Niche
Match-3 puzzle games vs a creator marketplace
A creator marketplace is a real product. It is a catalog of people who signed up to get deals. I still want the people the algorithm is already pushing to the person who would actually play the first session this week.
In match-3 puzzle games: the catalog is family-app reviewers and launch recappers.
The person: US English, 25-45, already bounced off a match-3 that nickel-and-dimed lives and a board that took 3 minutes to load on the subway, watches ‘I am out of lives at 8:12’ and subway-puzzle videos on a commute. Example: someone staring at a lives timer on a 12-minute subway ride. Skip the family-app reviewer who only posts preschool games.
How I actually work without the catalog
Marketplaces are good when you need a body in a niche and you can live with applicants. They are fast. They are public. Your client or your competitor can buy a version of the same list.
I scroll Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube as that person on real phones. Scout is $1,500/month for that list. Outreach is $2,500 if contacting should not be your job. Dealmaker is $5,000 if the yes should not live in DMs. Creator fees extra. No demo. No download guarantee.
Lives-gate rants already have the audience; a first board they can finish on a subway is the demo.
When to use which
Use a marketplace if you need a 200-person CRM for a store catalog. Use a feed session if you shipped a live match-3 with a first board that is not a 3-minute load, or a puzzle that does not gate lives behind a timer you cannot beat and you need names this week from the people already in the room.
Family reviewers quote kids-app rates you cannot use. I want roughly 50k average views. Below that, $700 a post for 1k views is a money sink. A Minimum View Guarantee on a call is how I keep the deal honest. Example: $2000 / 4 posts / 1M views. Over email you just get the first number.
If you do this right, ie at scale, you will have many other creators to choose from.
Money page: jumptrend.co/for/match-3-puzzles. Campaigns: jumptrend.co/campaigns.
Related: - How I find influencers - How we find creators by scrolling a real TikTok avatar - Campaigns - Brief - Money page for match-3 puzzle games