How to Acquire Gamers in Web3
The New Era of Web3 Game UA: Introducing Cradle
User acquisition for Web3 games is loaded with challenges and obstacles. That’s why we’re excited to announce the seed funding for Cradle: The UA (User Acquisition) Platform for Web3 Games. We help Web3 games acquire users for their games.
The $3M round was led by Clay Robbins of Slow Ventures with participation from Red Sea Ventures, Human Capital, Cory Levy, and a whole host of founders/angels.
Funny enough, we fundraised over a year ago while building other infra for Web3 games and pivoted around until we really found a T1 problem.
So what is a UA Platform and what problem are we solving?
Before building the current iteration of Cradle, we were building mobile Web3 games. We launched multiple titles and have a game with over 3M+ downloads on the play store, check them out here.
When it comes to building Web3 features within your game, there are a ton of really good solutions out there (shoutout to ThirdWeb).
But trying to acquire users for a Web3 game is really really really hard.
You have two options to work with. You have to either try to A) find enough Web3 users who like your genre of game and want to play or B) acquire Web2 users and convert them into your game.
Each option has its own set of problems. With acquiring Web3 users you have around 2M Monthly Active Users across all Web3 games to work with (assuming that users do not overlap across games & no bots… overestimate for sure). With acquiring Web2 users, you may have volume (lots of users to work with) but your retention is absolutely horrendous since your users may struggle with onboarding/activating.
At Cradle, we wanted to focus on the problem where we’re not just moving around eggs from 1 Web3 game to another, we wanted to create new eggs for Web3 games by bringing them from Web2.
So why do Web2 channels have terrible retention?
Getting to the “A-Ha!” moment in a Web3 game takes a long time.
Users who get to the “A-Ha!” moment are much more likely to retain in the long term. When Chamath was at Facebook, they figured out that getting 7 friends in 10 days leads to much higher retention rates. Games also have that same “A-Ha!” moment, they’re just typically found in the core game loops, graphics, etc. In Web3, the core “A-Ha!” moment comes from Web3 features that require higher activation.
So how do you get your users to the “A-Ha!” moment?
Introducing Cradle.
Cradle is a UA Platform focused on CPA campaigns to help drive your version of “7 friends in 10 days” in Web3. We target the right Web2 users for your game, provide the right funnel to convert to your product, and help push them along their journey until they hit your key action.
P.S. If you don’t know what the “A-Ha!” moment for your game is don’t worry, we work with all our customers intimately to help you figure out what that moment is.
When we were building our games we wanted an acquisition channel that was:
Able to drive volume (can get us 1000+ users a day)
Helped find retentive users (users we acquired, stuck around to get to the “A-Ha” moment)
Only charged us for the users they brought us. (Cost Per Action)
That’s exactly what we built.
Volume: We’re partnered with some of the biggest Web2 CPA Ad Networks giving us a reach of over 200M+ players
Retention: We built Web3 funnel activation tools to more effectively push users down the funnel until they reach the “A-Ha” moment (leading to better retention)
We only charge when a user completes the key action (CPA).
If you are currently looking to acquire users for your Web3 game, feel free to find a time with me here: https://calendly.com/thayallansri/30min
If you’re running any UA, reach out with your current cost benchmarks and I bet we could match or even beat them.
That’s it from me! Be sure to sign up for the Substack, more blog posts & case studies coming your way getting deeper in the weeds about all things UA for Web3 Games.
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