Activision Blizzard × AYMI

A pre-order campaign that prized player quality over raw signups — and lifted pre-orders 400% with CPU cut by two-thirds.

Player acquisition: +215%
Cost per user: -68%
Pre-order revenue: 3.1×
Wishlist-to-purchase: +57%

01/Challenge

The brief beneath the brief.

AAA pre-order campaigns reward two things — reach and noise. The cost is a wave of pre-orders that don't convert to engaged players, refunds that spike post-launch, and a community signal that hits the wrong frequency.

The brief: rebuild the pre-order funnel around player quality. Volume was the byproduct, not the goal.

02/Approach

The Method, applied.

Five movements: Discovery, Strategy, Creative, Launch, Optimize. Each one feeds the next; the loop closes on Optimize and starts again on Discovery.

Step 01Discovery
Player-quality model built from historical engagement data — retention, session length, in-game spend by cohort. Identified the cohorts most likely to convert AND stay.
Step 02Strategy
Spend re-weighted toward quality cohorts. Wishlist became a mid-funnel proxy, not a vanity metric.
Step 03Creative
Creative system anchored on the title's signature world, with gameplay reveals timed to franchise calendar beats rather than weekly cadence.
Step 04Launch
Coordinated rollout across Meta, TikTok, programmatic, and store-front advertising. Store wishlist instrumented as a funnel checkpoint.
Step 05Optimize
Daily cohort burn-rate during the conversion window; spend pulled hard off cohorts that wishlisted but didn't convert at expected rates.

03/Outcome

What the numbers carried.

Pre-orders lifted 400% over the prior comparable title, with player acquisition up 215% and — critically — CPU down 68% as the quality-weighted model concentrated spend on cohorts likely to convert and stay. Pre-order revenue ran 3.1× prior benchmarks; wishlist-to-purchase conversion lifted 57%.

Post-launch refund rate held below the franchise's historical baseline. Volume rose; quality didn't get traded for it.