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Metaverse marketing is a brand promotion strategy in immersive virtual spaces (Roblox, Decentraland, Fortnite, Horizon Worlds) using Web3 tools: NFTs, virtual showrooms, avatar marketing, and interactive events. Unlike traditional digital marketing, metaverse marketing creates an experiential environment in which users interact with the brand, rather than simply consume its content.
Key Takeaways:
- Metaverse marketing uses immersive virtual spaces to create brand experiences, not ads
- Top platforms: Decentraland (Web3), Roblox (mainstream), The Sandbox (NFT-focused)
- Entry cost: from $15,000 for event-based activations
- Best suited for: crypto brands, gaming companies, luxury goods, and Gen Zβfocused brands
- McKinsey projects the metaverse to generate $5 trillion in value by 2030
What Is the Metaverse?
There is an ongoing metaphysical debate surrounding the term “metaverse”. The simpler way to put it would be something like this: a metaverse is a collective virtual shared space where people can engage with each other and benefit from doing so.
What Can You Do in a Metaverse?
Metaverses are created to expand real-life social experiences. You can think of them as the next step in the evolution of social networks.
Users interact with a metaverse’s digital world and each other through virtual avatars. Metaverse avatars are usually deeply customizable and serve as a means of self-expression.
Is a Metaverse a Game?
Metaverses can be compared to MMOs like World of Warcraft and other massively multiplayer games. However, there are some key differences. A metaverse is mainly based on the blockchain and fueled by cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Crypto and non-fungible tokens are the cornerstones of a metaverse experience; besides, a metaverse has no pre-defined “gameplay”. In video games, players are given specific tasks set by the developers and are offered specific rewards for completing them. A metaverse can be compared to an open-world game, but it’s the “players” who decide what they can do and how they should reward each other.
One of the most prominent examples of a blockchain metaverse is Decentraland, based on the Ethereum blockchain.
A typical metaverse:
- Lives off user-generated content as opposed to developer-created
- Is always active and never stops
- Exists in real-time and is synced with the physical world
- Offers its users full agency over their activities and assets
- Is a self-contained and fully functioning universe
- Spans different platforms and is interoperable
Top Metaverse Platforms for Brands
Not all metaverses are created equal β and in 2026, platform choice matters more than ever. Below are the five platforms most relevant to brand marketing, along with their current state and audience fit.
Decentraland
The Ethereum-based Decentraland remains the gold standard for Web3-native brand activations. In this virtual world, users buy and explore NFT land parcels, build stores, attend events, and trade digital assets using the platform’s native MANA token. Decentraland’s audience skews crypto-literate and older (18β35), making it the preferred choice for blockchain brands, DeFi protocols, and Web3-first companies. Samsung’s flagship 837X virtual store was built here, drawing crypto-native audiences in a format that no traditional social platform could replicate.
Meta Horizon Worlds
Meta Horizon Worlds serves as a cautionary tale for the metaverse space. Launched in December 2021 alongside Facebook’s high-profile rebrand to Meta, the platform never gained traction: monthly active users peaked below 200,000 despite over $80 billion invested in Reality Labs across the years. In March 2026, Meta officially announced that Horizon Worlds would be removed from Quest VR headsets entirely by June 15, 2026 β ending its run as a VR-first social platform and pivoting to a mobile-only experience. Reality Labs posted a $6.02 billion operating loss in Q4 2025 alone. For brands considering enterprise metaverse presence, Meta’s retreat underscores a critical lesson: platform adoption is the prerequisite for marketing ROI. The mobile version of Horizon Worlds lives on, but brand investment is best directed toward platforms with proven, growing user bases.
Roblox
Although not blockchain-native, Roblox is the dominant metaverse marketing platform for mainstream and consumer brands in 2026. With approximately 70β85 million daily active users β over 80% of whom are under 16 β Roblox provides unmatched reach to Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. The platform operates on Robux, its internal currency, and users earn real-world income by building games. Roblox’s partnership roster includes Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, H&M, Netflix, and the NFL. In 2025, Roblox launched rewarded video ads in partnership with Google Ads, reporting 80β90% video completion rates and an 87% positive user review rate β metrics that outperform most social media ad formats. Average session length on Roblox exceeds 90 minutes, compared to 15β20 minutes on traditional social platforms.
