In this edition of her weekly column, Shirley Marschall fires up the joystick and mashes the d-pad, as she examines how the latest measurement framework from the IAB Tech Lab can help in-game programmatic catch up to rival channels.

(From one clueless non-gamer to the entire ad tech industry)

Gaming… puh.

You all know the honest (and admittedly very stereotypical) thoughts of what non-gamers imagine when they hear “gaming”. Add in what's thought of as a very skeptical audience for ads on top of the neon chairs...

But then again, the IAB Tech Lab just released a new framework for in-game ad measurement.

So there must be some relevance for ad tech and advertisers, right?

It’s no secret that ad tech’s obsession (and that’s putting it mildly!!) with measurement is off the charts. If it’s not measurable, it didn’t happen. Actually, scratch that! If it’s not measurable in real time and can’t be optimised in real time, it might as well not exist. You know how this goes.

According to a recent report from Dentsu, US advertisers spent 10% more year-over-year on in-game ads last year, but that still only accounted for 3.7% of total US digital ad spend.

That’s extremely low. Meanwhile, the number of gamers is extremely high:

• 3.4 billion gamers worldwide (yes, that’s mass-market entertainment!)
• +6% year-over-year growth in time spent gaming

The report also claims that “Everyone is a gamer, but not all gamers are the same.”

…not sure that’s how most people would define themselves, but you have to admit, the numbers are hard to ignore.

So maybe the gap between what non-gamers think about gaming and what they actually do is at the root of this disconnect. Because here’s what those same non-gamers actually do: they play games…on their phones, on the train, during meetings, or while pretending to answer emails (why else would LinkedIn add a daily puzzle?). They might not call them games, but they’re doing puzzles, quizzes, word games, Sudoku…

Whether or not you identify as a ‘gamer,’ chances are… you’ve been hooked. Candy Crush? FarmVille? Pokémon Go? Tetris on the Game Boy? Or maybe something a little more 2025-flavored (no judgment). Yeah… guilty as charged.

So what does this mean for marketers and ad tech folks?

Eyeballs. Lots of them.

Data. Tons of it.

And it’s probably the understatement of the year to say that gaming has yet to reach its full potential as a media channel.

Because literally everything else with eyeballs is booming.

CTV is booming.

Retail media is booming.

Social is booming.

Gaming is… not booming, at least not from an ad tech perspective.

Despite the massive audiences, the rich user data, and the sky-high engagement, gaming has long been the awkward cousin marketers didn’t quite know what to do with. And the reason is painfully simple: no measurement, no money. Until now, gaming just didn’t offer the standardisation, metrics, and optimisation levers that marketers expect.

That’s where the IAB Tech Lab’s new Gaming Measurement Framework comes in. It sets long-overdue standards for how in-game ads are defined, counted, and valued, aiming to create a consistent measurement language across devices, formats, genres, and markets. All the complexity that’s been holding advertisers back? This is an attempt to fix it.

And maybe… just maybe… this will finally spark change. 

Maybe ad tech has now unlocked Level One!? 

Could this be the moment gaming finally levels up in the media mix?

Too soon to tell.

But for an industry obsessed with measurability and attention, this might just be the first real power-up. At least for in-game ads. (Because there’s more. So much more to this gaming ecosystem monster…)

Back to attention and eyeballs for a second, here are a few more stats from the Dentsu report:

• 88% of gamers play to relax
• 55% play for fun
• 45% play to pass the time

Relaxation. Calm. Low-stress engagement.

Sounds a lot like our Candy Crush / FarmVille non-gamer gamer zoning out on the train, waiting at the doctor’s office, or escaping between back-to-back meetings.

Relaxed and paying attention to nothing but the game.

For those who remember life before AI hijacked every ad tech conversation, attention was the buzzword of 2024. (Yes, and cookie deprecation but that’s another story.)

Gaming isn’t just another channel. It’s a full-blown ecosystem…complicated, messy, and largely misunderstood. Mysterious and intimidating, especially for clueless non-gamers. But if we zoom in and focus just on casual mobile games, and now pair that with the IAB’s in-game measurement framework, suddenly it becomes a lot more digestible. Applied to the untouched paradises of PC and console gaming, entirely new channels could be unlocked.

After all, what’s a little more fragmentation to a marketer these days?

We’ve figured out CTV. Retail media. DOOH. Even podcasts.

Okay, some are still a work in progress…

But if there’s one thing we do well in this industry, it's to thrive in chaos and change.

Which brings us to the final thought, the observations from a clueless non-gamer:

It looks like while everyone’s chasing AI and reinventing attention, gaming is still waiting for its seat at the grown-up media table.

The question is: Now that we’ve unlocked Level One… will ad tech actually keep playing?