The advertising market is growing dynamically. This year global ad spending will exceed US$752.8 billion. The largest part of global ad spending goes to digital channels, where gaming advertising is one of the hottest trends. According to IAB, 85% of advertisers agree that game advertising is a high-quality, premium place to advertise. So, let’s take a closer look at the possibilities and potential of gaming advertising!
The digital market expands dynamically
Advertisers across the world invest in digital ads. They move ad budgets from traditional media to digital because of various reasons. The most important ones are personalization, efficiency, and precise measurement.
When we take a look at numbers, over 60% of global ad budgets will go to digital channels in 2024. The majority of ad spend worldwide goes to digital, and – what’s more – it is a stable trend that marketers will observe in the following years. And digital advertising is a prime channel that enables marketers to reach gamers with our data. What can we expect in the digital ads area this year?
Nielsen reports that 72% of global marketers expect bigger ad budgets in 2024. Investing in online ads will be a priority for marketers this year. Sensor Tower reveals that US digital ad spend surpassed $25 billion in the first quarter of 2024, with 3.3 trillion impressions and a 16% year-over-year growth rate.
What’s more, IAB Europe released the AdEx Benchmark Report 2023, revealing that the European digital ad market grew 11.1% year-over-year in 2023, reaching nearly 97 billion euros. This shows that intentions of marketers across the world are clear – the most important channel for their ads is digital. And it is a natural ecosystem for gaming advertisers that is a hot area for advertisers globally.
Game advertising – reaching players in online campaigns
Gaming is extremely popular. It is the king of entertainment for various generations. Just let’s take a look at the global number of players. There are more than 3 billion gamers worldwide. Nearly half of the world’s total population plays video games. It is a huge and valuable group to target, and that is why marketers are focusing on players.
It’s worth noticing that 80% of consumers worldwide are gamers, according to a Newzoo report. What’s also interesting is that consumers across every generation prefer to play games over other types of engagement. This is compelling proof that reaching gamers is extremely important, while almost every consumer is a gamer.
Why are gamers a valuable group for marketers? Let’s take a look at frequent players – they are highly engaged and have twice the spending power of non-gamers. Targeting them could bring much better results than targeting non-players who have lower spending power.
Who are today’s players?
Among 3 billion gamers worldwide, marketers can find almost every target group they’re looking for. Advertisers can choose their target market, and profiles of users, who – for example – look for headphones, keyboards or read a lot about specific game titles.
Today’s players are no longer teenagers who play video games most of the time in their rooms. Average gamer age is 35, and 46% of gamers are females, 53% are men. So marketers can reach both genders by targeting players.
If you want to dive into today’s gamers profiles and make sure that gaming advertising is the right way for reaching players, visit our another blog post: Gaming audiences – who are today’s players and how to reach them?
Mobile game ads and desktop game ads – reaching gamers on various devices
Mobile games market accounts for nearly 50% of global games market revenues, according to Newzoo report. It generates nearly $90 billion. Advertisers can reach mobile gamers with accurate audience data on this very large market.
With the right data (user IDs), you can target users through online channels on popular devices, such as desktop, mobile, or Connected TV devices. Marketers who look for mobile gamers only, can choose from mobile audiences taxonomy and reach mobile gamers in programmatic campaigns.
What kind of segments are available? There are many data providers with their own taxonomies, so audience segments vary between different companies. But the aim of data providers is to create segments that will attract the attention of advertisers, and help them develop their gaming advertising strategies.
So mobile gaming taxonomy can include popular categories of users, such as Demography, Device Brand, Type of Hardware, or Game Titles. Using that kind of audience data enables marketers to reach mobile gamers in selected markets across the world.
OAN global gaming audiences – choose your gaming audiences from 600+ segments
As OAN, we provide gaming audiences globally to help marketers reach their target groups among players. Reach your target audience from over 600 high-quality gaming audiences including mobile gamers and desktop players. Take a look at a few examples from our taxonomy and check what profiles of mobile gamers you can reach through online channels:
- Mobile Gaming > Demography
- Mobile Gaming > Device Brand > Apple
- Mobile Gaming > Device Brand > Google
- Mobile Gaming > Genre > Strategy
- Mobile Gaming > Hardware > Chargers
- Mobile Gaming : Title : Candy Crush Saga
- Mobile Gaming : User Types : Daypart : Afternoon Gamers
and many more mobile categories.
As OAN, we also provide custom gaming segments. We build them on special occasions, such as big gaming premieres, and we can prepare a custom segment tailored strictly to your campaign’s needs. If you need to reach, for example, gamers from generation Z in the USA, just contact us to talk about creating this segment.