How to Drive Players to Your Webshop: The 4 Funnel Stages

Building an off-platform storefront can be easy when it comes to standing up your direct-to-consumer (D2C) channel. For example, with the Unity webshop, if your app has integrated the Unity IAP SDK 5.4 or above, you can start selling your catalog to players with minimal development and design investment.

Often, the harder part is delivering a funnel that takes the right players from app to storefront with minimum friction and incentivizes them to spend, ultimately turning them into repeat direct visitors.

A webshop funnel is the path that moves a player from inside a game to a studio's own web storefront and back again; segmentation, awareness, first open and registered checkout, and repeat direct visits.

The first three stages of the webshop funnel behave like a typical marketing funnel; a defined cohort is engaged, enters, and a percentage of them convert. The fourth is a bit different. Once players have visited the webshop the first time, the fourth stage is intended to make the funnel unnecessary thereafter, so players arrive directly rather than being routed each time.

This funnel is arguably the most critical element of driving revenue through D2C channels - a store nobody visits earns nothing. This blog is your guide to building that D2C funnel: who to route first and how to move players through each stage.

Stages 1 through 3 build awareness and familiarity with the channel. Stage 4 is where D2C revenue starts compounding and delivering real impact for your bottom line. For a full breakdown of how to design your webshop to support this funnel, check out this guide.

Stage 1: Decide who enters the funnel

Your webshop launch should be considered a rollout, rather than a switch from IAP to D2C. Choosing who you route is the first step in ensuring that rollout goes smoothly and provides clean signals for testing, iterating, and refining.

It’s recommended that for the initial launch games begin with their high spenders. Players who already buy frequently have demonstrated willingness to pay and engage with your economy.

That makes them ideal customers for D2C channels. On the other hand, a first-time buyer or low-intent player who hits account registration, an external checkout, or a new portal may churn as soon as they arrive at friction. Sending a first-time buyer into a webshop can cost you a conversion that may have happened in-app.

It’s vital that the operational side is 100% user-ready before opening it up to your highest value players - a purchase that fails can be even more costly than a missed conversion. Double check that entitlements grant reliably, failed checkouts are recoverable, and that you have support ready to step in if something goes wrong.

Once you’ve completed your initial segmentation, you can start working on how to incentivize your high spenders to visit, browse, and buy in your webshop. Commonly, the small friction of a webshop visit can be offset by offering better value on items that high-value players have already shown interest in.

This can take two main forms: a discount, where an item or bundle is offered at a reduced price, or bonus value, where players get more of an item or bundle for the same price used in-app for a smaller purchase. It’s worth ensuring your incentive is compelling, as your high spenders are already repeat buyers, so they have a higher likelihood of returning to your webshop again once they complete a purchase - and you’ll pay a lower fee on those later transactions, pocketing more of the revenue.

Once you have conversion, average order value, and return-visit data from your high spenders, expand gradually to mid-tier spenders. Keep non-spenders excluded for now, since they’re still likely not worth targeting early as the friction is too high relative to their likelihood of converting. Once you’ve set up free reward mechanics, you can start including them in your campaigns - these mechanics are a great way to incentivize even non-spenders to become webshop visitors and eventually buyers.

Remember to test and roll out by region. Player behavior and payment preferences vary significantly by market, and so do platform fees and policies including how you can promote a webshop from inside your game (more on that in Stage 2). A regional test before a global rollout is a sensible way to tune offer design and discount levels, and a soft launch to your top spenders in one or two markets is often the lowest-risk way to learn.

Stage 2: Create awareness and interest

For your webshop to convert visitors, it, and its value, need to be discovered first. Any player you’d like to visit your webshop should be able to answer 3 key questions:

1. What can I find there?
2. How do I access it?
3. Why would I go there?

To empower players with the answers to these questions, you need to make it easy for them to find your webshop, see a preview of what’s in-store, and understand the value. Your introduction messaging should include a link to the webshop, a sample of the catalog, and the discount or incentive players can expect inside the storefront.

