Wishlist campaigns on Steam: what each push added, and at what cost
A wishlist campaign is a dated push, such as a trailer, a creator video, an ad flight or a press feature, meant to add Steam wishlists. Measuring it means separating its wishlists from those that would have come anyway, giving the result as a range, following the effect after the paid window, and checking how many stayed.
Last reviewed · SteamStats team
The period and its timeline
| When | What happens | What changes in the data |
|---|---|---|
| The weeks before | The game's ordinary days | They show what the game gets without a push |
| Before the first post | Store links are tagged with UTM parameters | Each tagged link gets its own visits and conversions in the UTM report |
| The campaign window | Posts, videos or ads go out | Wishlists by the hour show the push the same day |
| The next day | Steamworks publishes the previous day's traffic | Impressions, visits and conversions by source and by link appear |
| Up to 72 hours after a click | Visitors wishlist or buy | Steam still credits the wishlist to the link |
| After the paid window | Videos and posts are still being found | The effect continues for a while and still counts for the campaign |
| The week after | Some new wishlisters change their minds | Deletions show how much of the gain stayed |
Questions studios ask about a campaign
- Did the campaign bring wishlists, or would they have come anyway?
- Which link, channel or Steam traffic source brought the visits?
- Did the visitors wishlist at a normal rate, or did the store page lose them?
- What did each extra wishlist cost?
- How many of the new wishlists were deleted the week after?
- Was a spike caused by something nobody planned, such as a creator or a Steam feature?
Which SteamStats views answer them
| Question | View | Refresh |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign wishlists and cost | Traffic & campaigns: each campaign's most likely wishlists with a range, organic, direct and indirect, budget and cost per wishlist | daily on Indie, Studio, and Publisher |
| Visits by link and source | Traffic & campaigns: UTM links over the last 30 days and Steam traffic sources | daily on Indie, Studio, and Publisher |
| Store page conversion | Traffic & campaigns: the funnel, with click-through and wishlists per visit against their typical range | daily on Indie, Studio, and Publisher |
| Today's push | Wishlists: today by hour against the usual day, and countries | every 60 min on Indie, Studio, and Publisher |
| What stayed | Wishlists: daily adds, deletes and net; Inbox: the Removals alert | every 60 min on Indie, Studio, and Publisher |
| Unplanned spikes | Traffic & campaigns: wishlist spikes that match no campaign; Inbox: Wishlist spike | Checked once a day has closed |
Example: a trailer week for Pebblewick
Illustrative numbers for Pebblewick, the fictional demo game by Hollow Fern Games: a 7-day trailer campaign with a budget of $1,500.00, and 2,050 wishlists in the window and the days after it while the effect lasted.
| Part | What it means | Wishlists |
|---|---|---|
| Organic | Would have come without the campaign | 1,120 |
| Direct | Came through the campaign's own links and posts | 610 |
| Indirect | Saw the campaign and reached the store another way | 320 |
| Campaign, most likely | Direct and indirect together | 930 |
| Campaign, range | Low to high | 640 – 1,180 |
| Cost per wishlist | $1,500.00 ÷ the campaign's wishlists | $1.27 – $2.34 |
The campaign most likely added 930 wishlists, and anywhere from 640 to 1,180 fits the data. About 5 days of the effect came after the paid window had ended. The cost counts only the campaign's wishlists: dividing the budget by all 2,050 wishlists would give $0.73 and make the campaign look cheaper than it was.
Plans
Campaign results use the wishlist report, read with the studio's Steamworks key, together with the traffic reports, and are part of Indie, Studio, and Publisher. Traffic and UTM reports are a beta source on the same plans and are needed for campaign results; they connect through the SteamStats browser extension or, once it is available, a Steamworks service account, and cover days up to yesterday.
Sources
- Steamworks: UTM analytics · checked November 1, 2026
- Steamworks: Store and platform traffic reporting · checked November 1, 2026
- Steamworks: Wishlists · checked November 1, 2026