Top Digital Advertising Channels for Monster Energy Gaming Between Q4 2022 & Q1 2023

Key Takeaways

Monster Energy collaborated with convenience store, Circle K, and food delivery company, Casey’s General Store to provide a convenient place for consumers to purchase their energy drinks. The collaboration with Circle K also included a free slice of pizza with each energy drink purchase via SMS marketing.

• Actionable Recommendations
  Emphasize free-with-purchase offers through SMS marketing, such as Monster Energy’s free pizza with every purchase of their energy drink at Circle K. Partnering with food vendors to provide new purchasing channels gives customers easy access to your product

Monster Energy’s contest landing page encourages the audience to purchase their products by stating how each purchase equates to unlocking a limited edition skin in Apex Legends.

• Actionable Recommendations
  Ensure your landing page is curated to match the ad’s offering. Monster Energy leads the audience through to a curated landing page about the contest details and states how the customer receives a “win” with each purchase.

Utilize pro-gamers and popular streamers like Tucker “Jericho” Boner as the face of the ad campaign to give greater recognition to the ad.  

• Actionable Recommendations
  Create ads that feature popular streamers and pro gamers to promote a contest. Collaborating with these influencers through sponsored streams, product placements, or endorsements can significantly boost your brand visibility and credibility among gamers.

Monster Energy display ads directed the audience to an Amazon storefront where fans can buy their energy drinks and have it shipped to their home.

• Actionable Recommendations
  Direct online campaigns to Amazon storefronts, which allows your brand to tap into Amazon’s vast customer base, and offers convenience and accessibility to customers who prefer shopping online. 

Monster Energy focused on promoting their ads on Fandom, a popular Wikipedia website for games. Their prioritized focus on fandom accounts indicates that they are putting time into dedicated gamers.

• Actionable Recommendations
  Identify alternative platforms where dedicated gamers spend their time such as niche gaming communities on reddit, steam communities and GameSpot forums to target a similar audience.

For gaming, Monster Energy allocated the highest advertising budget towards Twitch, which accounted for 37% of the total budget, amounting to $1.7M.

• Actionable Recommendations
  Increase advertising efforts on Twitch. Twitch offers interactive formats that go beyond traditional display ads. For example, you can run preroll/ midroll video ads during livestreams or use Twitch's unique "Extensions" to create interactive overlays or mini-games within streams.

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Between Oct. ‘22 to Apr. ‘23, Monster Energy allocated $13.7M to digital ads, with 34% (4.7M) of the budget allocated towards gaming ads. Overall, monthly ad spend has been trending downward. 

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Total ad spend has decreased by -51%, while gaming ad spend has decreased by -98% from Q4 2022 to Q1 2023.

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Monster Energy spent the most on gaming ads during Q4 2022 to promote Apex Legends.

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Between Oct. ‘22 to Apr. ‘23, the highest priority for ad spend allocation was given to Instagram, which accounted for 30% of the total budget, amounting to $4.1M. 

Following that, YouTube and Twitch were the next significant channels, with $2M (14%) and $1.9M (14%) of the budget allocated to them, respectively.

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Digital Ad Spend: Oct. ‘22 - Dec. ‘22 vs. Jan. ‘23 - Apr. ‘23

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Twitch, Twitter, Display, YouTube, and Facebook all saw dramatic decreases in ad spend from Oct. ‘22 - Dec. ‘22 to Jan. ‘23 - Apr. ‘23, while Instagram saw a slight decrease.

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TikTok saw a dramatic increase in ad spend from Oct. ‘22 - Dec. ‘22 to Jan. ‘23 - Apr. ‘23 while Snapchat and Paid Search saw a slight increase. 

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The highest priority for ad spend allocation was given to Twitch, which accounted for 37% of the total budget, amounting to $1.7M. 

Following that, Display and YouTube were the next significant channels, with $1.5M (32%) and $867K (18%) of the budget allocated to them, respectively.

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All channels saw decreases in ad spend from Oct. ‘22 - Dec. ‘22 to Jan. ‘23 - Apr. ‘23. 

