Roblox Buys Ads Like a Pro. Brands Can't Buy Roblox That Way Yet.
Last week, I wrote about what Roblox's TikTok ads reveal about its growth strategy, and I mentioned I was looking forward to seeing Roblox's Head of Growth Marketing, Danica Xu (pictured above), speak at Advertising Week New York. On Monday, I got to sit in the audience and hear her talk.
This was my first year attending Advertising Week, and I was glad to finally experience it firsthand. The gaming track was a great way to hear different perspectives from across the gaming landscape, beyond my typical focus on Roblox and UGC gaming.
After sitting in on several sessions and having conversations, one theme kept coming up. Gaming has the audience, but brands still hesitate. Part of that is perception. The bigger part, I think, is that the infrastructure to buy, target, measure, and attribute gaming ads is still catching up.
What Did Roblox Share About Its TikTok Campaigns?
TikTok says its updated ad network reaches more than 1 billion people a day across roughly 400,000 apps, and Roblox was an early tester of new features. Danica explained Roblox's paid marketing budget has grown a lot, and the team needed new places to put it to work. Since TikTok was already one of Roblox's best-performing channels, its ad network was a natural place to expand.
What surprised her most was how quickly the campaigns got out of the learning phase and into Roblox's evergreen mix. The efficiency has also been encouraging. On iOS, TikTok Ad Network delivered cost per acquisition 30% below Roblox's KPI targets, and on Android, costs declined 60% over the test period. For Danica's team, speed matters most: how quickly they can learn and shift spend toward the channels that work.
The part I found most telling was how Roblox measures success. Danica said its north star is incremental return on ad spend. Is a channel reaching new audiences Roblox can't reach through its existing media mix? And is it delivering incremental users, specifically the adult users Roblox is looking for? That lines up with what I wrote last week about Roblox spending to acquire 18+ players, and it's great to get confirmation straight from Roblox's Head of Growth Marketing.
Ben Dutter from Power Digital, the agency executive on the panel, described the same standard. His team cares about whether a channel shows up in the client's P&L, and it uses incrementality studies and marketing mix models to prove it. He also pointed out that new channels often come with an early mover's advantage. They tend to be efficient before everyone else arrives, which usually translates into strong ROI.
Roblox knows exactly what mature ad infrastructure looks like because it buys on it. It measures incrementality, automates creative delivery, and moves budget quickly based on results. Meanwhile, it's still building that kind of robust infrastructure for the brands that want to advertise on Roblox. That contrast shows me Roblox's ad offering is still early and maturing, and brands will hold Roblox to the same standard Roblox holds TikTok to.
Is Gaming Advertising Held Back by Perception or Infrastructure?
Gaming's struggle to attract more advertising dollars isn't about scale or engagement. The audience is massive, and players spend hours a day in these worlds. Yet gaming still isn't a default part of most brand media plans.
The people selling gaming ads lean heavily on perception. Meena Mutha of Discord said gamers don't just game and that gaming should be part of an always-on strategy. On the Admazing panel with Sony Pictures, the point was that targeting by demographic is fading and what matters is interest, not age. The implied problem is that ad buyers still picture gamers as a narrow niche.
I think the perception issue is real, but it's a symptom. The deeper problem is infrastructure. Many gaming platforms haven't had solid pipes to serve ads at scale, target the right people, and measure and attribute success in ways ad buyers already understand. Without that, buyers can't prove ROI, and perception never gets corrected because nobody has the numbers to correct it.
Are Gaming Platforms Catching Up?
Yes, but some are starting further back than I expected. Discord used its time on stage to talk up its new Ads Manager, which launched with managed access on September 30. Full self-serve access is planned for early 2027. The pitch included setting objectives and building ad sets, and honestly, I was a bit surprised. Those features have been table stakes on other ad platforms for over a decade. It's not that Discord is doing anything wrong. Platforms like Discord and Roblox simply didn't need to focus on advertising until recently, and now they're building the basics buyers expect.
Roblox is on a similar path. At RDC, it said it would begin testing pre-roll ads, and Mike Schoelch (pictured above), Roblox's Head of Agency Partnerships, reinforced that at Advertising Week. He said pre-roll will be skippable after 5 seconds and summed up the philosophy well: gamers are anti-disruption, not anti-ads. He also made several points I agree with:
Brands treat gaming differently, but they don't need to.