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity’s Lunacia is a metaverse built for the play-to-earn economy. Players buy, explore, and harvest virtual land parcels in a blockchain-based kingdom, earning SLP tokens and competing for rare land NFTs tradeable on the Axie Infinity Marketplace. Lunacia targets a niche but highly engaged Web3 gaming audience that responds well to NFT-based brand incentives and token reward campaigns. For crypto and GameFi brands, it remains a valuable activation channel.
The Sandbox
The Sandbox is an open-world blockchain metaverse where users build games, buy land, and monetize digital experiences β often described as the blockchain equivalent of Roblox. Its ecosystem runs as a DAO, fueled by the SAND token, and all assets are NFT-native. The platform has attracted notable brand partnerships: Adidas, Snoop Dogg, and multiple entertainment labels have built permanent virtual experiences here. With over 1 million registered wallets, The Sandbox targets a crypto-curious audience aged 18β35 and works particularly well for gaming brands, music labels, and companies targeting collectors and NFT investors.
Why Metaverse Marketing Works: 8 Key Benefits
By 2026, one in four people worldwide will spend at least one hour daily in the metaverse, and 30% of organizations will have products or services ready for this space (Gartner).
Immersive Brand Experiences
Only 3% of online content is interactive. Everything else asks users to watch or scroll. Metaverse replaces that with mini-games, branded challenges, and showrooms users choose to enter. Average session in a virtual environment β 90 minutes. On social media β 15β20.
Reaching Gen Z and Digital Natives
Over 80% of metaverse users are under 16. 65% of Gen Z and Millennials in the US engage with metaverse platforms weekly (2025). This generation doesn’t consume brands β it participates in them. The metaverse is where they meet brands before they have purchasing power.
Visual and Spatial Discovery
In virtual worlds, users walk through showrooms and try products on avatars instead of browsing 2D photos. The virtual fitting room market reached $6.86 billion in 2025. Retailers implementing virtual try-on report 27% fewer returns and 19% higher conversion.
Cross-Platform Asset Portability
NFTs, wearables, and avatar items bought in The Sandbox can carry brand identity into Decentraland and other compatible platforms β without additional spend. One asset, multiple touchpoints.
Digital Sales and NFT Revenue
In 2022, Adidas, Nike, and Gucci generated $137.5 million in NFT sales combined. A digital Gucci Dionysus bag sold on Roblox for $4,115 β the physical version costs $3,400. McKinsey projects metaverse ecommerce to reach $2β2.6 trillion by 2030.
AI-Driven In-World Marketing
AI-powered NPC characters present products, guide users, and answer questions without human input around the clock. Machine learning adjusts what products a user sees based on behavior history. No staffing costs, no time zones.
IoT and Real-World Sync
Metaverse environments can respond to users’ physical context β location, weather, movement. Nike’s NIKELAND translated real-world movement via mobile accelerometers into in-game actions. The result: advertising that rewards real behavior with virtual outcomes.
Co-Creation and World-Building
Brands can invite communities to design spaces, not just visit them. Over half of Roblox users consider their avatars an extension of themselves β making every branded item a personal statement. Users who co-create a brand space become its advocates without a separate influencer budget.
Metaverse Marketing Platforms: Comparison for Brands
| Platform | Best for | Audience | Entry cost | Web3 native? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decentraland | Crypto/Web3 brands | 18β35, crypto-native | $20K+ | β Yes |
| The Sandbox | Gaming + NFT brands | Gamers, collectors | $15K+ | β Yes |
| Roblox | Youth brands, FMCG | Under 25 | $30K+ | β οΈ Partial |
| Fortnite | Mainstream brands | 18β34 | $50K+ | β No |
| Meta Horizon | B2B, enterprise | 25β45 | $25K+ | β No |
How to Launch a Metaverse Marketing Campaign: 6 Steps
- Define your goal β brand awareness, community building, or direct NFT sales?
