The Full-Funnel Outcomes Report: In-App & Gaming Advertising
Closing the gap in understanding how in-app ads move perception, intent, and behavior
In-App Gaming has earned its seat in the media mix
Consumer attention is the scarcest resource in media right now, and in-app gaming is one of the environments where brands reliably get it. With billions of gamers worldwide and 42% of the U.S. adults* playing daily, the audience is there. More importantly, it’s paying attention.
DISQO's 2025 In-Game Advertising Report, which surveyed more than 3,000 U.S. adults, found that 68% of players notice in-game ads all or most of the time and 39% have made a purchase after seeing one. These are not passive viewers tolerating an interruption. They are active consumers in a high-engagement environment, where the advertising performs accordingly.
3.5B+
Gamers worldwide
42%
of U.S. adults game daily
68%
of players notice in-game ads all or most of the time
*DISQO’s 2025 In-Game Advertising report
But what happens after that moment of exposure has historically been harder to see. As consumer journeys become less linear and move fluidly across apps, search, websites, and commerce environments, in-app measurement needs to extend beyond what happens within the app itself. DISQO helps close that gap by connecting in-app exposure to what people think and do next, providing a view of impact that extends beyond the boundaries of the advertising environment.
This report shows how and by how much. It draws on a cohort of six Unity in-app campaigns measured by DISQO's Brand Lift and Outcomes Lift solutions, indexed against a normative database of more than 1,200 campaigns. The results are organized around the goals that brand marketers and agency strategists bring to a media plan: understanding the outcomes in-app ads drive, moving purchase intent, shifting specific brand perceptions, reaching the audience segments that matter, and building defensible cross-category proof of performance.
How we did it
This report draws on a cohort of six Unity campaigns measured by DISQO’s full-funnel outcomes platform, spanning multiple verticals and brand objectives. Each campaign was measured using DISQO’s rigorous methodology, connecting in-app ad exposure to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes at the person level, then indexing results against DISQO’s normative benchmarks.*
Reach the audiences that matter to your brand
The audience story
One of the most persistent misconceptions in in-app advertising is that its audience is narrow and niche. The data tells a different story. In-app audiences are broad, diverse, and highly responsive, and the specific audiences that matter most to brand marketers are among the most engaged.
Across DISQO x Unity campaigns, the highest-performing segments were often those that conventional media plans would target elsewhere. Adults 35-44, parents, daily AI assistant users, and high-income consumers all surfaced as strong responders. In entertainment campaigns, female audiences delivered a +15-point lift in intent for a family franchise, while males drove a +7-point lift in unaided awareness for an action-adventure title.
+15pts
Purchase intent, women, entertainment campaign (family franchise)
+12 pts
Familiarity lift, parents, in-app playable format
+11 pts
Feature awareness lift among the highest-value competitive audience, technology campaign
A35-44
Top-performing age segment across multiple campaign verticals
Cited figures are statistically significant at 90% confidence. Figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Key takeaways for marketers
Challenge your targeting assumptions. For brands investing in CTV premiums to reach quality audiences, gaming can offer many of the same segments at meaningfully lower CPMs. The demographic profile of the Unity audience is broader and older than most media plans assume, and the behavioral measurement exists to prove where that audience actually responds.
Use in-app advertising to reach audiences you think are elsewhere. Adults 35-44, parents, working professionals, and high-income consumers are active in-app users. Unity's cross-platform inventory lets you reach them meaningfully in high-attention moments that matter most.
Move the metrics that matter
The intent story
Purchase intent is a critical link between brand building and business outcomes, signaling when consumer interest begins to translate into a greater likelihood to act. It’s also one of the more challenging metrics to move and substantiate. Across every campaign measured in this report, Unity in-game advertising delivered statistically significant lift in purchase or action intent, demonstrating impact at a meaningful point in the consumer journey.
The average intent lift across the portfolio was approximately +8 points, a result that holds across verticals including streaming entertainment, consumer health and beauty, fitness memberships, and AI software features. For a channel to consistently move intent across that breadth of category context, the format and audience quality must both be strong, and the data confirms they are.
