This is a ranking of the top 10 gaming advertising networks for 2025. They offer effective solutions for game developers and publishers to attract players, drive installs, and boost in-game engagement. These networks provide alternatives to traditional platforms like Google and Facebook, which often have restrictions or limitations on gaming-related ads.
Together, these advertising networks deliver billions of monthly impressions, making them ideal for targeting specific gaming audiences and scaling player acquisition campaigns.
The ranking is based on three key factors most relevant to gaming advertisers:
- Reach: The number of gamers an advertiser can connect with through the platform.
- Pricing: The cost-efficiency of running campaigns and acquiring players.
- Targeting: The ability to focus on specific gaming audiences using behavioral, geo, and interest-based targeting.
I also considered other important metrics, such as the number of impressions, the number of gaming-related websites and apps in each network, and the geographic reach. Additionally, I reviewed the pricing models, such as cost-per-install (CPI) or cost-per-click (CPC), and looked at targeting options, including gaming platform preferences, player behaviors, and real-time data optimization.
Here are the best game ad networks game developers and advertisers can use to acquire users for their games:
- Blockchain-Ads
- Pangle
- Bidstack
- Unity Ads
- Chartboost
- AppLovin
- Liftoff
- ironSource
- Mintegral International Limited
- Digital Turbine
The image below summarizes the list of advertising solutions for gaming apps:
1. Blockchain-Ads: Driving Unbeatable ROI for GameFi and Blockchain Gaming
Blockchain-Ads is a performance-driven gaming advertising platform that helps GameFi and blockchain gaming companies reach their ideal audience. With advanced wallet-targeting technology and a network of 3,000+ gaming websites, Blockchain-Ads is tailored to acquire users, increase monthly active users (MAU), and boost in-game revenue.
Here’s how Blockchain-Ads has helped top gaming companies like DogeVision, MetaFighter, and Aradena Games:
- Targeting Play-to-Earn gamers, mobile gamers, gaming guilds, and NFT gamers for unmatched audience engagement.
- Delivering campaign strategies focused on awareness, engagement, and conversions to achieve maximum impact.
- Leveraging wallet-targeting technology to attract high-value players and drive lifetime value (LTV) growth.
Blockchain-Ads worked with a Gaming Metaverse Platform to gain more players at less than $2 CPA using MATIC-based targeting. The campaign generated 75,000 new active players and 11,000 NFTs minted with a $50,000+ advertising budget.
With a network reaching over 10 million Web2 and Web3 gamers globally, Blockchain-Ads delivers unbeatable ROI through programmatic display ads, granular targeting, and advanced conversion tracking.
2. Pangle: A Growing Mobile Gaming Ad Platform with APAC Strength
Pangle is an ad network created by ByteDance, designed to help app developers and gaming companies maximize their mobile advertising efforts. Known for its strength in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) market, Pangle is well-suited for game developers targeting audiences in regions like China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. The platform provides strong support for rewarded video ads, in-app display ads, and native ad formats, ensuring flexibility for gaming advertisers.
Pangle enables advertisers to connect with high-intent mobile gamers using advanced targeting options. The platform also offers detailed analytics to track user engagement and optimize campaigns for better performance.
Key targeting options available on Pangle include:
- Target players based on age, gender, and other demographic attributes.
- Focus on specific devices, operating systems, or connectivity types.
- Reach audiences based on their gaming habits and preferences.
Downside: While Pangle excels in the APAC market, its global reach is not as extensive as other networks like Unity Ads or AppLovin. Its user interface and support services may feel less accessible for smaller advertisers or those new to the platform.
3. Bidstack: Immersive In-Game Advertising for PC and Console Games
Bidstack specializes in in-game advertising, allowing brands to place ads directly within the gaming environment. This platform focuses on creating immersive ad experiences that naturally blend into gameplay, making it an excellent choice for PC and console game developers. Bidstack's ad formats include native in-game ads, billboards, and sponsorships, ensuring the ads do not disrupt the player experience while still achieving visibility.
With Bidstack, advertisers can reach diverse gaming audiences by targeting specific game genres, regions, and platforms. The platform also provides real-time campaign insights, helping advertisers optimize their strategies for maximum engagement and return on investment.
Targeting options on Bidstack include:
- Deliver ads to players based on their geographic location.
- Reach players in specific genres or individual games.
- Focus on PC, console, or mobile games depending on your audience.
Downside: While Bidstack offers unique ad placements, its focus on PC and console games may not appeal to mobile game advertisers. Its inventory is more limited compared to broader ad networks, which could impact scalability for large campaigns.
4. Unity Ads: Top Mobile Game Ad Network for Android Apps
Headed by Unity Technologies, Unity Ads is an ad network that was designed for the monetization of the mobile gaming scene. This mobile game ad network gives developers an opportunity to monetize their player base and support their services.
Unity Ads features a simple integration system, allowing any Android developer to include it in their games.
Since this ad platform works well with all mobile game engines, including Adobe Air, Corona, and Marmalade, its ad experience is non-intrusive. So, most gamers won’t mind ads from this network, as it doesn’t affect their gaming experience.
