PAID MEDIA IN GAMING
What is paid media in gaming?
Paid media in gaming is advertising bought inside games, around them and on the channels built on them. This page covers who sells it, what it costs, which format does which job, and how to measure a first test.
WHERE THE AUDIENCE IS
The audience is in games. The budget is somewhere else.
Media plans follow habit and measurement. Gaming has the time but not the numbers a planner is used to, so it gets a line for the brands that already want it and nothing for everyone else.
Share of US media time against share of ad spend
Gaming, 2026. Per cent of the total.
Gaming takes 8.6% of the time and 1.9% of the money. There is more inventory than buyers, which is why it is underpriced.
What 16 to 24s in Great Britain do each month
Per cent who play games, against per cent who watch live TV in a week.
74% of 16 to 24s play games in a month. 46% watch live TV in a week. The plan still buys the second.
UNITED STATES
2 in 3
Americans play games every week. The average player is 37.
UNITED KINGDOM
65%
of UK adults play games.
EUROPE
77%
of Europe’s 199 million players are adults. 46% are women.
WHO SELLS IT
Seven kinds of vendor
The same ad can be sold by the platform that runs the game, the publisher that made it, an ad network that sits inside it, or a DSP that resells it. Knowing which kind you are talking to tells you what they can and cannot do.
13 VENDORS
Platforms
The companies that run the places games live: Roblox, PlayStation, Twitch, Discord. They sell their own screens and, increasingly, formats inside the games on them. The widest reach and the strictest rules.
Examples: Roblox, Sony PlayStation Advertising, Twitch, YouTube Gaming, Discord.
9 VENDORS
Publishers
Studios selling ads inside their own titles, usually through a direct sales team and an insertion order. Deep audience knowledge of one catalogue, no view across anyone else’s.
Examples: EA, Gameloft, Ubisoft, Microsoft Gaming Advertising, Zynga.
27 VENDORS
In-game ad-tech
Networks that place ads inside other people’s games: billboards, rewarded video, audio, interstitials across hundreds of titles at once. The largest group, and where most of the in-game inventory is.
Examples: Unity Ads, Anzu, Gadsme, AppLovin, Playwire.
10 VENDORS
Programmatic platforms
DSPs, SSPs and mobile networks that carry gaming inventory alongside everything else. They fit the workflow a performance team already has, and they mostly carry the formats that behave like web display.
Examples: The Trade Desk, Magnite, PubMatic, Google AdMob, StackAdapt.
9 VENDORS
Gaming media and communities
Sites, apps and overlays where players spend time between sessions: news, guides, clips, forums. Sold like digital publishing, read by people who identify as gamers.
Examples: IGN, Fandom, Overwolf, Medal, Reddit.
5 VENDORS
Creators and esports
Talent agencies, tournament operators and streaming tools. Sold as sponsorship and integration, with fixed fees and bespoke measurement.
Examples: ESL FaceIt Group, BLAST, DreamHack, Loaded.
4 VENDORS
Agencies and activation studios
Studios that build and promote branded worlds on platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite. They sell the build and the media together, which is where a brand’s first gaming spend often goes.
Examples: Gamefam, Super League, Livewire. Example vendors are listed from public sources and say nothing about who GEEIQ works with.
HOW IT IS BOUGHT TODAY
Three ways gaming gets onto a media plan
None of them starts from the audience. Each starts from whichever vendor the desk already knows.
One vendor, direct
A joint business plan with a platform the agency already has terms with. Gaming gets ticked when a brief says gaming, with one vendor and the formats that vendor sells. Nothing is compared, because there is nothing on the desk to compare it with.
How most agency gaming spend is placed. 30 of the 77 vendors sell only this way.
Through a DSP
Some vendors make inventory available as a deal ID. It fits the workflow, which is the point, and it reaches the formats that behave like web display. Most of what happens inside a game, from rewarded video to a branded world, is bought direct from the vendor and never shows up in the DSP.
The route performance teams ask for first. 22 vendors also offer self-serve buying.
Not at all
The audience is in games, but the plan has no line for it. Nobody on the desk can rank the vendors, nobody has a benchmark to judge a result against, and the brief never said gaming. This is where most brands are.
The default, and the reason the inventory is underpriced.
FORMATS
Which format does which job
Gaming media is a family of formats, each sold by different vendors, each with its own job. This is the vocabulary GEEIQ uses to sort every vendor in the space.
| Format | What the player sees | Where it runs | Usually bought |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rewarded video | A video the player chooses to watch for an in-game reward. Opt-in, sound on, watched to the end. | Inside the game, mostly mobile | CPM, CPCV, or cost per install on performance networks |
| Video | A video placed at a natural break, or on a screen inside the game world. | Inside the game | CPM |
| Playable | A short, playable version of an app or a branded mini-game. | Inside the game | Cost per install, CPM |
| Interstitial | A full-screen ad between levels or sessions. | Inside the game, mostly mobile | CPM, cost per install |
| In-game billboards | A poster, a screen or a hoarding inside the game world, placed where a real one would be. | Inside the game, console, PC and mobile | CPM on viewable impressions |
| Banners and display | Standard display units in and around a game’s menus and pages. | Inside and around the game | CPM, often through a deal ID |
| Audio | An audio spot inside a game, or on a game’s soundtrack and streams. | Inside the game | CPM |
| Branded worlds and builds | A place, an item or an event the brand makes inside a platform such as Roblox or Fortnite. | Inside the game | Fixed fee, plus the build |
| Sponsorship | A brand attached to an experience, a tournament, a season or a team. | Inside and around the game | Fixed fee |
| Creators and streamers | A creator plays, wears or talks about the brand on their own channel. | Away from the game, on Twitch and YouTube | Fixed fee, sometimes CPM |
| Stream overlays | A graphic on the stream itself, around the gameplay. | Away from the game, on streams | CPM |
| Native | A brand item, offer or message that lives inside the game’s own interface. | Inside the game | CPM, fixed fee |
| Search and promoted listings | A promoted place in a platform’s search or store results. | Around the game | CPC, CPM |
| Menus and home screens | A placement on a console or platform home screen. | Around the game | CPM, fixed fee |
| Offerwall | A list of brand offers a player completes for a reward. | Inside the game, mobile | Cost per action |
GEEIQ’S VIEW
Gaming is a consideration channel
Judged across every format family, gaming media does its best work in the middle of the funnel. Rewarded video is the consideration format on the brand side: opt-in, sound on and watched to the end. On the performance networks the same unit is an app-install format. Video, native and sponsorship carry awareness, with consideration behind it. Creators carry consideration first.
