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Introduction

Jestr is a performance-based creator marketplace for gaming that helps studios get their games in front of audiences across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Studios create campaigns around their games, set a budget and CPM, and give creators the information and resources they need to make content.

Creators then choose the games and campaigns they want to participate in, create content in their own style, and earn based on the views their content generates.

Instead of paying creators a fixed amount upfront for a guaranteed post, studios pay for performance and creators retain more control over what they create.

Built for games​

Jestr is built specifically for gaming, and the platform has been shaped by running creator campaigns for indie developers, established studios, and publishers.

That experience informs how Jestr campaigns work — from our performance-based reward model and creator vetting to campaign reviews, guidelines, reporting, and the recommendations you'll find throughout these docs.

How Jestr works​

At a high level, a Jestr campaign looks like this:

1. You create a campaign

Choose the game you're promoting and configure your campaign's timing, budget, creator rewards, guidelines, resources, and other settings.

2. Creators discover your campaign

Eligible Jestr creators can discover campaigns that fit their content and choose whether they want to participate.

Creators who join a campaign are expressing interest — joining doesn't guarantee that they'll ultimately create or submit content.

3. Creators make content

Creators make short-form videos about your game in their own style while following the strict requirements you've established through your Campaign Guidelines.

Content isn't sent through a traditional studio pre-approval process before creators publish it.

4. Creators submit their posts

Creators can submit eligible content published across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Jestr tracks the performance of those posts and combines their eligible views as part of the creator's campaign performance.

5. Creators earn based on performance

Creators earn according to the campaign's CPM — or cost per 1,000 eligible views — subject to the campaign's earning thresholds, creator maximums, and other reward parameters.

Your campaign budget is distributed as creators generate eligible views rather than being committed to creators upfront.

6. You monitor everything from Jestr

As the campaign runs, you can follow content, creator participation, budget utilization, views, engagement, effective CPM, and other performance data directly from your studio dashboard.

A different approach to creator campaigns​

Traditional influencer campaigns often involve selecting creators individually, negotiating fixed rates, approving concepts or scripts, reviewing content, requesting revisions, and paying an agreed amount regardless of how the content ultimately performs.

Jestr is designed differently.

Studios provide the opportunity, guardrails, and resources, while creators decide how to turn the game into content their audience will actually want to watch.

There is no standard pre-approval process for every video. As long as a creator's content follows your Campaign Guidelines and Jestr's platform requirements, they have the freedom to create in their own style.

In return, studios aren't committing a fixed payment to every creator who joins. Creator rewards are tied directly to the eligible performance their content generates.

This balance between performance-based rewards and creator freedom is fundamental to how Jestr works.

Who are Jestr creators?​

Jestr isn't an open marketplace where anyone can immediately participate in campaigns.

Creators apply to join Jestr and are vetted before receiving access to the platform.

Within Jestr, creators may participate as Partners or UGC creators, with different levels of campaign access and reward parameters.

This gives studios access to a broad range of gaming creators and content styles while maintaining a quality bar for who can participate.

You'll learn more about the differences between creator tiers in Types of Creators.

What can you use Jestr for?​

You don't need to wait until launch to start working with creators.

Jestr campaigns can support different moments throughout a game's lifecycle, including:

  • Game announcements
  • Wishlist and awareness campaigns
  • Playtests
  • Demos
  • Steam Next Fest and other events
  • Release date announcements
  • Early Access launches
  • Full launches
  • Major updates
  • DLC and new content
  • Sales and promotions

In many cases, you can start running campaigns as soon as you have a store page and something meaningful for creators to talk about or show.

Different campaign beats benefit from different approaches, which we'll cover later in Best Practices.

What does Jestr handle?​

Jestr brings the campaign workflow together in one place.

From your studio dashboard, you can:

  • Set up games and campaigns
  • Provide game keys and creator resources
  • Configure campaign timing and embargoes
  • Set budgets, CPMs, and creator reward limits
  • Establish Campaign Guidelines
  • Manage creator requests
  • Flag content that doesn't meet campaign requirements
  • Communicate with participating creators
  • Track campaign performance in real time
  • Review individual creators and submissions
  • Share live campaign results
  • Export campaign data and reports

The rest of these docs break each part of this process down in more detail.

Getting started​

If this is your first time using Jestr, you don't need to understand every campaign mechanic before getting started.

The next few pages will walk you through preparing your studio account before you create your first campaign.

Continue to Creating an Account to get started.