Each requires a different platform and budget. - Choose the right platform β Decentraland and The Sandbox for Web3/crypto audiences;
Roblox and Fortnite for mainstream Gen Z; Meta Horizon Worlds for enterprise brand presence. - Create a minimum viable presence β start with a branded virtual space or event,
not a full-scale world. Budget: $15,000β$50,000 for entry-level activation. - Develop digital assets β NFTs, wearables, avatar items. These serve as both
marketing collateral and revenue streams. - Activate through virtual events β launches, concerts, brand experiences.
NASCAR’s Roblox activation generated 24 million visits in 10 days (McKinsey, 2022). - Measure and iterate β track unique visitors, dwell time, NFT secondary sales,
and cross-over conversions to physical products.
A Checklist for a Sound Metaverse Marketing Strategy
Build a Brand NFT Collection
CryptoKicks, made by Nike and RTFKT, are one of the best examples of how a properly implemented NFT collection can drive brand awareness and interest, and vice versa. Since most usable assets in the metaverse come as NFTs, it’s crucial to arm yourself with the power of non-fungible tokens to provide three-dimensional brand interaction experiences.
ICODA digital marketing agency offers high-quality NFT development services that can unlock your brand’s true metaverse potential. Contact ICODA now to kickstart your metaverse marketing.
Acquire Virtual Land Early
Pretty much every metaverse is divided into a finite number of land plots. As more and more people join into the new virtual reality, virtual land becomes increasingly expensive by the day. Investing in well-positioned NFT land plots will both prove a worthy investment and allow for creative freedom for you and your customers.
Design Gamified User Experiences
Simply showing off your new product line won’t get you too far. What really makes a difference in a metaverse marketing strategy is gamified interactive experiences. Users want to score points, face challenges, be pushed to the edge of their creative capacity, and ultimately feel rewarded for doing so.
Integrate Augmented Reality
The popularity of AR in the metaverse is on the rise. The most common use for it is dressing rooms in fashion brands, but you can go well beyond that. Just think about how your brand could benefit from augmented reality, and make sure to include that experience in your metaverse marketing strategy.
Launch Digital Avatar Merchandise
One could make a point that an NFT handbag is useless compared to a physical one, but that doesn’t prevent virtual bags and accessories by Gucci, Digital Couture, et al., from being bought and sold for thousands of dollars per piece.
Brand digital assets are crucial to your metaverse marketing campaign, and your content doesn’t even have to be unique to sell well. NFT accessories can well be the exact replicas of their real-world counterparts. A digital replica of the Gucci Dionysus bag went for $4,115 in Roblox β exceeding the $3,400 price of the physical version.
Balance Native and Interactive Ads
After buying a plot of digital land, you will be tempted to flood it with banners, leaflets, and other types of native ads wherever the user goes. What really matters is the balance between native and interactive ads. To strike the right ratio, ask yourself what exact purpose each element of native advertising serves and how it can work with β or against β the interactive experiences around it.
Real-World Metaverse Marketing Examples
The most effective way to understand metaverse marketing is through brands that have already done it β and measured the results. Here are three campaigns that generated verifiable outcomes, along with the lessons they carry for brands considering their first metaverse activation.
Nike: NIKELAND on Roblox (2021β2024)
Nike launched NIKELAND on Roblox in November 2021 β a branded virtual world modeled after Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon headquarters, featuring mini-games, a digital showroom, and avatar merchandise. The activation introduced a physical-digital bridge: users could sync their mobile accelerometers to translate real-world movement into in-game actions like speed runs and long jumps, directly embedding Nike’s “movement is play” brand identity into gameplay.
Over its three-year run, NIKELAND attracted over 31.5 million visits from more than 200 countries. Nike’s broader digital strategy β of which NIKELAND was a centerpiece β grew to represent 26% of total Nike brand revenue. The accompanying NFT line, CryptoKicks Dunk Genesis, sold 600 pairs in six minutes, generating $3.1 million. NIKELAND closed in May 2024, but its legacy is the blueprint it created: a persistent branded world that rewards engagement, connects to real-world behavior, and drives both community and commerce simultaneously.
