Why Gaming Advertising Belongs on More Ecommerce Media Plans

Sponsor content is created on behalf of and in collaboration with Bazoom by DigitalCommerce360. Our editorial staff is not involved in the creation of the sponsored content. Gaming is not a single advertising channel. Brands treating it as one are leaving a measurable attention opportunity unaddressed.

Ecommerce brands have built detailed playbooks for Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and connected TV. Most have not built one for gaming. That gap is increasingly difficult to justify on the numbers alone. Gaming spans console, PC, mobile, esports, and the web.

Each environment attracts a different audience, commands different attention levels, and supports different ad formats. Brands that treat gaming as a single media buy tend to either skip it entirely or over-invest in one segment while missing the others. The planning mistake is categorical, not tactical.

Gaming audiences are more focused than social media scrollers McKinsey research finds that 75% of PC and console players report high focus during gameplay, a figure the research compares to watching a live event. For mobile gaming, that number is 55%, which still sits well above the fragmented attention typical of social feeds.

Receptivity follows accordingly: 76% of PC and console players report being open to in-game advertising. For ecommerce brands where consideration windows are short and creative impression quality matters, that combination of focus and receptivity is strategically significant.

Attention is shifting toward gaming at the expense of social and streaming Dentsu research finds that 1 in 4 gamers expects to spend less time on social media to make more time for gaming. One in 5 expects to reduce time spent on streaming TV.

For brands optimizing media investment against where consumer attention is heading, those numbers represent a structural shift. Web gaming sits in an unusual position within that broader shift.

Unlike console or PC gaming, which are primarily financed through hardware sales, subscriptions, and in-app purchases, web gaming is built almost entirely on advertising revenue. The inventory exists because advertisers buy it. The formats are designed around ad delivery. The platform economics depend on brands showing up.

It is, structurally, one of the few gaming environments that runs as an advertising channel from the ground up. That makes its absence from most gaming media plans, and most ecommerce media plans, a notable gap. Web gaming rarely surfaces in conversations about gaming advertising strategy, even as the channel grows quickly.

Google projects the global web gaming market will exceed $3 billion by 2028, roughly three times its 2021 value, placing it in the early-growth phase relative to more established digital channels. Rewarded video changes the math on gaming ad formats The dominant format in web gaming is rewarded video.

Players opt in to watch a short video, typically 7 to 15 seconds, and receive an in-game benefit in return. Players who choose to watch an ad are not trying to skip it, which produces stronger completed view rates and brand recall than interruptive formats. The opt-in structure also works for all parties. Players get a reward.

Developers get a monetization mechanism tied to gameplay rather than working against it. Advertisers reach an audience that actively chooses to engage. Poki illustrates the scale available in web gaming Poki, a web games platform based in Holland but available worldwide, demonstrates what this channel looks like at scale.

The platform reaches 100 million monthly active players and records 1 billion gameplay sessions per month, placing it in the same audience tier as major consumer platforms. The demographic profile contradicts the assumptions that lead most media planners to skip the category. Google and Kantar research across the U. S.

, Brazil, and India found that 49% of H5 gamers are serious players clocking more than seven hours of play per week. The pure H5 segment, players who only play browser games and nothing else, skews toward players aged 55 and above. Web gaming is not a young, casual fringe. On Poki specifically, the player base splits nearly 50/50 between men and women.

Average session length is 22 minutes, during which players engage with an average of three games, creating repeated natural ad exposure opportunities within a single visit.

Because Poki runs entirely in the browser with no download required, the buying process maps to familiar models: standard creative formats, standard measurement, no custom integrations or extended lead times. Poki is just one platform within a broader web gaming ecosystem, which means the opportunity extends well beyond a single entry point.

The gap in most media plans is a planning default, not a deliberate choice Web gaming’s absence from most ecommerce media plans is less a considered decision than a default. The channel did not fit neatly into existing frameworks, so it got skipped. At 100 million monthly active player