Unity Ads is also compatible with all Android versions from 2.3 upwards and iOS 4.0 upwards. This gives it a wide reach when it comes to its available player base. The supported ad types for this ad network include:
- Rewarded video
- Playable ads
- Banners ads
- Full-screen interstitial ads
- Video ads
Downside: Unity Ads primarily caters to games built on the Unity engine, which may limit its appeal for developers using other platforms. Is focus on rewarded video ads might not suit campaigns targeting broader audiences.
5. Chartboost: A Comprehensive Platform for Mobile Game Monetization
Chartboost is a leading mobile advertising platform, designed to help game developers acquire players and monetize their apps effectively. It offers a suite of advertising solutions, including interstitial ads, rewarded video ads, and playable ads, which are highly effective in driving user engagement and boosting app revenue. Chartboost’s real-time bidding marketplace connects advertisers with premium in-app inventory, making it a viable option for user acquisition campaigns.
The platform also provides detailed analytics, allowing advertisers to measure ad performance and optimize campaigns for better results. With its focus on mobile games, Chartboost is a good choice for developers targeting players across iOS and Android devices.
Key targeting options on Chartboost include:
- Focus on specific mobile devices and operating systems.
- Deliver ads to players in specific regions or countries.
- Reach players based on their in-app behavior and preferences.
Downside: Chartboost is primarily focused on mobile platforms, which limits its effectiveness for PC or console gaming campaigns. Its reliance on competitive real-time bidding may drive up costs for advertisers in highly saturated markets.
6. AppLovin: Top Ad Network with the Most Supported Platforms
Headquartered in California, AppLovin is an ad network that connects businesses of every size to their target customers. This ad network provides the AI and software solutions that advertisers need to monetize and grow their global audience. The ad types that you get from this firm include:
- Banner ads
- Interstitial ads
- Rewarded video ads
- Native ads
- Video ads
- Playable ads
AppLovin uses user-level data and source-level data to accurately understand user behavior and gain insight into trends. One of the biggest advantages that AppLovin offers as a game ad network is its number of supported platforms, which include:
- Android
- iOS
- Native PC
- EPIC
- XBOX
- Switch
- Quest
- Steam
- PlayStation
So, advertisers who use the services of this game advertising network gain access to a wide range of end users. The pricing models with AppLovin are the usual, which include CPM, CPI, and CPA.
Downside: While AppLovin offers a robust suite of tools, its services can be expensive for smaller developers or advertisers with limited budgets. The platform's complexity might also require a steep learning curve for new users.
7. Liftoff: Best Ad Network for Pricing Models
Liftoff is the best mobile game ad network for when you need a lot of options regarding the cost of advertising. With this ad network, advertisers can choose from:
- Cost
- CPM: Cost Per Mile
- CPC: Cost Per Click
- CPA: Cost Per Action
- CPI: Cost Per Install
Many advertisers who choose this ad network do so because of their trust in its monetization, retargeting, and user acquisition techniques. The programmatic solutions from this ad network also help with improving campaign strategies, maximizing growth, and securing campaign performance. The types of ads that Liftoff supports are:
- Video ads
- Playable ads
- Native ads
- Interstitial ads
- Rewarded video
- Banner ads
Besides providing ad-related services, Liftoff also allows developers to create smarter games that their target audience would love. This ad network accomplishes this by analyzing trends and providing game developers with a database of more than two billion mobile gaming profiles.
Downside: Liftoff's focus on performance-driven advertising can result in higher costs for acquiring quality users in saturated markets. Its AI-driven campaigns may lack customization for specific creative preferences.
8. ironSource: Best Ad Network with the Highest ROI for Publishers
Every advertiser pursues a positive Return On Investment (ROI) for their efforts, and this is ironSource’s specialty. An in-game ad network enables advertisers to place advertisements within games, benefiting both advertisers and game developers by enhancing audience engagement and revenue generation.
ironSource is a mobile gaming advertising that puts power in the hands of game developers, allowing them to properly monetize their products. This ad network empowers developers to boost user engagement and retention, increase in-app purchases, and gain deeper user insights.
ironSource also provides custom ad network integrations for iOS and Android SDK, its main supported platforms. The pricing models you’ll find on this mobile game ad network include CPC, CPM, CPA, and CPI.
ironSource supports quite a lot of ad formats including:
- Rewarded video ads
- Offerwalls
- Interstitial ads
- Playable ads
- Video ads
- Banner ads
Downside: ironSource's ad mediation tools are highly effective, but they rely heavily on integration with other networks, which can increase complexity for developers. Smaller advertisers may find the platform less accessible due to pricing and scale requirements.
9. Mintegral: Top Programmatic Ad Network
If you want an ad network that’s powered by AI, Mintegral International Limited is your best pick. Mintegral is one of the gaming ad networks that provides programmatic advertising, allowing advertisers to streamline their advertising process through automation.
