A new alliance aims to help advertisers reach mobile gamers more directly. PubMatic and Zynga are rolling out tools for in-game promotions and programmatic ad buying. The move targets a gap in gaming ad investment.
Media and publishing professionals focused on monetization and audience growth may soon see new opportunities in mobile gaming. PubMatic and Zynga have announced a partnership designed to give advertisers a more direct route to Zynga’s large mobile gaming audience, using a suite of measurement and ad-buying tools.
According to PubMatic, mobile gaming audiences are highly engaged, but advertisers have struggled to reach them with the creative quality and performance outcomes they expect from other digital channels. By teaming up with Zynga, PubMatic plans to leverage its proprietary technology and agency relationships to improve ad experiences for brands seeking to connect with Zynga’s 200 million active users.
The collaboration will use PubMatic’s “OpenWrap” SDK, which supports creative formats such as “Click to Cart,” enabling commerce-driven in-game promotions. Advertisers will also have access to PubMatic’s “AgenticOS and Activate” platform, which offers direct-to-supply media activation, programmatic AI-powered buying workflows, and analytic insights for targeting Zynga’s gaming audience.
Industry data from Appsflyer shows that global user acquisition spend for gaming apps is projected to reach $25 billion in 2025. In the U.S., spending on gaming apps has grown 42% over the past year, with mobile games accounting for 8.1% of total app spend. Despite 3.4 billion gamers worldwide and global in-game ad spend expected to hit $131 billion this year-driven largely by mobile-gaming still attracts less than 5% of total digital media ad investment. PubMatic and Zynga note that shopping apps currently receive twice as much ad spend as gaming apps, despite similar audience sizes, highlighting a significant opportunity for advertisers.
Adam Smart, director of product and gaming at Appsflyer, has said that marketing success depends on how well teams can measure and act on fragmented signals. Zynga’s head of programmatic and agency relations, Corentin Leydis, stated that the company’s goal is to provide a premium gaming environment where advertisers can reach players directly. The partnership reflects a broader industry push to integrate advanced AI and programmatic tools into media workflows, as seen in recent moves by major tech companies to expand agentic AI capabilities in publishing environments, including new integrations from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
