Roblox is making major additions to its still-nascent ad offering.
At the IAB PlayFronts in New York City on Tuesday, the online gaming platform announced new integrations with Google that will make Roblox’s various ad formats available through Google Ad Manager (GAM).
For starters, Roblox will implement rewarded video on its platform for the first time, which advertisers will be able to purchase programmatically via GAM in the coming weeks, including through programmatic guaranteed and private marketplace deals.
In early tests of rewarded video ads, which are full-screen and run up to 30 seconds, Roblox saw between 80% and 90% video completion rates, said Stephanie Latham, VP of global brand partnerships and advertising at Roblox. And according to a survey of its audience, 87% of Roblox players had a positive view of rewarded ad formats.
Advertisers also have a favorable view of rewarded video, according to Latham, which will help Roblox attract demand.
Rewarded video offers a more standardized ad experience compared to some of Roblox’s other, more specialized formats, like its Portal placements, which transport players to different in-game worlds. Portal placements only work for brands that have created experiences on Roblox’s platform, Latham said.
But Roblox has heard “loud and clear” from buyers that they want more standardization, she said, and for it to be easier to repurpose their existing creative assets on the Roblox platform.
In addition, at some point during the next few months, Roblox will also make its in-game ad placements, which resemble real-life billboards, available as immersive ads through GAM in the coming months.
Google started testing immersive formats – which are ads that blend into the gaming experience and appear as natural elements within a game – last year.
Immersive ads help advertisers raise brand awareness with hard-to-reach gaming audiences, said Scott Sheffer, VP of sell-side monetization at Google.
“Because gamers are so entrenched in the experience itself, traditional ad formats haven’t always been the right choice for app publishers because they don’t want to pull their audiences out of those games,” Sheffer said.
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Ads are not yet a major revenue driver for Roblox, but the opportunity to access demand from a wider pool of Google buyers should give its ads business a shot in the arm.
In May, Roblox CEO David Baszucki said he expects advertising to be “a nice increment to the business” by this year, but he doesn’t expect ad revenue to contribute to the company’s overall growth rate until 2026 or 2027.
This expanded Google deal puts Roblox more firmly on that path to incremental growth by giving buyers the ability to buy familiar ad formats through a familiar ad platform, Latham said.
“That gives us momentum that we’re really excited about,” she said.
