How to sell to Heads of Marketing at Gaming companies
Heads of Marketing at gaming companies are primarily measured by user acquisition rates. They respond to outreach that acknowledges the unique challenges of launching new titles and retaining players. Demonstrating an understanding of their high-stakes environment, where user engagement can make or break a game, will capture their attention and prompt a response.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 544 gaming company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high player churn rates
- underperforming user acquisition campaigns
- limited marketing budget flexibility
- pressure to innovate quickly
The playbook
- 01
Identify recently launched games
Use gaming industry news sources to find studios that have recently released titles. Focus on games that have been in the market for less than three months, as these Heads of Marketing are often looking for ways to boost visibility and engagement for their new products.
- 02
Analyze user engagement metrics
Look for reports or social media discussions about the user engagement levels of these new games. Metrics such as daily active users or player retention rates can indicate pain points that your outreach can address, such as retention strategies or marketing optimizations.
- 03
Highlight industry-specific challenges
Craft your message to explicitly mention the common issues faced by Heads of Marketing in gaming, such as managing player churn or adapting to rapid shifts in player preferences. This specificity shows you understand their unique landscape and are not sending generic outreach.
- 04
Prepare for objections about budget
Anticipate objections related to budget constraints, especially if they are still evaluating the performance of their recent launches. Be ready to discuss cost-effective strategies or ROI examples from similar gaming companies to ease their concerns.
- 05
Follow up after key industry events
Plan your follow-ups around major gaming events or conferences. After these events, many Heads of Marketing will be reflecting on their strategies and may be more open to discussing new ideas and partnerships that can enhance their marketing efforts.
Can gaming companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 544 gaming companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 11.5% of 1–10-person companies against 58.5% of the largest — 47 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Boost your new game's visibility
- Strategies for player retention
- Navigating marketing challenges in gaming
Questions
- Why do Heads of Marketing in gaming ignore outreach about analytics tools?
- Many Heads of Marketing prioritize immediate, tangible results and may view analytics tools as secondary to their urgent needs for user acquisition. If the outreach doesn't clearly connect the tool's benefits to their current challenges, it risks being overlooked.
- What common mistakes do Heads of Marketing in gaming make in outreach?
- A frequent mistake is sending generic messages that do not address the specific dynamics of the gaming industry. They often receive outreach that lacks an understanding of their unique challenges, leading to disengagement and missed opportunities.
- How can I effectively engage a Head of Marketing at a gaming studio?
- Engaging them effectively requires demonstrating knowledge of their recent game launches and the specific marketing challenges that come with them. Tailoring your message to show how you can help them achieve their goals will resonate more than generic pitches.
- What triggers a positive response from Heads of Marketing in gaming?
- A positive response is often triggered by outreach that offers actionable insights or solutions to their current marketing struggles, especially around user retention or engagement. They appreciate when outreach is relevant to their immediate needs and industry trends.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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