Programmatic advertising offers an advantage in its efficiency for running auctions, identifying the best ad placements, selling digital ad impressions, and segmenting audience data.
While Mintegral is basically a self-serve ad network, it has built a high-quality traffic network through third-party channels and direct partnerships.
This ad network promises advertisers monetization of their brands by connecting them to over 10,000 publishers through SDK integration. Mintegral also allows its customers to advertise in numerous app categories like e-commerce, casual games, hardcore games, and utility apps.
The pricing models at Mintegral include CPA, CPM, CPI, and CPC, while its supported ad formats are:
- Video ads
- Rewarded video ads
- Banner ads
- Interstitial ads
- Native ads
- Playable ads
Downside: Mintegral has a strong focus on the APAC region, which might limit its reach in Western markets. Additionally, concerns about transparency in the past have raised questions for some advertisers regarding data handling.
10. Digital Turbine: A Seamless Solution for Mobile App Advertising
Digital Turbine is an ad network focused on simplifying mobile app advertising through preloads and native placements. Its unique approach allows game developers to reach users directly on their devices through app preloads, ensuring maximum visibility for new game launches. Digital Turbine also offers solutions for user acquisition and engagement, making it a viable choice for gaming advertisers targeting mobile users.
Key targeting options with Digital Turbine include:
- Place your game directly on users’ devices through partnerships with OEMs and carriers.
- Manage campaigns from preloads to in-app engagement within a single platform.
- Reach users across multiple regions through established device and carrier relationships.
Downside: While Digital Turbine is effective for mobile-focused campaigns, its reliance on preloads may not be suitable for all advertisers, especially those looking for a more traditional approach to user acquisition. Its focus on mobile may limit its usefulness for PC or console game campaigns.
What Is a Gaming Advertising Network?
A gaming advertising network is an online platform that gives advertisers a chance to put their ads within games.
You can see it as the middle man between two parties in this advertising equation: the advertiser and the game developer. As such, it gets paid for connecting these two parties together.
Of course, the game advertising network isn’t the only beneficiary in this relationship, as both the game developer and the advertiser also gain.
For the game developer, allowing ads within their games and selling ad space is a way of making extra cash. The advertiser, on the other hand, benefits from this arrangement by gaining access to a highly engaged audience.
What Is Gaming Advertising?
Gaming advertising is a type of marketing that promotes mobile games to get more people to download them. Most of the video game advertising formats out there involve displaying in-game clips to attract the attention of gamers.
Some game advertising formats include incentives for the first thousand downloads, like access to special weapons, in-game currency, or some other perk.
How We Rated the Gaming Advertising Platforms
We rated the game advertising networks on our list based on the information from our network of advertisers and the appsflyer performance index.
The information we got from our network of advertisers comes from setting up a pool among them to record their responses. After that, we choose the best gaming ad networks on that end based on the majority choices.
The AppsFlyer performance index got its ad network choices based on their findings from multiple fronts:
- Number of non-fraudulent installs
- Remarketing conversions
- Organic app retention rate within the time frame of the report
- Number of apps running with that media source
So by comparing the game ad networks from the Appsflyer performance index and our network of advertisers, we got the overall best.
The overall best choices were the ad networks that made our list.
What Is the Difference between Game Advertising and In-Game Advertisements?
Game advertising is a type of advertising that’s geared toward getting individuals to download a game and In-game advertising is the same. However, where game advertising uses banners on websites and videos in the app store to get user attention, in-game advertisements appear in the game.
So, in-game advertisements are directly programmed into the game to appear in specific ad spaces that developers have created.
You’ve probably seen in-game ads at the bottom of the main menu in a game or on the pause menu. These days, most game developers program ads into all their games to get the attention of gamers who would otherwise ignore it.
So, where game advertising advertises a game on the internet or offline, in-game advertisement does so in some other video games. Regardless of how they go about it, the end goal of both methods is to get users to download and play that game.
What Are the Best Strategies for Advertising a Game?
The best strategies to advertise a game include:
- Social Media Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Content Marketing
- User-Generated Content (UGC)
- App Store Optimization (ASO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- In-Game Events and Collaborations
- Rewards Systems
- Video and Livestream Marketing
Can I Advertise Crypto Games?
Yes, you can advertise crypto games through ad networks that specialize in that niche, like Blockchain-Ads. Blockchain-Ads, like most ad networks familiar with the cryptocurrency space, possess the tools to get to Web2 and Web3 gamers. An example of such tools is Blockchain-Ads’ wallet targeting technology.
Final Thoughts on Gaming Ad Networks
Gaming ad networks are the channels for game publishers to increase their active player count. If you’re looking to get increased app downloads for your game, then Blockchain-Ads is the best choice. Google Ads is another good choice if you’re interested in remarketing, and Apple Search Ads is the best for iOS marketing.
There are other game ad networks on our list and each of them has their own specialties that can help you choose. However, your game advertising could be more effective if you support it with other marketing strategies. Some of such marketing strategies you could employ include content marketing, influencer marketing, SEO, running referral programs, and community building.
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