Key lesson: A metaverse experience needs a reason to return. NIKELAND succeeded because it tied the virtual experience to real-world events (NBA All-Star Week, the FIFA World Cup) and refreshed content continuously. Static virtual spaces lose users within weeks.
Gucci: Garden Experience and Gucci Town on Roblox
Gucci’s metaverse story is one of the most data-rich in the industry. In 2021, to mark its 100th anniversary, Gucci created the Gucci Garden on Roblox β a two-week immersive experience simulating the brand’s Florence exhibition space. The activation attracted 20 million visitors in two weeks. During the event, a digital replica of the Gucci Dionysus handbag sold on the platform for $4,115 β exceeding the $3,400 retail price of the physical version, a data point that forced the industry to take virtual commerce seriously.
Gucci followed with a permanent space, Gucci Town, offering ongoing content, avatar items priced between $9 and $18, and regular updates tied to real-world campaigns. The Gucci Supergucci NFT collaboration with SUPERPLASTIC generated over $20 million in sales. Research published in Thunderbird International Business Review (2025) found that Gucci’s Roblox presence enabled the brand to expand affordably and boost awareness among younger audiences at a fraction of traditional luxury advertising costs.
Key lesson: Low-cost virtual items ($9β$18) create meaningful customer journeys toward higher-value physical purchases. Gucci’s metaverse strategy is a funnel, not a side project β it converts digital engagement into real-world brand preference among audiences who would otherwise be out of reach.
Samsung: 837X on Decentraland
Samsung’s 837X activation on Decentraland was designed for a different audience than Roblox campaigns: crypto-native users who understand blockchain and hold digital wallets. Samsung recreated its flagship 837 NYC experience store as a fully navigable Web3 space, featuring three themed environments β Customization Forest, Sustainability Forest, and Stage β along with NFT badge rewards for users who completed in-world challenges.
The campaign succeeded because it matched platform to audience: Decentraland’s crypto-native users appreciated the Web3 mechanics and NFT rewards in a way that a Roblox audience would not. Samsung used the activation to position the brand as a Web3-fluent technology company β a positioning difficult to achieve through traditional advertising.
Key lesson: Platform-audience fit determines campaign success more than production budget. The choice of Decentraland over Roblox was a strategic statement about who Samsung was trying to reach β not just where the most users are.
The Challenges of Metaverse Marketing
Data Privacy in the Age of Biometric Marketing
VR headsets record gaze direction, body movement, facial micro-expressions, and physiological responses. Combined with avatar behavior and purchase history, this creates profiles that reveal health conditions and psychological states β without users realising it.
GDPR applies to any brand serving EU users, regardless of where the brand is based. Biometric data collected through VR falls under special categories of sensitive data, requiring explicit consent and a data protection impact assessment before processing. A Web3 brand with a virtual store in Decentraland serving European users is subject to GDPR even if its servers are in Singapore.
In 2026, the EU AI Act adds another layer: AI systems used for behavioral targeting or user profiling in virtual environments are classified as high-risk, with penalties of up to 7% of global annual revenue for non-compliance. Brands planning AI-driven NPC marketing or real-time audience segmentation must audit these systems before deployment.
High Web3 Onboarding Friction
Entering Decentraland or The Sandbox requires a user to create a crypto wallet, record a 12β24 word seed phrase, buy cryptocurrency, understand gas fees, and approve on-chain transactions β before experiencing a single second of the branded environment. One mistake means irreversible financial loss with no customer service recourse.
Wallet abstraction (Ethereum’s EIP-4337) is reducing this friction: apps hide the wallet entirely, cover gas fees, and replace seed phrases with recoverable accounts. But as of 2026, most blockchain-native platforms still require meaningful Web3 literacy.
The consequence for platform selection is direct: Roblox and Fortnite onboard users in seconds with no crypto knowledge required. Decentraland and The Sandbox reach an audience that already holds wallets. For campaigns targeting general consumers, onboarding friction is a reach ceiling, not a solvable UX problem.
