In this case study, we’ll explore how Influencer Hero helped Immersive Gamebox—a leading brand in the entertainment industry offering interactive gaming experiences for all ages, with over 35 venues across five countries—build and scale their influencer marketing program.
Through a micro-influencer gifting campaign, we successfully facilitated over 400 influencer collaborations within the first 8 months—boosting brand visibility across diverse cities in both the US and UK through authentic, engaging content.
How did we do it? We invited Instagram and TikTok creators to visit Immersive Gamebox venues for a group gaming experience with their friends or families, and share their experiences on social media. Top-performing influencers were re-engaged, and new creators were brought on board to support new venue openings and game launches.
Immersive Gamebox aimed to increase brand awareness and boost social media exposure in key cities near their active venues, with the ultimate goal of driving bookings and foot traffic.
The main challenge was working within a limited budget and with minimal in-house resources to manage influencer partnerships across multiple locations, making it difficult to scale the program effectively.
Unlike e-commerce brands that can easily run gifting campaigns by sending products to influencers’ homes, Immersive Gamebox faced an additional obstacle: offering on-site experiences.
This required influencers to visit specific venues, which added complexity in terms of coordinating schedules. It also increased the likelihood of influencers requesting payment, as these types of activations require more time and effort, including transportation.
That said, the brand has a fun and highly engaging product—so it was just a matter of framing the opportunity strategically!
Since the product was appealing on its own, and to help keep the client’s costs low, we reached out to influencers with an offer of a free group gaming experience at their nearest venue in exchange for a social media post. This approach helped boost brand awareness and social media growth, while also generating valuable and authentic UGC the client could repurpose for future marketing efforts.
The influencer program generated over 1.6 million impressions and $28.8K in Earned Media Value through 400+ collaborations on Instagram and TikTok. By partnering with local influencers across 25 cities in the US and UK, we not only promoted individual venues but also reached over 12 million followers with engaging, high-quality content. The campaign produced more than 300 pieces of UGC—Reels, feed posts, and stories—that the brand can continue to repurpose across social and paid media.
Beyond metrics, the long-term impact lies in the strong relationships we've built with over 50 high-performing influencers who can be re-engaged for future promotions.
To achieve the client's objective while addressing the challenges, we divided the work into two recurring and successive phases.
The first phase, known as the testing phase, involved running a continuous gifting campaign over several months. We reached out to more than 6,000 influencers on both Instagram and Tik Tok, with the goal of testing their alignment towards the brand and performance through trial posts, identifying those who created high-quality content with high engagement. This effort resulted in over 300 posts within eight months, ensuring consistent social media exposure.
Although our initial request for a gifting campaign focused on Instagram Stories or short Tik Tok videos, most influencers went above and beyond by posting Reels, Feed posts and sharing multiple times. They created relatable and engaging content with their friends or families who accompanied them to the experience.
If you want to learn more about how to execute a successful gifting and affiliate campaign, you can check out our full guide on product seeding campaigns.
Here are some useful tips on how we successfully executed the gifting campaign:
As mentioned above, gifting on-site experiences presents more challenges when onboarding influencers without fixed payments. However, since Immersive Gamebox offers group gaming experiences, we crafted outreach messages that focused on the social value of the offer—not just for the influencer, but as a fun opportunity to enjoy with friends or loved ones.
We also emphasized the creative potential of the experience, noting it as a great chance for influencers to generate high-quality, engaging content for their profiles.
As part of our outreach email flow, we offered influencers the chance to book at their convenience a free 60-minute gaming session for themselves and up to five friends, with access to a variety of popular games for all ages (such as Squid Games, Ghostbusters, Floor is Lava, and Paw Patrol). Complimentary beverages were also included to make the offer more appealing.
For the around 85% of influencers who initially declined due to the lack of fixed payment, we engaged in strategic negotiation—highlighting that this collaboration could be a first step toward a long-term partnership, with the possibility of fixed payments or other compensation in future campaigns.
Using our A/B-tested negotiation templates, we successfully converted around 35% of those who initially rejected the gifting offer.
Targeting the right influencers is essential and this was one of our first steps.
Immersive Gamebox offers gaming experiences from popular games tailored for all ages, (eg: Batman for teenagers, Paw Patrol for kids, Escape AI for adults and the whole family) and so our target was quite broad.
By using our Influencer Finder tool, which offers over 20 advanced filters such as audience location and age, we were able to select the right influencers to reach out to. We focused on the following influencer niches or categories to cover all our target audience ages and interests:
1) Family Creators: Mums and family-focused content creators were the easiest category to engage, as they saw this as a great opportunity for a fun activity with their kids or for the whole family. The experience aligned well with their usual content and audience.
Example:
@therockymtnmomma (80K followers): A mom of 3 in Colorado, close to one of our venues, sharing about Family Lifestyle, activities and travel. She enjoyed a great day with her kids and showcased all the fun in a genuine way, receiving over 10K impressions.
2) Young Adults: We collaborated with influencers in their 20s and 30s to promote the experience as a fun outing with friends or a unique date night activity.
Example:
@cai.eats.chai: Food, lifestyle and experiences. She showcased an activity with her couple and friends.
3) Geeks and Pop Culture Enthusiasts: We targeted creators who are fans of pop culture, movies, gaming, or specific franchises, especially when the games offered tied into popular themes like Squid Game or Batman. Their audience typically engages well with immersive, themed experiences.
