How Marketers Can Elevate Omnichannel Strategies Through Gaming

Advertising within gaming has taken a significant step forward in 2024. In the last year alone, Unilever tripled its investment in gaming in marketing, and WPP and Roblox struck a global content and advertising partnership. Brands have also stepped up their in-game efforts, with Walmart adding real-life commerce that allows players to buy the products in-game and L’Oreal streaming its Paris Fashion Week show directly within the game. Roblox also launched programmatic buying early in 2024, capitalizing on the interest the platform has gained from global brands.

The boundaries of how advertisers can activate within these environments are ever expanding—it’s not just one-off activations or pop-up ads anymore. Plus, with in-app gaming ad revenue predicted to exceed $100 billion by 2025, many brands are looking to expand their gaming in marketing presence.

But like with any evolving ad space, brands need to give considerable thought to their approach, knowing how to take advantage of the gaming world while ensuring ROI. The creative possibilities of in-game advertising are the attention grabber for many brands, but it is the increasing use of programmatic within in-game advertising that is helping to cement gaming as a must-have within any omnichannel marketing strategies mix.
 

Top Strategies for Elevating Omnichannel Marketing with Gaming in 2025

 

Ready Player One

A key driver behind the shift toward gaming for brands is the completely changed demographics of its consumers. With over half (52%) of the UK population describing themselves as gamers and 77% of those gamers playing at least once a week, it’s safe to say gaming is now an integrated part of everyday life for a large section of UK consumers.

While consoles still make up a large part of the modern gaming audience (22%), it is the rise of mobile gaming that is driving the increase in players, with 34% of gaming happening via phones. Female players, in particular, have been key to this increase, with 74% of women stating they play games daily.

It is no wonder that gaming is one of the top areas of investment for advertisers, with 40% set to increase their spending in the coming year and in-game video ad spending set to reach £8.86 billion by 2027.

It is evident the potential is huge, and with many brands already diving headfirst into the area, creative has to be well thought out and environment-specific to cut through to gamers. But just as important is putting the right programmatic tools in place to optimize budgets, no matter their size.
 

Getting the High Score

As is often the case with emergent channels, measurement within gaming environments can be tricky. Traditional impression-based interaction measurement doesn’t work in the same way, while the uniqueness of different gaming environments means it can be hard to standardize.

This is gradually being remedied, with industry bodies such as the IAB creating their own in-game measurement guidelines to give a clearer idea of what exactly an impression is. According to its framework, quality impressions are based on factors such as game lighting conditions, angle relative to the screen, ad exposure time, obstruction by game elements, and idle periods.

And when measured in these terms, gaming does remarkably well. Players view in-game ads for an average of 2.9 seconds—nearly double the standard benchmark of 1.5 seconds. Gamers are also 34% more likely to view an in-game ad compared to other channels, such as social media and websites.
 

Into the Omniverse

But just as important as measurement for programmatic execution for marketers is ensuring tech stacks are optimized and streamlined. Bloated programmatic chains will only hinder advertising efforts in these fast-moving environments and prevent marketers from pivoting in-flight to maximize the impact of their budgets.

With these solid technological foundations in place, integrating gaming with omnichannel can become a cornerstone of any omnichannel campaign for brands of all sizes. This is even more important with the rise of second screening—in the UK, 90% of consumers use a second screen when watching TV, with 30% doing so to play games. Delivering cohesive messaging across these environments ensures that audience attention is grabbed without becoming repetitive, enabling every penny of spend to make a maximum impact on audiences.
 

Conclusion

While gaming is a unique channel in many respects, delivering a successful programmatic campaign within these environments requires advertisers to have the same clarity on measurement and a streamlined programmatic tech stack as any other medium within the omnichannel marketing strategies mix. But by keeping these fundamentals in mind, brands and agencies can unlock a diverse and highly engaged audience of gamers.