+8 pts
Average intent lift across campaigns
+8 pts
Purchase intent lift, entertainment, in-app playable format
+8 pts
Join/visit intent lift, fitness vertical
+9 pts
Recommendation intent lift, health and beauty brand campaign
Cited figures are statistically significant at 90% confidence. Figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Key takeaways for marketers
Intent is where in-app earns its place in the plan. Across every campaign in this report, Unity consistently moved purchase, watch, and join intent, proving its value as a core channel in a modern, high-performing media plan. Intent is the signal that predicts what consumers will do next, and gaming drives it across verticals, formats, and audience segments.
Let the format match your goal. Unity's inventory spans a range of formats, from rewarded video and interstitials to playable and in-app creative, and the data shows that format selection meaningfully shapes outcomes. Match your creative investment to your campaign objective and let performance guide the mix.
See what your ads actually do
The outcomes story
In-app advertising has long offered access to high-quality audiences. Now, measurement can prove what that access delivers. By connecting in-app exposure to downstream behaviors such as branded search, site visitation, and purchase activity, marketers can move beyond assumptions to attributable outcomes. The result is clearer evidence of in-app advertising’s role in driving consumer action and a stronger case for its place in the media mix.
That downstream impact is visible across the campaigns measured in this report. For a major CPG brand, with Unity as the sole measured media partner, branded search increased +1.3% over control. A technology brand saw a similar pattern further down the journey, driving +0.3% incremental site visitation among its most receptive audience segments. Together, these results show how in-app exposure can translate into measurable consumer action beyond the ad itself.
Key takeaways for marketers
Demand outcomes data alongside viewability. When evaluating in-app inventory, outcome data should be required, not a nice-to-have. Viewability and completion rate are table stakes and confirm that the ad was served. The standard for gaming measurement should be the same as for any other channel: did it change behavior, and can you prove it?
Look beyond the impression for signals of consumer action. Branded search and site visitation provide a view into what consumers do after exposure, helping marketers understand whether in-app advertising is generating engagement beyond the ad itself. When connected back to campaign exposure, these behaviors provide stronger evidence of in-app’s role in the consumer journey.
Cited figures are statistically significant at 90% confidence. Figures are rounded to one decimal place.
Build your brand, not just awareness
The perception story
Brand perception is built in the specific attributes that define how consumers understand and choose a brand, and the in-app landscape is a proven environment for moving them. Unity campaigns measured by DISQO consistently moved targeted brand perceptions with precision, reaching beyond topline awareness to the attributes that matter to each brand’s strategy.
Across fitness and health & beauty campaigns, measured campaigns landed on exactly the brand territory each advertiser was trying to own. When measurement is specific enough to track attribute-level shifts, the creative brief and the media plan can align with far greater intentionality.
+9 pts
'Keeps me motivated' attribute lift, fitness brand campaign
+8 pts
‘Affordable’ perception lift, health and beauty brand campaign
+8 pts
‘Fun brand' perception lift, health and beauty brand campaign
+6 pts
'Convenient' attribute lift, fitness brand campaign
Cited figures are statistically significant at 90% confidence
Key takeaways for marketers
Brief your brand attributes, not just your awareness goal. The campaigns that moved the most meaningful metrics were those built around specific attribute targets. Give your measurement the same specificity you give your creative, and the results will more likely reflect it.
In-app builds the brand perceptions that precede purchase. In-app advertising shifts how consumers feel about a brand, the attributes they associate with it, and how favorably they view it relative to competitors. The impression is just the starting point.
See how in-app performs across categories
The cross-category story
The consistency of in-app advertising across verticals speaks for itself. Across technology, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, fitness, and health and beauty, Unity campaigns measured by DISQO produced statistically significant lift on primary KPIs in every case.
That consistency across categories points to the broader potential of in-app advertising. With the right measurement in place, marketers can understand how that impact translates to their own category, audience, and campaign objectives.
