In-game advertising, connected TV and social media advertising compared on attention and viewability, using third-party research from Dentsu, Lumen, Adelaide and Comscore. A practical breakdown for media planners weighing a gaming line item against CTV and social budgets.
Covered in this video:
Gaming attention benchmarks: Dentsu and Lumen measured gaming at 6,736 attentive seconds per 1,000 impressions, ahead of Dentsu's cross-channel norms, at a $3.38 attentive cost. Rewarded video reached a 100% on-screen impression rate against an 87% Dentsu norm, because players opt in for an in-game benefit.
Immersion durability: Activision Blizzard's Immersion Study with Alter Agents found immersion in a mobile game dropped 15% after three minutes, compared with 38% on social. That gap drives gaming's edge on recall and consideration.
CTV benchmarks: Adelaide puts CTV placements at roughly 67 attention units, about 23% above the linear TV benchmark, though CTV attention scores declined between 2024 and 2025.
Social benchmarks: YouTube leads social platforms at 64.8 AU, down from 65.6, while X fell from 32.1 to 29.4. Instagram and Facebook score below YouTube. Social still delivers the most reach at the lowest cost.
Overwolf Ads is an example of a gaming advertising platform reaching over 113 million monthly players across more than 1,500 titles, ranked by Comscore as the number 2 US gaming property by reach. Formats include Rewarded Achievements, contextual branded creative triggered by real in-game milestones and paired with a digital reward, plus standard IAB display and video served through desktop apps and 500-plus partner gaming websites. Average video completion and viewability run near 90% across the network.
Planning takeaway: gaming belongs in the same tier as CTV and social rather than as a test-and-learn add-on. Weight gaming toward moments that must land during peak engagement with an 18-45 audience, and reserve CTV and social for storytelling, reach and frequency.
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