Leveling Up Ad Strategy: How Experian Is Powering Smarter Advertising in Gaming

As the gaming industry continues to grow into one of the most immersive and high-attention environments for digital engagement, advertisers are looking for smarter ways to reach players — without compromising on privacy or personalization.

Experian, best known for its expertise in data and identity, is now working with top game developers and publishers to address long-standing challenges like data fragmentation, identity resolution, and monetization at scale.

We spoke with Suzanna Stevens, Senior Enterprise Partnerships Manager at Experian, to learn more about how the company is helping unify player data across platforms, enable privacy-safe targeting, and open the door for more meaningful brand engagement in the gaming space.

1. Gaming has become a major channel for brand engagement. From your perspective, what makes gaming audiences particularly valuable or unique compared to other digital channels?

Gaming audiences are massive, engaged, and deeply diverse. They span all ages, interests, and income levels—and they’re spending meaningful time in immersive environments where they’re highly focused and emotionally invested. Unlike more passive scrolling experiences, gaming is active. Players choose to be there, and that gives brands a unique opportunity to engage them with relevance.

Gaming also produces rich behavioral signals, but to truly unlock their value, marketers need a way to connect the dots across fragmented platforms and devices. That’s where Experian adds value—helping advertisers understand, reach, and measure these audiences with accuracy and scale.

2. You mentioned that Experian is working with leading game developers and publishers. What are some of the key challenges these partners are facing when it comes to identity resolution and data fragmentation?

The biggest challenge is fragmentation. Gaming companies collect data from a wide range of sources—mobile apps, console systems, email programs, loyalty platforms—but it’s rarely connected. That makes it difficult to get a full view of the player journey or activate data consistently across channels.

There’s also the issue of signal loss. As cookies and mobile IDs disappear, developers and advertisers need a new way to identify and reach their players while respecting privacy and regulation.

And many companies simply don’t have the infrastructure to activate their data at scale. They need a partner who can help them unify, enrich, and use their data—without requiring a full rebuild of their tech stack.

3. How is Experian helping unify player data across platforms, and what kinds of opportunities does that unlock for advertisers?

Experian helps gaming companies unify their player data by linking it to a persistent, privacy-safe identity. We start by organizing individuals into households, then enrich those records with demographic and behavioral attributes as well as digital identifiers. That creates a consistent and complete view of the consumer, which can then be activated across marketing platforms.

💡 How it’s working:

• One major mobile gaming developer is appending rich demographic and behavioral data to its first-party player profiles. This enables better audience segmentation and more personalized advertising, both in and outside of the game.
• A leading hospitality and gaming brand is cleaning and enriching customer records with Experian’s identity and data assets—making their database more addressable and actionable.
• A top entertainment company is using Experian to expand its audience reach by creating privacy-safe custom segments that perform across digital channels.
• And Unity, a major gaming and real-time 3D development platform, is partnering with Experian to enhance its addressable advertising offerings by enriching their publisher ecosystem with audience data.

These examples show how a unified identity layer enables smarter targeting, stronger monetization, and more consistent measurement across the gaming ecosystem.

4. In an increasingly privacy-conscious world, what strategies are proving most effective for privacy-safe targeting and measurement in the gaming space?

The most effective strategies start with consent and end with consistent identity. Experian helps marketers target and measure campaigns without relying on third-party cookies or mobile ad IDs. Instead, we use consented first-party data and privacy-safe identifiers that persist across environments.

We also offer tools for clean room activation and measurement, which allow marketers to match ad exposure to outcomes at the household or segment level—without exposing personally identifiable information.

When brands use the same trusted identity framework for planning, activation, and measurement, they not only protect consumer privacy—they also improve campaign performance.

5. Audience-based advertising has become more prominent across digital media. How does that translate specifically to in-game environments, and what makes it effective there?

Audience-based advertising brings relevance to in-game environments. Instead of targeting “gamers” as a generic group, marketers can reach very specific audience segments—like frequent travelers, recent auto intenders, or high-income parents—with messaging tailored to their needs.

Experian makes this possible by connecting real-world data to in-game identity. That means:

• Publishers can offer higher-value audience segments to advertisers.
• Brands can serve different creative to different audience types.
• Players get ads that feel more relevant and less interruptive.

When combined with contextual cues from the game itself, audience-based targeting becomes even more powerful. And when those audiences are activated across multiple environments—like mobile, CTV, and web—brands create more cohesive and effective campaigns.

6. What advice would you give to brands — especially non-endemic advertisers — looking to enter the gaming space in a more data-driven and strategic way?

Start by understanding your customer. Chances are, they’re already playing games—whether it’s mobile puzzle games, multiplayer RPGs, or console sports titles. The key is to find where your audience overlaps with the gaming universe and deliver value in those moments.

Work with a partner who can help you:

• Enrich your first-party data to find and understand gaming audiences
• Build privacy-safe custom segments for activation
• Connect campaign performance back to real-world outcomes

One large gaming client, for example, is using Experian to build lookalike audiences based on their highest-value players—then activating those segments across programmatic and social channels. It’s not just about running ads in games—it’s about bringing gaming audiences into your entire marketing strategy.

7. Looking ahead, how do you see gaming evolving as a performance and brand channel? Are there any emerging trends or innovations that marketers should be watching closely?

Gaming is maturing into one of the most powerful full-funnel marketing environments. What was once seen primarily as a brand-building channel is now delivering measurable performance results—from app installs and purchases to in-store visits and subscriptions.

Trends to watch:

• Retail media meets gaming: As games become login-first experiences, developers are turning their first-party data into performance-driving ad products.
• Dynamic creative optimization: Tailoring messages based on player profile, gameplay behavior, and contextual moments.
• Privacy-safe measurement: Using identity graphs and clean rooms to tie exposure to action without violating user trust.

With our acquisition of Audigent, Experian now offers end-to-end support across data, identity, activation, and measurement. That means gaming companies and advertisers don’t have to stitch together multiple vendors—they can partner with us to simplify execution and amplify results.