Should I Build It Should I Build It
01 Jul 2025
Games Marketing

Platform where products are promoted through games good for marketing ...

...people

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a platform promoting products through games for marketing professionals falls into a crowded space where numerous solutions have already been attempted, with limited success. Our analysis identifies this as a 'Swamp' category, meaning the market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves, and unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money. With six similar products already identified (n_matches = 6), competition is significant. These similar products have very low engagement (avg n_comments = 0), suggesting people are not very engaged or interested in these types of platforms. Given this context, it's essential to approach this idea with caution and a critical eye.

Recommendations

  1. Begin by thoroughly researching the existing solutions in this space, specifically focusing on why they haven't achieved widespread adoption or significant market traction. Understand their shortcomings and identify the unmet needs of marketing professionals. Look at the discussion and criticism summaries from similar products that will teach you a lot about the specifics of why those products failed or succeeded.
  2. If you decide to proceed with your platform, identify a very specific niche or underserved segment within the marketing community. For instance, focus on a particular industry, company size, or marketing channel to tailor your gaming mechanics and promotional offerings. This targeted approach can help you differentiate and gain initial traction.
  3. Instead of directly competing with existing platforms, explore the possibility of developing tools or integrations that enhance their functionality. This approach can position you as a complementary solution rather than a direct competitor, potentially opening doors for partnerships and collaborations.
  4. Consider examining adjacent problems faced by marketing professionals that might be more promising and less saturated. For example, explore solutions related to marketing analytics, content creation, or customer engagement, where gaming mechanics could add a unique and valuable layer.
  5. Before investing significant time and resources, validate your core assumptions through customer interviews, surveys, and prototypes. Gather feedback on your proposed gaming mechanics, promotional offerings, and overall value proposition to ensure they resonate with your target audience. Given the low engagement numbers of existing products, this step is particularly important to avoid building something nobody wants.
  6. Given that Promo-Spin received positive feedback for its gamified lead generation, think about other ways games can benefit marketing people: maybe instead of a 'platform' focus on one specific use case (like lead generation) and game type and grow from there. Also keep in mind that one commenter mentioned the term "Promo-spin" as not widely known, so think about naming and other go-to-market elements.

Questions

  1. What specific pain points of marketing professionals will your platform address that are not adequately solved by existing solutions, and how will your gaming mechanics directly alleviate these pain points?
  2. Given the low engagement observed in similar products, what innovative strategies will you employ to drive user adoption and sustained engagement on your platform, and how will you measure their effectiveness?
  3. How can you design your platform to avoid the pitfalls of previous 'swamp' solutions and create something fundamentally different and valuable that marketing professionals will genuinely love and consistently use?

Your are here

Your idea for a platform promoting products through games for marketing professionals falls into a crowded space where numerous solutions have already been attempted, with limited success. Our analysis identifies this as a 'Swamp' category, meaning the market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves, and unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money. With six similar products already identified (n_matches = 6), competition is significant. These similar products have very low engagement (avg n_comments = 0), suggesting people are not very engaged or interested in these types of platforms. Given this context, it's essential to approach this idea with caution and a critical eye.

Recommendations

  1. Begin by thoroughly researching the existing solutions in this space, specifically focusing on why they haven't achieved widespread adoption or significant market traction. Understand their shortcomings and identify the unmet needs of marketing professionals. Look at the discussion and criticism summaries from similar products that will teach you a lot about the specifics of why those products failed or succeeded.
  2. If you decide to proceed with your platform, identify a very specific niche or underserved segment within the marketing community. For instance, focus on a particular industry, company size, or marketing channel to tailor your gaming mechanics and promotional offerings. This targeted approach can help you differentiate and gain initial traction.
  3. Instead of directly competing with existing platforms, explore the possibility of developing tools or integrations that enhance their functionality. This approach can position you as a complementary solution rather than a direct competitor, potentially opening doors for partnerships and collaborations.
  4. Consider examining adjacent problems faced by marketing professionals that might be more promising and less saturated. For example, explore solutions related to marketing analytics, content creation, or customer engagement, where gaming mechanics could add a unique and valuable layer.
  5. Before investing significant time and resources, validate your core assumptions through customer interviews, surveys, and prototypes. Gather feedback on your proposed gaming mechanics, promotional offerings, and overall value proposition to ensure they resonate with your target audience. Given the low engagement numbers of existing products, this step is particularly important to avoid building something nobody wants.
  6. Given that Promo-Spin received positive feedback for its gamified lead generation, think about other ways games can benefit marketing people: maybe instead of a 'platform' focus on one specific use case (like lead generation) and game type and grow from there. Also keep in mind that one commenter mentioned the term "Promo-spin" as not widely known, so think about naming and other go-to-market elements.

Questions

  1. What specific pain points of marketing professionals will your platform address that are not adequately solved by existing solutions, and how will your gaming mechanics directly alleviate these pain points?
  2. Given the low engagement observed in similar products, what innovative strategies will you employ to drive user adoption and sustained engagement on your platform, and how will you measure their effectiveness?
  3. How can you design your platform to avoid the pitfalls of previous 'swamp' solutions and create something fundamentally different and valuable that marketing professionals will genuinely love and consistently use?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 6
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 0
  • Net use signal: 0.0%
    • Positive use signal: 0.0%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Promo-Spin - Grow your audience from in-person events with games

15 Aug 2023 Events Email Marketing

Promo-Spin is brand activation and lead retrieval tool that helps businesses collect information from attendees at in-person events. Create custom games linked to QR codes and incentivize users to provide you their email, phone, or any other information.

The Product Hunt launch received positive feedback. One user congratulated the team. Another user highlighted gamified lead generation as a great idea and mentioned a solid MVP. There was also a comment mentioning the term "Promo-spin" as not widely known. Overall, the comments suggest excitement and validation for the product's core concept.

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