Gaming

Given the deprecation of third-party cookies and the reemergence of contextual targeting, 2024 could be a big year for in-game ads – so long as game publishers position themselves as a source of premium inventory.

The online gaming platform announced a slate of new features for its Immersive Ads hub at its investor day on Wednesday, including video functionality and contextual and age-based targeting available on a self-serve basis.

Skip4, a new gaming-focused ad agency led by women who proudly wear the “gamer” label, is leaning in to grow the channel’s share of media budgets.

Though some early media coverage of the program suggested participants will get greater access to Roblox-provided data, that’s not actually the case. But partners will get a direct line to Roblox personnel for support.

Pundits predicted Microsoft would use Xandr to create an ad-supported video game content fortress, with the ad tech business getting exclusive access to Microsoft’s gaming IP. Any ambitions in that direction may now be on hold.

Enthusiasm about video games is surging, but marketing budgets have yet to catch up to the hype. Gaming ad spend is growing, but at a slower rate than other emerging channels.

Ahead of her appearance at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview on February 7, Samantha Lim, SVP of gaming strategy for Publicis Media, talks the growth of intrinsic in-game ad inventory and the next steps for in-game programmatic.

For advertisers itching to use automatic content recognition (ACR) to target their messages to gamers on their CTVs, 2023 may be their year. The expected expansion of in-game advertising to console games this year should unlock more applications of ACR data in gaming.

In 2022, top players in digital advertising finally started taking gaming seriously, and the groundwork was laid for programmatic in-game advertising to grow thanks to a long overdue update to the IAB’s and MRC’s in-game ad standards. The scene is also set for in-game advertising to expand into console gaming, and we might even see the debut of the first sell-side platform dedicated to gaming.

Brands are starting to look at video games as an inventory source, but there’s no scaled programmatic infrastructure to help aggregate supply in video games. And so that’s where in-game ad platform Bidstack is focusing its road map.  “We’re moving toward being a gaming SSP, a pure tech play,” Bidstack Founder and CEO James Draper told AdExchanger.