Custom work slows everything down, so brands do not get valuable paid media learnings as quickly as they could.
The goal is to make gaming easy to buy and easy to measure.
Mobile gaming is further along because it has been building these pipes for years. From what I've heard, a lot of mobile in-game ad spend comes from other game companies buying users. Much of the money stays inside the mobile gaming ecosystem rather than coming from outside brands.
Is Advertising on Roblox Actually Working?
While the infrastructure is still relatively nascent, early adopters are seeing real results.
At the mixer I hosted, Nicholas Walters, Chief Strategy Officer of SuperAwesome (one of our event sponsors), shared that a movie studio partner of theirs ran exit polls revealing that Roblox was the top place moviegoers had heard about the film. While that's only one company's account, it's huge. It points to Roblox driving not just awareness but action: people buying tickets and going to the theater.
It also matches what I see on the platform. Movie studios keep coming back. Universal has activated around Jurassic World, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, Minions, and Forgotten Island. Sony Pictures has shown up for multiple films too, including a Roblox homepage takeover for Spider-Man: Brand New Day that ran alongside its mobile campaign.
These studios aren't returning to Roblox out of the goodness of their hearts. They come back because they're seeing ROI, and that ROI helps marketers unlock internal buy-in and bigger budgets for future campaigns. For Roblox's ad business to really scale, though, it needs more than movie studios. It needs brands in other categories to try it, see results, and come back regularly.
Nick made a great point at the mixer that this ecosystem is large and connected. Players aren't only on Roblox. They're on social, on Discord, on video, and in many other places where people hang out.
In my view, brands need measurement in each of those places, and eventually they need combined measurement that tracks where users go across channels and what impact that has. We're not there yet, but that's where the space has to head. The sooner it gets there, the more dollars will flow in.
Bringing the Gaming Community Together in New York
I co-hosted the Gaming x Advertising Mixer with Mike Shields of Next in Media. More than 70 people came, including professionals from Roblox, Epic Games, Twitch, NBCUniversal, Sawhorse, Super League, Livewire, Dexerto, Voldex, Uplift Games, the IAB, and Bloomberg.
What stood out to me was how much Roblox-native developers are investing in the business side. Voldex had two people from its brand partnerships team there, which suggests that team is growing.
It was great to meet Floyd Horng, Founder and co-CEO of Uplift Games, the studio behind Adopt Me, and to see how closely connected he is to the community of top Roblox devs. I also got to tell him that my daughter started playing Roblox in 2020 during the pandemic, and Adopt Me was the top game she played. For her and her friends, Roblox wasn't really a platform. It was Adopt Me. Six years later, she still plays. And I definitely bragged to my kids later that I met the Adopt Me creator.
This UGC gaming community is growing up, and I'm excited for more top developers like Floyd and Sam Chessler from Basket Entertainment to be in rooms like this. Business people have a lot to learn from top developers, and top developers can learn from business people. I love helping bring these sides together, because I really want to see this whole space mature.
Special thanks to our sponsors, Exclusible and SuperAwesome, for making the mixer possible. I'm super grateful for your partnership.
What I'm Watching Next
Roblox's Q3 sales and marketing spend. Danica said the budget has grown a lot. Q3 results will show whether that growth shows up in Roblox's reported spending.
Pre-roll on Roblox. How do players, creators, and advertisers respond once it's live?
Discord's self-serve launch in early 2027. Does opening up to advertisers of every size bring new buyers into gaming?
Cross-platform measurement. Who builds the combined view of where players go across Roblox, social, Discord, and video?
My Takeaways
The audience is there in games, and the early adopters are seeing it work. What's been missing is infrastructure that makes gaming easy to buy, target, and measure with confidence. As those pipes mature, I expect the perception problem to fade too, because brands will finally have the numbers in front of them. We're in the early days, and that's the opportunity. More brands just need to try it and see the results for themselves.
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Stephen Dypiangco is one the world’s leading experts on the topic of Roblox and brands. He has advised global companies on their Roblox strategies, including BBC Studios, Paramount, and Takara Tomy.
With 120+ articles published about Roblox and a following of over 14,000 across LinkedIn and his industry leading Max Power Gaming newsletter, he is widely regarded by gaming industry executives and investors as a trusted resource.
Stephen is building the premiere network of Roblox professionals to help this emerging sector connect and scale through his unique blend of relevant content and community events.
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