Mobile gaming has become one of the most engaged environments in digital media — yet it remains underleveraged by many advertisers. To help unlock its full potential, PubMatic and Zynga are collaborating to give direct access to Zynga’s premium mobile gaming audiences through diversified demand pathways including agentic advertising, immersive commerce-enabled creative, and more efficient media buying solutions.
Here’s why this matters now.
Gaming apps now represent 8.1% of US app ad spend — a figure that grew 42% year-over-year — yet gaming audiences have reached near-parity with shopping audiences, with 53.8% of the US population expected to play mobile games in 2026, matching the reach of shopping apps.
Despite similar audience sizes, shopping apps currently attract twice as much ad spend as gaming (eMarketer). The gap signals a clear opportunity: mobile gaming delivers mass reach and high engagement but has yet to capture proportional full-funnel investment from advertisers.
This collaboration underscores PubMatic’s broader strategy to extend performance-driven capabilities into premium, brand-safe environments. By bringing commerce-enabled formats and efficient buying pathways, including agentic, to Zynga’s deeply engaged audiences, brands can activate campaigns in high-attention gaming environments that drive impact and measurable results across the full consumer journey.
Three Capabilities That Unlock the Mobile Gaming Opportunity
As the industry matures and supply chains evolve, buyers are demanding more transparent, efficient paths to inventory that drive measurable results. Historically, this has been notoriously difficult for mobile apps integrating with ad tech, which is why an SDK like PubMatic’s OpenWrap brings such value to Zynga’s tech stack. It creates a streamlined, performance-ready supply path to premium gaming inventory, combining transparency and control with the scale and quality brand-focused advertisers value.
Buyers can now also reach Zynga’s players with immersive, commerce-enabled creative at scale. PubMatic’s creative format capability, such as Click to Cart, integrated through OpenWrap SDK, gives advertisers the tools to deliver dynamic, interactive, and personalized eCommerce-driven formats that enhance the gameplay experience rather than disrupt it. Research confirms the appetite is there: only 20.3% of US gamers say they generally dislike ads in games, and gamers respond most positively to ads that are skippable, offer rewards, are relevant to their interests, or blend with the game’s theme (eMarketer). Commerce-enabled creative does all of the above — meeting players in a context where purchase intent is already elevated.
Finally, PubMatic’s AgenticOS and Activate, its direct to supply media activation platform enables buyers to drive measurable outcomes across Zynga’s premium inventory through streamlined, AI-powered buying workflows and supply path optimization. This means less friction, greater transparency, and better performance — removing the inefficiencies that have historically made premium mobile gaming inventory harder to buy against programmatic alternatives.
“Mobile gaming audiences are among the most engaged in digital media, yet buyers have lacked the tools to reach them with the creative quality and performance outcomes the channel deserves,” said Lashanne Phang, Vice President of Mobile at PubMatic. “This partnership with Zynga changes that equation — bringing together the demand diversity, creative capability, and buying efficiency that performance marketers need to make mobile gaming a cornerstone of their media strategy.”
“By partnering with PubMatic and their OpenWrap SDK, we are able to create a cleaner and more efficient supply path for advertisers looking to access Zynga’s premium gaming inventory,” said Corentin Leydis, Head of Programmatic & Agency Relations at Zynga. “PubMatic’s technology and strong agency partnerships also open new opportunities for product innovation as we continue to evolve our ad experiences. Our focus remains simple: delivering a premium gaming environment for players while providing advertisers with high-quality, direct access to our audience.”
High-attention gaming environments are uniquely positioned to deliver both brand impact and measurable performance – without compromise. If you’re ready to rethink what full-funnel advertising can look like in mobile gaming, get in touch or connect with your PubMatic rep to start the conversation.
