time, or a tool: ClonBot starts at $99 a month for 60 posts. See pricing.
Should the account be my studio's brand account?
Usually not. A feed of patch notes and trailers reads as an ad. A creator account, like Maya planning game nights with her friends, looks like everything else in the feed, and nobody at your studio has to be on camera.
Can the slideshows show my game's real screens?
Yes. ClonBot puts your real screens on the phone or TV in the photos, taken from your App Store link or screenshots you upload. For a Swift app, a coding agent can screenshot it in the simulator.