Example:
@propway, a Creator, Engineer, and YouTuber with 148K followers and 15% Engagement Rate.
4) City-Based Creators (Local Guides)- Including foodies: Given the hyperlocal nature of the campaign, we reached out to influencers who regularly post about activities, events, or dining options in specific cities or regions. These creators were key to reaching audiences close to our venues and looking specifically for activity or experiences recommendations.
We targeted over 20 cities in the US and 5 in the UK. Some of these were: Texas, Illinois, Virginia, Utah, Colorado, Kentucky, Massachusetts and New York in the US; and London, Manchester and Essex in the UK.
Examples:
@littlesonthego (45K) is a creator who focuses on fun, family-friendly activities in Houston. She was a perfect match for the campaign, creating an authentic post which matched her style by including our experiences amongst other recommendations.
@findnewadventures, based in Houston, is a travel blogger who also shares local activities and hidden gems in her city. She took the opportunity to visit with friends and turned the experience into a genuine recommendation for her audience. She had such a great time that she even proposed organizing a giveaway for her followers afterward.
5) Lifestyle Influencers: We also engaged lifestyle creators who share a variety of content about their daily routines, outings, and recommendations.This includes foodies, Fashion, Beauty, and more. Their versatile content style allowed them to integrate the experience naturally into their feed or stories.
If you’re looking to partner with the right influencers across these diverse categories, we’ve curated a list of top creators below to help you find the best fit for your brand:
Example:
@eatsbyrachel (125K): Foodie and baker in San Francisco. She promoted a fun night out with friends.
We aimed for a mix of influencer types, focusing mostly on micro influencers (from 5K to 100k followers) as they are generally more receptive to gifting partnerships and these types of collaborations which require their presence. We achieved a 30% response rate and a 10% onboarding rate during that time.
However, while macro influencers tend to request fixed payments ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 per post, we've successfully onboarded many without fixed fees through effective negotiation.
You can find a breakdown of the types of influencers we have successfully onboarded below:
Once the influencers onboarded for this first stage posted their content, we evaluated their performance to determine whether they were a good fit for future collaborations.
The next phase of our strategy focuses on nurturing relationships with those who performed well—particularly those who created engaging content during the testing phase.
We also tagged them by city in our dashboard, which allows us to easily re-engage them whenever there's exciting news or a venue opening in their area.
Immersive Gamebox is a dynamic brand that frequently launches new games. Whenever a launch occurs, we leverage our influencer program to invite both new and returning creators to share the exciting news.
Past collaborators are a valuable asset—not only are they already familiar with the brand and its offerings, but they’re also more likely to respond quickly, which is especially useful when working with tight timelines.
While some creators may request fixed payments, working with influencers we’ve already partnered with allows us to base our offers on their previous performance. This removes the guesswork and enables more strategic, confident budget allocation.
For example, when the brand launched its new game Escape AI, we encouraged influencers—both new and returning—who were booking their experiences to choose this latest release. To build hype and make them feel special, we offered them early access to the game through an exclusive pre-launch opportunity.
We included the following message in our outreach:
“We also have some exciting news! On August 21st, we’ll be launching the world’s first immersive escape room experience: our new game, Escape AI! If you'd like to be among the few selected to experience it before its official launch—from August 13th to 21st—please share your full name, preferred date and time, and number of players so we can arrange your booking. This game is not publicly available during those dates on our website.”
This approach helped generate strong momentum, resulting in over 30 influencers promoting the game during its first month on the market.
Another way we strengthened relationships with creators who had already engaged with the brand was by re-inviting them to experience our new venue openings near their location.
Whenever we launched a new venue, our strategy followed two main steps:
Thanks to our Influencer Hero platform, which provides a clear dashboard and helps us organize partnerships efficiently, this process becomes streamlined and effective.
For example, we onboarded around 15 influencers for a recent venue opening in Massachusetts, and over 50 influencers for one of our launches in Houston.
Once an influencer has posted during the testing phase, we have a better understanding of their performance. So if they’re asking for a fixed fee and we’d like to collaborate again, we can now make a fair and informed offer based on results—rather than going in blind.
Offering payment also comes with certain advantages:
Don't know how much you should pay influencers? You can check our guide on How to Calculate and Plan your Influencer Marketing Budget.
After several months of successful collaborations through gifting, Immersive Gamebox has now decided to move forward with some paid partnerships as well. The goal is to generate higher-quality content in specific cities where certain venues need an extra promotional push. These paid collaborations are currently in progress!
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Our efforts led to sustained exposure and increased brand recognition through:
We generated valuable UGC that the brand can repurpose across social and paid channels:
We expanded the brand’s presence on a local level by:
Beyond short-term results, we also:
Influencer marketing remains a powerful tool for:
Want to learn more on how to create your own successful influencer marketing program? Contact Influencer Hero today for a free consultation.
Immersive Gamebox’s influencer success was built on three core pillars:
This approach led to:
With micro-influencer gifting as a foundation, the brand has:
This case study shows that with the right tools, strategic targeting, and consistent follow-up, even brands with physical venues and limited budgets can build impactful, city-specific influencer programs that deliver real business results. Success lies in focusing on long-term relationships, localized targeting, and data-driven decisions that turn short-term content into lasting value.
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