WHAT TO ASK FOR
The job before the format
A vendor sells the formats it has. Start from the objective, choose the family that does that job, and then ask which vendors sell it in your market, to your audience, in a way you can measure. That order is what a plan should show, and it is the order a brief should follow.
WHAT IT COSTS
How gaming media is priced
Five pricing units, and a market that mostly does not publish its rates. Of the 27 vendors GEEIQ has documented in depth, 20 publish no rate card and 19 publish no minimum spend. Media prices come on request, which is one reason the channel stays off plans.
CPM
Cost per thousand impressions. The default for billboards, video, display and audio inside games, and for most platform screens. Ask whether the impression is viewable and who verifies it.
CPCV
Cost per completed view. Rewarded video is sold this way by brand-side vendors, because the player opts in and watches to the end.
CPI and CPA
Cost per install, cost per action. Playables, interstitials and offerwalls on the performance networks. Built for app marketers, and the reason those networks read rewarded video as an install format.
CPC
Cost per click. Search and promoted listings inside a platform’s store and search, and some display around the game.
Fixed fee
Sponsorship, creators, esports, branded worlds and takeovers. Priced per campaign, often with a build or production cost attached, and measured on terms agreed up front.
A first test
In GEEIQ’s experience a first test sits between £20k and £30k: enough for two or three lines and a result you can read.
BRIEFING
How to brief a gaming vendor
The same six things any media brief needs, in the order a gaming plan uses them. A brief with all six comes back as a plan. A brief missing two comes back as questions.
1
Objective
Awareness, consideration, traffic, app installs or sales. One objective per plan. The format families split on this line before anything else.
2
Audience
Age, gender and markets, in the same terms you use everywhere else. Age gating is standard across vendors. Interest and behaviour targeting varies by vendor, so say what matters and let the plan show who can do it.
3
Markets
Country by country. Reach, formats and rules differ between them, and some vendors sell in only one.
4
Budget band
A range is enough. It decides how many lines the plan can carry and which vendors clear their minimums.
5
Timing
Start, end and any dates that matter: a launch, a season, a retail window. Several formats need lead time for the build, so the plan needs the date before it can say what fits.
6
Benchmarks
Your current CPM, CPC and cost per result on the channels you already buy. The plan sits beside them, and a test is judged against them. Where you have none, ask for a category benchmark and treat it as a guide.
MEASUREMENT
How to measure a first test
Move a slice of the budget, run it beside your current channels, and judge it on your own numbers. The test is only as good as the comparison you set up before it starts.
Set it against what you buy
Your CPM, CPC and cost per result beside gaming’s, with the method shown. Where the formats are different, say so, and compare on the outcome rather than the unit.
Agree what counts
A viewable impression inside a game and a completed rewarded video are different things. Agree the measure for each line, and ask which third-party verification the vendor supports for that format. Roblox, for one, works with IAS and DoubleVerify.
Hold something back
Keep a market, a region or a week outside the test. Without a control you will have a delivery report, and a delivery report is not a result.
Read the numbers as estimates
Planning numbers are estimates until a vendor accepts the order. Nobody can yet show incremental reach for gaming at the plan level, because vendors are only starting to supply the data, so treat any such claim as a question to ask.
AGE RULES AND BRAND SAFETY
Who you can reach, and where your brand appears
Under-18s
Age gating is standard across vendors, and every platform splits its audience by age band. Roblox, for instance, targets 13 to 17, 18 to 24 and 25 and over, and sells under-13 inventory contextually and only direct. In the US, COPPA governs under-13s; in the UK, the Children’s Code. Plan on adults unless the brief says otherwise.
Restricted categories
Alcohol, energy drinks, nicotine, gambling and HFSS food follow each vendor’s terms and each market’s rules, and the two do not always agree. Check both before a line goes in, and expect some vendors to decline a category outright.
Where the brand appears
Inside a game the context is the game. Platforms publish suitability tiers by the age an experience is recommended for, and curated lists for brands that need them. Ask for the list of titles or experiences a line can run in, not just the audience it reaches.
GEEIQ’S VIEW
A new audience for paid media.
A new way to plan, buy and measure.
The industry talks about gaming. We talk about the audience in it: who they are, where they are, what it costs to reach them and what came back.
HOW GEEIQ HELPS
Four decisions sit behind a gaming media plan. We hold data on each one.
GEEIQ has tracked brands in games since 2018. It owns no inventory and no shopper data, which is what lets it read the market the same way for every vendor.
Map the market
Every gaming media vendor, their formats, reach, targeting, ad specs and measurement, in one directory and one vocabulary, so a shortlist can be defended in a room.
Match format to job
One published method for which format does which job, applied the same way to every vendor, with no paid placement.
Set it against what you buy
Your benchmarks beside gaming’s, in the proposal format your team already uses, with the method shown.
Measure the first test
Years of data on what brands have done in games and what came back, so a result has something to sit against.
QUESTIONS
