Beyond the Transaction: How Payments Become a Powerful Marketing Tool in Gaming

Natalia Sobakina, Director of Product Marketing, Xsolla

In both e-commerce and the gaming industry, payments are often seen as just a transaction — a backend process to optimize for speed, reliability, or simply the final checkbox in the user journey. But in reality, payments reflect how people live, connect, and engage with the world. They evolve alongside technology, respond to social change, and — if you look closely — tell a much bigger story. Beyond their functional role, payments have the potential to become a powerful marketing tool: one that drives engagement, builds trust, grows brand awareness, and ultimately boosts sales. In fact, some of the most exciting opportunities in marketing today lie in rethinking how we leverage what’s already in front of us.

The Checkout Moment: A Marketing Powerhouse

Let’s start with the why. The moment a user decides to pay is one of the most emotionally charged points in the entire user journey. They’re invested. They’re engaged. And — most importantly — their attention is fully there. That’s rare. In a digital world where attention is constantly fragmented and users drop off at the slightest friction, the checkout experience becomes one of the highest-attention moments in your entire funnel. And that’s exactly what makes it a powerful opportunity to connect. Connection, in turn, requires the right setting, an emotional continuity from the in-game experience, that comes through branding. When we talk about marketing through branding, most of the time our focus is on the top of the funnel - ads, trailers, billboards, landing pages - the places where we first capture attention. Then we ensure the continuity across these touchpoints. But some of the impactful branding moments actually happen later in the journey, at touchpoints we don’t typically associate with marketing. Bringing branding into the checkout experience — through background visuals, typography, campaign tie-ins, and game-themed assets — transforms it from a neutral transaction into a moment of brand continuity. I've seen branded checkouts increase conversion by up to 11%, while even a modest 1–2% lift can compound into millions in additional revenue across global operations.

Reinforcing Brand Identity Through Seamless Payments

It also works the other way around — checkout reinforces your brand loop. Over time, a smooth, seamless purchase flow becomes an essential part of how players experience your brand. Just like thoughtful packaging in retail or a great service in a restaurant, checkout becomes an expression of your brand values. You choose which values to showcase — convenience, a frictionless experience, security, or anything else that fits your story. Eventually, every successful transaction sends a message: "This is a brand that understands me." The impact is real: players make bigger purchases, buy more often, feel more confident trying new titles, and become more open to upsells. A successful payment starts feeling on-brand — much like Apple's sleek checkout or Amazon’s one-click buy.

A Business Lever is of Direct Communication at Checkout

Once the right, meaningful connection is built, you can start speaking directly to gamers. Visual elements in the checkout UI can be used to deliver a range of messages — from short, friendly greetings that create a more welcoming experience, to updates about new payment methods, or direct promotions featuring special offers and discounts. With just a few short direct messages at checkout, you can impact core business metrics like average transaction value, retention, and average number of purchases through campaign management. And apart from that, you can also address less obvious business challenges:

• Through highlighting certain payment methods, you can manage financial flows toward the most beneficial payment channels — whether it’s hitting volume targets for a specific payment method or optimizing for lower commission tiers. Payment partners are often directly interested in driving transaction volume through promotions — it’s their way of competing with the biggest players, reaching younger audiences, and building long-term loyalty. By partnering with major gaming brands, they can also invest in their own branding through co-marketing efforts. Many of these partners are willing to sponsor such campaigns, allowing game companies to offer discounts to players without sacrificing profit.
• Informing gamers of recently added payment methods, you can accelerate the adoption of new, more cost-effective channels.Pricing policies vary significantly depending on the type of a payment method — and in many cases, they have a direct impact on profitability. In some emerging markets, unbanked users rely heavily on costly options like direct carrier billing, where fees can take up to 70% of a transaction. With the rise of fintech startups globally, we see newer, more convenient, and cost-efficient alternatives — such as digital wallets, QR code payments, and local instant bank transfers. They lower transaction costs and often deliver a smoother checkout experience for players.
• Another way to utilize such mechanics is by leveraging the checkout as a low-friction testing ground for messaging — and then scale high-performing content across your broader marketing channels. Every high-performing checkout should include A/B testing mechanics by default. While this functionality is traditionally used to fine-tune UI and UX elements, it can just as effectively be applied to marketing messages within the interface. By testing different messaging, you can optimize not only payment-related metrics but also see what resonates most with your audience. These insights can then be used to inform messaging across other marketing touchpoints. And unlike aggressive ad buying, this kind of testing doesn’t require a media budget.

Gamifying the Checkout: Offers and Upsells

What’s better for players, better for publishers. Try creating a “discount hunt” experience for gamers by regularly featuring offers and promotions at checkout, tied to specific payment methods. By introducing dynamic, time-limited offers at the point of purchase, you tap into the same behavioral loop as in-game events — encouraging players to return frequently and check for better deals and also giving them a sense of anticipation and reward. Checkout is also a prime moment to present upsells and offers such as complementary purchases, cross-sells into other games in your catalog, subscriptions, or exclusive add-ons. What makes the checkout so powerful as a marketing tool is — once again — the moment. It’s a moment when the player has already made a purchase. And from a behavioral perspective, once someone says yes to a purchase, they’re significantly more likely to say yes again. This mirrors familiar e-commerce dynamics that gamers already trust. When done right, upsells can increase revenue by 30% and average order value by 20%.

Scale the Impact

This strategic shift — viewing payments not merely as a tool to collect revenue, but as a lever to amplify it — transforms every transaction into a meaningful, branded, and performance-driven moment. The real power emerges when this approach is scaled across multiple titles, platforms, and regions. By tailoring checkout experiences to specific player segments, preferred payment methods, and localized campaign goals, payments evolve from a backend function into a marketing tool - and - a dynamic driver of growth.