In-Game advertising or Advergaming is exploding. Advertisers are rushing to leverage this new medium, as the audience is already there. 

What is in-game advertising?

What are your best options?

Why should you invest in in-game advertising?

Gaming companies invest and make as much as Hollywood movies, where the players control the characters and story development, being completely immersed in the game universe. 

Thanks to platforms like YouTube and Twitch - Games become a consumable medium. Users tune in to see pro-gamers walk through games, partake in battles and championships. 

Revenues from eSports have grown exponentially across Sponsorship, Viewing rights, Advertising, and merchandising.

Many marketers want to get into in-game advertising, as the users playing games and those consumer gaming content are the innovators and early adopters. 

Tracking advertising effectiveness on in-game ads is not as straightforward as tracking digital advertising. 

Ads are typically non clickable, even if the user is on a computer or smartphone. 

We wanted to bring this guide to help you learn how to measure the results from your in-game advertising activities, so that you can unlock the full potential of your spend:

Surveys and Panels

An old fashioned method for measurement is sending users surveys to complete (typically in return to an incentive) where they are asked generic and specific questions about the games they play, the ads they have seen, and their reactions to this.

This method is simple, yet provides some relevant inputs, as by addressing consumers directly - both the brand and the game publisher can learn more about the consumer.

Surveys and Panels represent only a small portion of the users though, making this method very limited in providing actionable information.

Blackout

A very common method is creating a campaign blackout period. Campaigns would run  > stop > run > stop (etc) allowing the advertiser to monitor sales performance and lift for each period. 

Advertisers who may use only games as their advertising mediums may find this method very effective - but as most advertisers promote their products across several platforms and mediums - this method is not very efficient in provides a vague indication of the performance effect in-game advertising has over sales. 

Incrementality Testing

Incrementality testing provides operational insights for optimization. This method uses the changes in marketing activity (i.e. new vendor activity started, a new campaign was launched, a change in creatives, etc…) to continuously provide insights over the value of the change. 

This method works across platforms and can provide valuable insights at the granularity of campaign, demographics, media vendor, and medium.

Incrementality testing has been a holy grail in marketing , but only very few invested the resources required to evaluate it. 

With the current market conditions eliminating identifiable data companies are forced to make the effort of researching incrementality as the best alternative to measurement.

INCRMNTAL offers an incrementality measurement platform, allowing Advertisers to unlock the value of their marketing spend. Measuring the effectiveness of digital and “untrackable” activity, providing actionable insights for you to get the most out of your spend.
If you want to learn more, visit INCRMNTAL or book a demo today!