Boxed.gg
Paid Advertising

A booming market, zero brand awareness

When I joined Loot Labs Inc as the 7th employee, Boxed.gg had originally launched with a $1.2M seed investment to build NFT lootboxes. But the team recognised early that the NFT market was declining fast and made the call to pivot into TCG lootboxes, starting with Pokemon. Nobody had done this before. There was no existing playbook, no competitor to study, no proven ad strategy to copy. Boxed.gg was pioneering an entirely new product category.

From Pokemon, the platform gradually expanded into Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, Lorcana, sports cards, and more. But at the time I joined, Boxed.gg didn't have an audience, didn't have brand recognition, and didn't have revenue. The challenge: build a paid acquisition engine for a product category that didn't exist yet, with a $350K starting budget in July 2023 and a team small enough to fit around one table. Every dollar of ad spend had to pull its weight.

Precision targeting meets aggressive scaling

Lootboxes can't be sold like a traditional product. There's no Shopping feed, no standard product listing. The strategy had to rely entirely on interest-based targeting, search intent, video creative, and community channels. I ran campaigns across every major ad platform: Google, Meta, TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, and Bing. Every dollar was tracked, every campaign was optimised daily, and the media mix evolved constantly as I learned what drove real purchases, not just clicks.

Google Ads

Ran Performance Max, Demand Gen, Search, Display, and YouTube campaigns. Since lootboxes can't be sold as a traditional shopping product, the strategy leaned heavily on PMax and Demand Gen for interest-based reach, Search for high-intent queries like "TCG mystery box" and "Pokemon lootbox," and YouTube pre-roll for video creative featuring unboxings and pack openings.

Meta (Facebook & Instagram)

Facebook and Instagram campaigns targeting TCG enthusiasts, lootbox fans, and lookalike audiences built from high-LTV customers. Carousel ads showcasing mystery box offerings across Pokemon, MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and more performed exceptionally well. Video content featuring unboxings and pack openings drove strong engagement-to-purchase pipelines.

TikTok Ads

TikTok was a natural fit for the product. The platform's audience skews toward exactly the demographic that buys mystery boxes. Ran in-feed and spark ads using unboxing content that blended organically into users' feeds. TikTok's algorithm rewarded engaging creative, making it one of the most efficient channels for top-of-funnel awareness.

Reddit Ads

Targeted TCG-specific subreddits and collectibles communities where high-intent buyers gathered. Reddit's audience is sceptical of ads, so creative had to feel native and community-aware. Conversation-style ads and promoted posts drove qualified traffic from people already deep into the hobby.

Twitter / X

Ran promoted tweets and video ads targeting the active TCG community on Twitter. The platform has a strong presence of Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and MTG collectors who share pulls and follow influencers. Leveraged trending topics around new set releases and product drops to time campaigns for maximum engagement.

Microsoft / Bing Ads

Mirrored the Google Search strategy on Bing to capture additional search volume at lower CPCs. Bing often delivered cheaper clicks with comparable conversion rates, making it an efficient supplemental channel for high-intent queries across TCG lootbox terms.

Retargeting across all channels

Sophisticated retargeting funnels across Google and Meta. Segmented audiences by browsing depth, cart abandonment stage, product category interest, and recency. High-value cart abandoners received aggressive retargeting with dynamic product ads. Frequency capping and creative rotation prevented ad fatigue across long buying cycles.

Strategic advertising with industry leaders

Beyond standard programmatic channels, a key differentiator was securing advertising partnerships with platforms and brands that the collector audience already trusted. These weren't just ad placements. They were endorsements in the eyes of the audience.

PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator)

Ran advertising in partnership with PSA, the world's largest and most trusted third-party authentication and grading service for collectibles. Being associated with PSA gave Boxed.gg enormous credibility among serious collectors. Ad placements reached an audience that actively grades and trades high-value cards, driving premium customer acquisition with strong average order values.

Collectr App

Secured advertising placements within Collectr, a popular mobile app for TCG collectors to track, manage, and value their card collections. This was a goldmine channel: every user on the app was already an active collector. In-app ads drove highly qualified traffic with conversion rates significantly above standard display channels. The audience already understood the product and had purchase intent baked in.

$0 → $1M/mo: scaling without breaking

Remember: this was a brand starting from nothing. No existing customer base, no organic traffic to speak of, no brand recognition. The initial $350K budget in 2023 (starting July) was the entire growth engine. Every campaign had to earn its spend through measurable ROAS. Once the engine was working and revenue was climbing, Loot Labs backed the operation with a budget increase to approximately $2 million for 2024.

Scaling ad spend 5.7x without destroying efficiency is one of the hardest problems in performance marketing, even harder when the entire company is 7 people building everything simultaneously. Most campaigns hit diminishing returns quickly. The key was a diversified channel mix. When one channel saturated, another was already being tested and optimised. The Collectr and PSA partnerships were particularly valuable here, providing high-intent inventory that standard programmatic couldn't match.

The numbers that mattered

Zero revenue. Zero brand awareness. Within 10 months of launching the advertising operation, Boxed.gg crossed the $1 million monthly revenue mark. The initial revenue target was $100K/month, and the operation blew past it. That performance directly contributed to Loot Labs securing a $6 million follow-on investment, validating the pivot from NFTs to TCG lootboxes and the entire paid media strategy behind it.

For context, I joined as the 7th employee. The company had started with a $1.2M seed investment to build NFT lootboxes. After the pivot to TCGs, every dollar of growth had to be proven through results. The ad engine became the primary growth driver for the business, justifying a 5.7x budget increase from 2023 to 2024. This wasn't a big marketing department. It was a lean team: I owned the entire paid media operation from day one, working closely with a creative who handled ad assets and the CCO whose backing gave me the confidence to scale aggressively. A social media manager came on board later as the operation grew. He set up the birthday promotion campaign, which gave me a killer offer to push through paid channels. That combination is what ultimately pushed Boxed.gg past the $1M/month mark.