About this Project

This case study explores the positioning and market strategy of a B2B rewarded gaming platform. The objective was to understand its competitive alternatives, identify where it created the strongest customer value, and determine which market position and customer segments offered the greatest strategic opportunity.

The analysis focuses on competitive positioning, customer segmentation, value differentiation, and the implications for product marketing and go-to-market strategy.

Overview

The platform operates at the intersection of gaming, advertising, and user acquisition, helping mobile game companies acquire users through rewarded gameplay.

The project examined whether the strongest market opportunity was simply user acquisition, or whether the platform could differentiate around a more valuable outcome: acquiring users who remain engaged and generate downstream value.

The Challenge

The rewarded gaming market sits within a crowded user acquisition landscape.

Customers can allocate acquisition budgets across traditional performance channels, gaming-focused ad networks, and other rewarded gaming platforms. As a result, competing primarily on the mechanics of acquisition can make differentiation difficult.

The strategic question was:

What is the customer actually buying — an install, an engaged user, or downstream business value?

Answering this required looking beyond product similarity and analysing the alternatives customers would consider if the platform did not exist.

My Role

I developed a product marketing positioning and market strategy connecting competitive research, customer segmentation, performance evidence, and commercial positioning.

My responsibilities included:

• Analysing competitive alternatives and market categories

• Identifying the different customer jobs across acquisition channels

• Evaluating potential positioning territories

• Analysing customer segments and buyer priorities

• Connecting product capabilities to downstream business value

• Developing a differentiated positioning recommendation

• Defining ICP and buyer implications

• Creating messaging and go-to-market recommendations

• Developing a framework for validating the positioning hypothesis

Market Research & Competitive Insights

Rather than categorising competitors purely by product similarity, I analysed the alternatives based on the job customers were trying to accomplish.

Key Competitive Categories

This reframed the competitive question from:

“Who offers a similar product?”

to:

“Where would the customer spend this acquisition budget if this platform did not exist?”

This created a clearer view of the platform’s true competitive alternatives and the different value propositions competing for the same budget.

Strategic Insight: Value Beyond the Install

A key insight emerged when looking at the customer journey beyond acquisition:

Acquisition → Install → Engagement → Retention → Revenue

The strongest evidence suggested that the platform’s potential differentiation was not simply its ability to generate installs, but the quality and downstream value of the users it acquired.

One customer example showed that:

• 9% of UA spend generated 24% of D30 revenue

• D30 retention reached 29%

• Blended CPI was $1.70

This suggested a potentially stronger commercial story:

The value of an acquisition channel should not be measured only by how efficiently it generates installs, but by the quality of users those installs create.

The insight shifted the strategic conversation from volume of acquisition toward quality and long-term value of acquisition.

Product Positioning

I evaluated three potential positioning territories:

1. User Acquisition

Position the platform as a performance acquisition channel for mobile games.

Strength: Clear and commercially familiar.

Limitation: Places the platform into a crowded competitive environment where customers can compare channels primarily on acquisition metrics.

2. Engaged User Acquisition

Position the platform around acquiring users who do more than install — they engage, retain, and generate downstream value.

Strength: Builds on existing customer value and creates a more differentiated reason to choose the platform.

Limitation: Requires strong customer evidence across multiple accounts to substantiate the broader claim.

3. Engagement / Growth Platform

Expand the positioning beyond acquisition to encompass engagement, retention, and broader growth outcomes.

Strength: Potentially creates a larger strategic category.

Limitation: This represents a broader positioning hypothesis and would require additional customer and performance validation before being adopted.

Recommended Positioning

Based on the available evidence, Engaged User Acquisition represented the strongest current positioning territory.

Positioning Statement

Acquire users who don’t just install — they stay engaged and create long-term value.

This retains the familiarity of the user acquisition category while differentiating around the quality and downstream value of the users acquired.

Rather than asking customers to believe that the platform represents an entirely new category, the positioning builds on an existing customer priority and reframes what good acquisition looks like.

ICP & Buyer Segmentation

The positioning also informed the priority customer segments.

Primary ICP

UA Managers

Focused on acquisition efficiency, CPI, ROAS, scale, and user quality.

Growth Managers

Focused on scaling acquisition without sacrificing retention or downstream performance.

Marketing Directors / Heads of Growth

Focused on measurable business impact, efficient budget allocation, and sustainable growth.

Messaging Implications

The messaging should move beyond:

“We help you acquire users.”

toward:

“We help you acquire users who create value beyond the initial install.”

This creates a stronger connection between acquisition performance and the metrics senior growth teams ultimately care about.

Go-to-Market Strategy

The positioning has implications across the wider go-to-market motion.

Key recommendations included:

• Use customer performance data as the primary proof of differentiation

• Build case studies around downstream user value rather than install volume alone

• Equip Sales with comparisons based on user quality and business outcomes

• Develop messaging for both performance-focused UA buyers and broader growth stakeholders

• Use customer evidence to demonstrate the relationship between acquisition, engagement, retention, and revenue

• Expand the target audience only when evidence supports broader growth positioning

The strategy therefore treats positioning as more than a messaging exercise. It becomes a framework for deciding who to target, what value to communicate, what proof to use, and how the product should compete.

Validation Plan

Because positioning is ultimately a hypothesis about what customers value, the recommended strategy would require further validation.

Customer Research

Interview customers to understand:

• Why they initially selected the platform

• What alternatives they considered

• What outcomes they value most

• Whether engagement and retention influence channel selection

• What would cause them to increase or decrease spend

Performance Analysis

Analyse data across multiple customers to determine whether the relationship between acquisition and downstream value is consistent.

Sales Feedback

Use win/loss analysis and Sales conversations to identify:

• Common objections

• Competitive alternatives

• Reasons for choosing the platform

• Reasons for losing opportunities

• Which value propositions resonate with different buyer groups

Segment Analysis

Compare performance and adoption across customer types to determine which segments demonstrate the strongest product-market fit.

Deliverables

Throughout the project, I developed:

• Competitive positioning analysis

• Market category assessment

• Competitive alternatives framework

• Positioning territory analysis

• Recommended positioning

• ICP and buyer segmentation

• Messaging implications

• Go-to-market recommendations

• Positioning validation framework

Skills Demonstrated

Product Marketing

• Product Positioning

• Competitive Positioning

• Messaging Strategy

• Go-to-Market Strategy

• Customer Segmentation

• Value Proposition Development

Strategy & Research

• Competitive Intelligence

• Market Analysis

• ICP Development

• Buyer Segmentation

• Customer Research

• Strategic Positioning

Commercial Strategy

• Customer Value Analysis

• Performance Marketing Strategy

• Acquisition Strategy

• Growth Strategy

• B2B Marketing

• Data-Informed Decision Making

Key Takeaway

This project reinforced that positioning determines the battlefield a product competes on.

A product positioned as a user acquisition channel will naturally be compared with other acquisition channels. But if the product creates value further down the funnel, that value can become the foundation for stronger differentiation.

The goal is not to invent a more impressive category.

It is to identify the value customers already care about, understand which customers care about it most, and build a position that makes that value impossible to miss.

Tools & Frameworks Used

• Competitive Analysis

• Competitive Alternatives

• Product Positioning

• Market Segmentation

• ICP Development

• Buyer Persona Analysis

• Value Proposition Framework

• Customer Journey Analysis

• Performance Data Analysis

• Go-to-Market Strategy

• Positioning Validation

• AI-assisted Research