Your 2025 Ad Copy Guide
Constructed from my workshop refresher
Copywriting remains one of the most important skills to learn as a pro GM. This is not something you can fake and get lasting results with.
Copywriting techniques I’ll cover in this article:
Before-After Bridge
Clear-Concise-Compelling-Credible
Immersion Tank
The Before-After Bridge
Are you familiar with bad infomercials? They’re comical but also very white. Kinda cringe, honestly. These types of infomercials show us a world where we struggle to open pickle jars, run over our garden hose with the lawn mower, and cannot seem to hold onto anything without breaking it. You’ll want to instead present realistic problems to resolve.
e.g. Before I paid for this service, I was truly lonely without friends or the ability to game. Now that I’m playing with Friday, I have friends and game super hard 3x a week!
The meta example here is my ad copy workshop advertisement, which pulls directly from this style of ad. The difference here is obviously this ad is targeting GMs on the site rather than potential players. And while I do not recommend such a heavy-handed approach for your games, it is important to understand that you are solving a problem for your player. Which problems does your game solve? Put that into your ad.
Also, you need to divorce yourself from selling your games like a publisher sells you its books or modules. They are selling to Game Masters, not players - and if you target players with the same features or benefits, that is not effective.
We are selling an experience, not goods. The plot, maps, plot or other goodies are secondary to what the experience is if it does not lend itself toward a greater experience and can be communicated effectively in the ad. Therefore, your game’s features ought to be relevant to highlighting the experience - or it gets cut from the ad.
Clear - Concise - Compelling - Credible
Ah, the 4 Cs. The most common successful ads you’ll see on Start Playing Games follow these traits.
Clear - Be absolutely clear about what type of game system, campaign, and table culture you have.
Concise - Express the ad in as concise a manner as possible!
Compelling - Compel the potential player with the promise of an exciting game that appeals to them.
Credible - Share your credentials like reviews or a video of you GMing. The more specific you can get with it, the better - if you’re sharing testimonials from people who have played this particular campaign all the better.
Take a look at these ads and try to identify how each meets the criteria of the 4 Cs (or doesn’t -
Matt is one of those pro GMs who has been on the website for so long that his community is well-established as a critter haven. In this ad he does not add credibility to the ad itself, but that does not make it a bad ad - if anything, the fact that it is on session 203 speaks for itself.
Matt’s ad is hyper focused on targeted the typical Critical Role enjoyer. CR fans want to be the center of the story and the narrative in this ad directly speaks to that tendency. His thumbnail is well crafted and includes CR lore for those who have seen campaign 2 - another way to niche down for your audience. Don’t apologize for fully investing in the genre of what you’re offering.
I’ve added a glut of “credibility” to this ad to assist in competing with inherent competition that goes alongside posting a popular module like Curse of Strahd. What separates your ad from others? You need to codify that as best you can. If you can get testimonials from your reviews that are specific to a campaign, all the better!
Furthermore, the narrative and features I speak to address how the player is going to feel while playing in this campaign. My Strahd games attract queers or allies who are kink positive and like heavy roleplay. I communicate what it is that I’m doing to the audience.
If you’d like to join that Curse of Strahd game to see what all the buzz is about, click here. :)
Or check out my other games, including lots of Daggerheart listings.
The Immersion Tank
This is one of the best images provided by Start Playing Games because it is entirely the player’s perspective. You feel sucked in immediately! In addition to that, you know exactly what is included in the campaign when you look at this image. If you are hosting Delta Green, you need to construct a campaign around this image!
Put yourself into the seat of the player.
Demonstrate the game experience.
Paint a picture of the world and their character’s role in it.
Answer logistical questions at the end.
What does an ad that incorporates these principles look like?
More than other games Vampire: The Masquerade is about creating an immersive environment. Being skilled at crafting an experience that speaks to their roleplaying curiosities is important.
Workshopping Your Ad
You mean I gotta re-write this thing a bunch? Fuck.
Write your ad.
Take a break.
Rewrite it.
Repeat x6.
Ads typically require a great deal of love. First drafts are almost never sharp enough to begin recruiting. Review the technique that you’re using before you make another editing pass to make sure that you’re correcting it in the right direction. Make it more concise whenever possible.
If you have a friend take a look at your ad to critique it, it’s important to ask for problems and feelings rather than ask for solutions. Someone viewing the ad will not be as familiar with what you’re offering as you are - so the solution will have to come from you.
If you have more questions or want to chat with others about your pro GM efforts, join my Discord and hit up my #ad-copy-workshop channel, or the #pro-gm-help forum there. I’m also hosting another workshop on Monday and can individualize some attention as required.
Click the image for the workshop.
Please share with your pals.