But, before you design your awareness campaign, check what you're allowed to build. In-app promotion of an external storefront isn't universally available; it’s dependent on specific regulatory and legal outcomes in particular markets and the permitted set differs between Apple and Google. Where it is available, see current App Store and Play Store terms for every market you operate in. A best practice is to treat your in-app placements as remotely configurable per storefront and region rather than something you ship globally

After completing your policy check, it’s time to get to work on how you inform players of your webshop. There are several tactics for this that you can use. The most direct in-game messaging mechanic is a notification that presents the webshop, explains the benefit, and links straight to it. Another popular placement is a banner inside the in-game store itself, or a dedicated icon, so players don’t have to dig. Other games use community hubs, such as Discord, or email players directly - and many others utilize a combination of these strategies.

Also critical is the timing of when you surface these notifications. Finding the sweet spot is about understanding your players and when they’re most likely to convert through your webshop. Each game differs for when that will be, but a common tactic is triggering the webshop introduction shortly after a player's first in-game purchase so the discounted offer reads as a reward, rather than an extra step.

Stage 3: The first open and onboarding

The first visit and transition from app to browser can be a critical moment of friction. Most players will notice when the visual experience changes, and an abrupt shift - especially when personal financial details are involved - can create a loss of trust. If the store feels cheap or unfamiliar, there’s a high chance players will leave before completing the transaction.

Replicating the in-game experience is an important part of maintaining that trust. Your webshop should feel like a natural extension of your game, not a separate product. Apply the game's color palette across the elements of the storefront, bring in key character art, and mirror the UI patterns your players already know if the game uses rounded cards with a specific border style, so should your store. Small details signal care, and care signals safety and trust.

Players will also need to be registered; connecting their game account to the webshop to ensure their purchase carries over to your game. Moreover, almost any retention mechanic you can use to get players to return will need a linked account that connects in-game identity to the webshop. This also helps to create a smoother transition from game to browser in subsequent visits, as players will arrive already logged into their accounts.

For a Unity webshop, players can register via Unity Player Accounts. Registration is the first real milestone on the way to spending and deserves its own incentive. Reward players for registering with a small gift, like a bundle of in-game currency, or with webshop exclusives.

Stage 4: Turning visits into a habit - and into direct traffic

Stores that generate meaningful revenue are the ones players return to as a matter of habit, and do so via direct traffic. Most of the retention mechanics that already work in-game can transfer directly to your webshop incentives, like daily rewards, missions, and loyalty tracks. The key is using these mechanics to migrate spenders from in-game link-outs to direct traffic.

This stage can make a significant difference in your net revenue. Where platform link-out programs apply, a purchase completed within the program's attribution window after a player taps an in-app link is attributed to the platform and carries its service fee. A purchase with no recent in-app link tap behind it, such as a player coming from a bookmark, email or Discord post, falls outside those programs and carries no platform fee. You still pay payment processing or merchant-of-record fees, and you take on the sales tax and VAT handling the platform would otherwise cover.

Each repeat visit keeps more of the purchase as margin, which you can put back into the game as better offers, bonus currency or web-only bundles that give players a reason to return. Players who visit your store directly also become a relationship you own: you have their account, their purchase history and a channel to reach them that doesn't depend on platform policies.

Examples for how to do drive players to the webshop out-of-app include:

• Discord and community channels: For games with an active Discord, this is the easiest win available: a pinned store URL, regular posts about current offers, occasional Discord-exclusive bonuses. The players who are active in your Discord community are generally your most engaged players. It’s also where players share links with each other, so the community can help with promotion for you.
• Email: Players with a linked email address can be reached directly. A biweekly email covering current deals, new exclusives, and daily reward reminders can be low-cost and high-return.
• Social: Short-form video showing off an exclusive item or demonstrating bundle value reaches players outside the game and can help drive direct visits.
• Bookmarks and home screen shortcuts: Prompt players to add the webshop to their home screen on first visit. This is a small nudge that can make every subsequent visit direct.

Funnel fundamentals for the future

Studios that treat their webshop like a live game feature can often see better results. Use a content calendar, rotate offers regularly, and make someone accountable for driving traffic to it.

While the webshop you launch on day one is not the one you will have in year two, the fundamentals used in your funnel today will likely still be relevant tomorrow. Start with a clear value offer for your highest-value players, communicate it well, build a rewarding experience to return, and you’ll have a D2C channel that delivers over the long term.

Explore Unity webshop →