Ownership, IP, and the Evolving Legal Landscape
In 2023, a New York jury found artist Mason Rothschild liable for trademark infringement for selling NFTs depicting HermΓ¨s Birkin bags without authorisation β establishing that trademark law applies in virtual environments. HermΓ¨s was awarded $130,000.
By late 2025, AI-generated NFT knockoffs had scaled the problem: counterfeit virtual sneakers, unauthorised brand NPCs, and digital replicas of physical products were being created and distributed globally within minutes. The virtual goods market is projected to reach $509 billion by 2033. IP disputes are scaling with it.
Protection requires metaverse-specific trademark registration β Nike, Gucci, and others have filed dedicated applications since 2022. Without it, third parties can exploit legal ambiguity. Brands also face exposure in the other direction: Roblox’s terms grant the platform a licence to use, reproduce, and distribute any UGC created within it, including brand content.
Jurisdiction compounds everything. A virtual space accessible to users in the EU, US, Japan, and Brazil is simultaneously subject to GDPR, CCPA, APPI, and LGPD. No single framework reconciles them. The working default: treat the strictest applicable regulation as the operational baseline.
Is Metaverse Marketing Right for Your Brand?
The metaverse is not a universal marketing channel β and 2026 makes that clearer than ever. Meta’s retreat from Horizon Worlds VR, after investing over $80 billion and attracting fewer than 200,000 monthly users, is proof that platform presence without audience fit produces nothing. At the same time, Roblox’s 70β85 million daily active users, Gucci’s 20 million Roblox visitors in two weeks, and $137.5 million in combined NFT sales by Nike, Adidas, and Gucci in a single year demonstrate that the commercial case for metaverse marketing is real β for the right brand, on the right platform, built with the right mechanics.
According to McKinsey, the metaverse could generate up to $5 trillion in economic value by 2030. The brands establishing presence now will hold community equity, platform expertise, and data that later entrants cannot quickly acquire. The technology and audience are now mature enough for deliberate strategy β but immature enough that early movers still hold a meaningful advantage.
Metaverse marketing is a strong fit if your brand targets audiences under 25, operates in Web3 or crypto, sells products with strong visual or identity dimensions (fashion, gaming, sports, luxury), or has community-building as a core marketing objective. It requires more preparation than a social media campaign β but it delivers something social media cannot: a space where users choose to spend 90 minutes, not 15 seconds.
Kickstart Your Metaverse Marketing With ICODA
If you feel like your brand needs metaverse marketing β look no further than ICODA. It is a multinational team of blockchain developers and marketing experts with proven, year-long experience in the field. With ICODA, you will tailor your marketing campaign to your budget in the most cost-efficient way. You will also gain invaluable insight into the intricacies of blockchain marketing, which will help you further strengthen your brand’s presence both in the metaverse and IRL. Contact ICODA to start your successful metaverse journey now.
Frequently Asked Questions About Metaverse Marketing
Metaverse marketing is promoting a brand inside 3D virtual worlds β such as Roblox, Decentraland, or Fortnite β by creating experiences users can participate in, rather than ads they scroll past.
Yes, for the right audience. Brands targeting Gen Z and Web3 users report 27β40% higher engagement rates in metaverse campaigns versus social media only. Gucci’s Roblox activation attracted 20 million visitors in two weeks, and Nike’s NIKELAND accumulated over 31.5 million visits across 200 countries over three years.
The most effective strategies for crypto and Web3 brands are: (1) NFT-based loyalty programs, (2) virtual land acquisition in Decentraland or The Sandbox, (3) community events with token rewards, and (4) influencer partnerships with metaverse-native creators.
Web3 marketing is a broader term covering blockchain-based strategies including DeFi promotion, DAO marketing, and tokenomics. Metaverse marketing is a subset of Web3 marketing focused specifically on immersive virtual-world activations.
Nike (NIKELAND on Roblox β 31.5M visits, closed 2024), Gucci (Garden Experience + Gucci Town on Roblox), Adidas (Into the Metaverse NFT campaign), Samsung (837X on Decentraland), and JPMorgan (Onyx Lounge in Decentraland).
