How Kinguin Built a 16-Million-Customer Gaming Audience With a Giveaway Programme That Never Switches Off

Kinguin launched in Poland in 2013 as a peer-to-peer marketplace for digital game keys. Today it is one of the largest digital gaming marketplaces in the world, serving over 16 million customers across more than 100 countries in seven languages.

Gaming audiences are not passive consumers. They follow release calendars, spend time in communities, watch esports, and care about where they buy. The brands that earn their attention show up inside that culture rather than alongside it. Reaching them means being present at the moments they already care about, with something genuinely relevant to offer.

The Challenge

For most brands, giveaways are a one-time spike. You build it, promote it, pick a winner, and move on. The followers don't compound. The email list sits without momentum. The awareness fades.

At Kinguin's scale, that model wasn't enough. They needed a permanent acquisition channel that could run consistently across multiple markets and languages, without a rebuild every time.

The Approach

Kinguin runs approximately four Gleam campaigns per week - consistently, for over a decade. The volume is possible because the framework is consistent. Four repeating campaign types, each built for a specific audience and moment. The structure stays the same; the creative adapts.

"We structure our campaigns around the gaming calendar: game launches, anniversaries, platform moments. There's always a relevant contest running that ties directly to what our customers are already excited about."

Marko Nowak, PR & Influencers Specialist, Kinguin

Game launch tie-ins go live alongside major title releases. The prize is the game itself, so the audience is self-selecting and already primed to buy. Titles have included Hitman 3, Dark Souls, Overwatch, FIFA and Call of Duty.

Creator and influencer campaigns reach communities outside Kinguin's existing base. Partnerships with Blue and Queenie, Shadoune, Pan Pawlowski and Japczan run with fully localised entry flows - rebuilt for each market, not just translated.

Esports partnerships with Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, G2 and Team Kinguin reach committed buyers through a context they already trust. The association matters as much as the reach.

Seasonal campaigns hold the programme together year-round. Christmas advent calendars, Halloween, Easter and Black Friday create recurring touchpoints that Kinguin's audience starts to expect and plan around. There is no quiet period.

Entry Architecture

Every campaign stacks the same entry mechanics: social follows, newsletter sign-ups, Discord joins, and creative community questions. Each serves a distinct function. Follows seed future campaigns. Newsletter sign-ups build an owned channel no algorithm can limit. Discord joins maintain community presence between campaigns. Creative questions filter for genuine fans and generate content that outlasts the campaign.

A participant who completes five or six actions is substantially more valuable than one who entered a single draw.

"Every entrant, besides the chance to win great prizes, enters a welcome flow and receives a first-purchase incentive. That single step is what bridges contest participation into a real commercial relationship."

Marko Nowak

Run across 2,223 campaigns, that pipeline compounds into a meaningful share of new customer acquisition every month.

Campaign Spotlight: Animal Crossing 25th Anniversary

Entry actions:

• Follow on Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook

• Join Discord

• Sign up to the newsletter

• Answer a question about your favourite villager

The villager question is the mechanic worth noting. It only resonates with someone who has actually played the game, so it functions as a passive quality filter without any manual qualification. It also generates content: hundreds of players naming their favourite villager creates a thread of genuine community conversation that outlasts the campaign itself.

Conversion held at 19.79%, within a percentage point of the 11-year programme average. The right question brought in the right people.

The Results

• 2,223 campaigns run over 11 years, averaging four per week without interruption

• 21.4% average conversion rate across the full programme

• Consistent performance across 7 languages and more than 100 countries

• A permanent acquisition pipeline feeding new customers into the business every month

A 21.4% conversion rate on a single campaign is a strong result. Across 2,223 campaigns, each feeding entrants into a welcome flow and a first-purchase incentive, it becomes a compounding acquisition advantage that gets more efficient over time as each campaign seeds the next.

"Gleam has been a permanent fixture in our acquisition stack for over a decade. As one of Europe's longest-running digital gaming marketplaces, we operate at a scale where consistency matters, and Gleam has matched that. At the volume we operate, that pipeline compounds into a meaningful share of new customer acquisition every month."

Marko Nowak, PR & Influencers Specialist, Kinguin

Eleven years. Four campaigns a week. Over 16 million customers. The programme Kinguin built with Gleam is not a marketing tactic - it is part of the business itself.