Technology / AI
+6 pts consideration; 2.7x the DISQO norm
Consumer Packaged Goods
+6 pts familiarity; 2.4x the DISQO norm
Entertainment (Family)
+7 pts purchase (ticket) intent; 3x the DISQO norm
Entertainment (Action)
+8pts purchase (ticket) intent; 3x the DISQO norm
Health & Fitness
+8 pts join/visit intent; +9 pts 'motivated' attribute
Health & Beauty
+9 pts recommendation intent; +8 pts 'affordable' attribute
Cited figures are statistically significant at 90% confidence
Key takeaways for marketers
Build the category case with benchmarks. Raw lift numbers are interesting. Lift indexed against 1,200+ gaming/in-app campaigns is an optimization and budget conversation. Use DISQO's normative data to translate campaign results into media-planning terms.
Move from assumed impact to demonstrated impact. Build measurement into the plan from the start. Without it, decisions about in-app advertising can rest on beliefs that have yet to be validated. Connecting exposure to brand and behavioral outcomes helps create a clearer view of what is working, why it matters, and where in-app belongs in the broader media mix.
How in-app advertising has earned its value
The campaigns measured and analyzed in this report tell a clear story: in-app gaming advertising, when measured with the rigor of DISQO’s full-funnel outcomes intelligence platform, performs. It moves awareness. It drives search. It shifts purchase intent. It builds specific brand attributes that matter to strategy. And it does so efficiently, across verticals, audience segments, and campaign objectives that span the full spectrum of modern brand marketing.
Unity’s impact extends from top-funnel brand recall to downstream behaviors like search and site visitation, demonstrating the role in-app gaming can play across the consumer journey. DISQO’s measurement infrastructure connects those signals into a more complete view of performance, giving marketers the evidence to understand where gaming is working and make more informed decisions about its role in the media plan.
Together, the findings make a clear case for in-app advertising as more than an experimental channel. Its ability to drive measurable outcomes across the funnel demonstrates that in-app can play an established, strategic role in the media mix.
About DISQO
DISQO is a leading provider of advertising outcomes intelligence, measuring brand and performance outcomes across every media channel. Trusted by 500+ of the world’s largest brands and 150+ agency and media partners, DISQO’s Brand Lift and Outcomes Lift solutions connect media exposure to what consumers feel and do, giving marketers clarity across the full consumer journey. Visit disqo.com
About Unity
Unity operates one of the largest mobile advertising and programmatic networks in the world, giving brands direct access to premium in-game inventory and audiences at scale. Unity is also the world's leading cross-platform game engine, used by developers of all sizes to create 2D, 3D, VR, and AR experiences, famous for its "build once, deploy everywhere" capability that allows creators to publish games on over 25 platforms—including mobile, PC, consoles, and web.
About This Research
The findings in this report are drawn from six Unity in-app campaigns measured between 2025 and 2026. DISQO's measurement connects in-app ad exposure to person-level attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, matching exposed and control audiences at the individual level through DISQO's proprietary panel of real, permissioned people. Brand Lift captures attitudinal shifts such as awareness, familiarity, favorability, intent, and brand-attribute perceptions; Outcomes Lift captures incremental behavioral signals, including branded search, site visitation, and e-commerce activity, against a matched control group. Figures cited are statistically significant at a 90% confidence level unless otherwise noted. These findings reflect the specific campaigns, audiences, formats, and time periods measured; they are not a guarantee of future performance, and individual results will vary based on creative, audience, category, frequency, and market conditions.
*Measurement and analysis in this report were performed by DISQO using its proprietary technology and Unity relies on DISQO's methodology and reported results. DISQO is solely responsible for the measurement methodology, statistical analysis, and benchmarks presented in this report. Findings reflect six campaigns measured in 2025–2026, are not a guarantee of future performance, and individual results will vary.
Think in-game ads are just for brand awareness? The data says otherwise.
We worked with DISQO to measure six Unity campaigns across five verticals, indexed against a database of 1,200+ campaigns. Every one delivered statistically significant lift on its primary KPI, with lifts up to 3x the DISQO benchmark. The audiences that responded weren’t the ones most media plans assume. Adults aged 35–44. Parents. High-income households. The people brands pay CTV premiums to reach. Gaming has earned a seat in the media mix, and now there’s measurement to back it.