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Monster Energy spent 100% of its budget on Desktop ads on Twitch.

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Twitch Tactics

• On Brand Colors: Monster Energy’s ads are all shot with their brand colors of black and green as the main color scheme.

• Partner with Streamers: This ad partners with Twitch Steamer, Tucker “Jericho” Boner to promote their collaboration with Circle K to give the audience a free slice of pizza with every purchase of a Monster Energy drink. 

• SMS Marketing: This ad encourages the audience to text ‘Monster’ to 31310 to get sent a link for a free pizza coupon to Circle K. In return, Monster Energy gets to capture their audiences’ phone numbers. 

Spend: $1.7M | Imp.: 75.9M | CPM: $22.4 | Landing Page

Spend: $53.5K | Imp.: 2.4M | CPM: $22.3 | Landing Page

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Monster Energy budgeted 88% ($1.5M) toward Desktop ads and 12% ($205K) towards Mobile ads.

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Display Tactics

• Landing Pages: Monster Energy’s landing pages either lead to their Amazon storefront, where fans can buy their energy drinks or a curated landing page for the contest. 

• Amazon Storefront Visuals: Monster Energy’s Amazon storefront contains imagery with high visual potency. When customers arrive at the page, their senses are immediately stimulated through the high-contrast imagery. 

• Win Exclusive Content: Monster Energy entices the audience to purchase their energy drinks by ensuring that the audience unlocks exclusive Apex Legends in-game content with every purchase.

Spend: $405K | Imp.: 38.3M | CPM: $10.6 | Landing Page

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Spend: $15.8K | Imp.: 7.1M | CPM: $2.2 | Landing Page

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Display Tactics

• Multiple Formats: Monster Energy repurposes an ad creative in multiple formats by shifting around the images in text to fit into various different sizes.

• Bold Text & Color Contrast: All of the text in Monster Energy’s ads are fully capitalized and against a black background to help accentuate and attract attention to the message. 

• Call-to-Action Button: Monster Energy puts a bolded neon green call-to-action button on their ads to entice viewers to click on the ad.

• Feature Pro Gamers: Monster Energy sponsors Alliance’s Apex Legend pro gaming teams and utilizes the portraits of pro-gamers to utilize in their ads. 

Spend: $425K | Imp.: 32.5M | CPM: $13 | View Landing Page

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Spend: $354K | Imp.: 28.1M | CPM: $12.6 | View landing page

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Spend: $220K | Imp.: 39.6M | CPM: $5.5 | View landing page

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Display Tactics

• Main Websites: Monster Energy focused on promoting their ads on Fandom, a popular Wikipedia website for games. Their prioritized focus on fandom accounts indicates that they are putting time into dedicated gamers, leaving a gap for entry-point and casual gamers as well.

• 28% - Old School Runescape Fandom
• 22% - Futhead
• 14% - Fandom
• 10% - Urban Daddy
• 6% - Muthead
• 3% - Dragon Age Fandom
• 3% - Final Fantasy Fandom
• 3% - Fallout Fandom
• 3% - Livestrong
• 2% - Borderlands Fandom
• 6% - Other

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15-second video ads were the most popular format, followed by 5-second video ads. 

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YouTube Tactics

• High-Intensity Music: Both ads by Monster Energy utilize music that elevates the heart rate and matches the music played in the video game, Apex Legends.

• Branded Hashtag: Monster Energy uses the hashtag #RallyYourSquad on all the posts and ads related to their contest with Apex Legends. 

• Exclusive Skins: Each purchase of a Monster Energy drink helps unlock a new exclusive skin for Apex Legends. 

• Contest Landing Page: Monster Energy directs users to a curated landing page in both of their ads. Between Oct. ‘22 to Apr. ‘23, the landing page generated 245K visits.

Spend: $679K | Imp.: 37.6M | CPM: $18 | Landing Page

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Spend: $187K | Imp.: 10.4M | CPM: $18 | Landing Page

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Digital Advertising Data Source Caveat