Anzu announced the global launch of its privacy-safe audience targeting capabilities, unlocking a powerful new way for advertisers to reach players.
The capabilities are now live across Anzu’s platform following integrations with leading audience technology providers Eyeota, Predactiv, and Semcasting.
The company said it has the most advanced intrinsic in-game advertising platform, where ads are put in contextually relevant places in mobile, PC and console games. Anzu said its patented 3D ad tracking engine — the first to bring viewability measurement in-game — and partnerships with trusted adtech vendors make Anzu better.
Advertisers can now target and segment their preferred audiences without relying on cookies or device identifiers. With partner support, Anzu enables targeting across 62,400 unique audience segments in over 180 countries, covering demographics, interests, behaviors, professions, intent, and location. Advertisers can also activate first-party data to build retargeting, custom, and lookalike audiences, all within immersive gaming environments, further cementing intrinsic in-game advertising as a core part of the media mix.
“Until now, intrinsic in-game advertising has been largely limited to contextual targeting based on genre or title”, said Ben Fenster, cofounder and chief product officer at Anzu, in a statement. “As gaming continues to dominate consumer media time, brands are looking to reach their audiences at scale, just as they do across other media channels. We’re proud to lead the way with a first-to-market solution that empowers precise audience targeting, delivers measurable results, and maximizes ROI across immersive gaming environments.”
This is a win for both sides of the ecosystem. It gives advertisers greater control and precision to increase campaign efficiency, grow investment, and drive stronger Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). It also enables game developers to benefit from increased demand as more advertisers run targeted in-game campaigns, ultimately leading to higher cost per mille (CPMs) and greater monetization opportunities.
“Our clients continue to integrate gaming and entertainment strategies into their marketing mix, we are seeing increased demand for media that is both meaningful and measurable. Anzu’s latest advancements in audience targeting represent a significant step forward for the industry,” said Brent Koning, executive vice president and global head of gaming at Dentsu, in a statement. “By offering brands greater precision and adaptability within immersive environments, Anzu is helping to shape the future of media with solutions that reflect the direction of consumer engagement.”
This milestone continues Anzu’s rapid momentum. It follows a strategic investment from Amex Ventures and the release of the first-ever data-driven Intrinsic In-Game Advertising Trends Report, which outlines best practices for optimizing in-game media buys.
Anzu is backed by WPP, Sony Innovation Fund, NBCUniversal, Samsung Next, Bandai Namco Entertainment 021 Fund, PayPal Ventures and many other prominent investors.
I asked Anzu for more detail on how it works and how they can precisely target while preserving privacy. Here’s what they said:
Each solution operates slightly differently, however, Predactiv and Semcasting each have an identity graph which is built on a graph of either opt-in or privacy-safe identifiers and doesn’t rely on cookies or device identifiers. Both have contextual segments, based on online behavior e.g. what sites they visit and actions they take that show intent for certain product categories, as well as demographic segments built using either privacy-safe or opted-in identifiers. Eyeota has a marketplace of third-party data providers and Anzu matches those segments using privacy-safe identifiers, without using cookies or device identifiers.
In terms of precision, it is as compared to contextual genre targeting or contextual indexing. For example, with contextual genre targeting, an automotive brand might advertise in racing games for contextual relevance, however, not everyone playing that game might be in-market for a car or even able to drive. With contextual indexing, for an automotive brand we would index our games to identify which games index highly for players who are in-market for a vehicle and target the games that index highest, however, not all players of those games will be in-market for a car or able to drive. This is similar to how OOH and DOOH target their billboards, it’s just that we’re doing it in a game not in the real world.
With the new offering, we can now target users across all games who are in-market for a car, no matter what game they are playing. So the automotive advertiser can invest their budget in only reaching users who are most likely to buy a car and not spend budget on impressions for users who have no intent to buy a car.