Gaming audience planning

Start with the Australians the campaign needs to reach, then ask which gaming ad opportunities can reach them. A national count of people who play games can establish gaming’s relevance to a brief. It cannot establish the reach of a proposed buy.

Define the audience

Record the customer group, Australian market requirement, campaign dates, relevant devices and necessary exclusions. Separate requirements from preferences, so a seller can explain which parts of its inventory it can support. “Gamers” alone is too broad for a buying decision.

Product-specific age and game-content requirements need their own review.

Use population research to challenge stereotypes, not to set a targeting definition. Translate the brief into specific customer criteria, then ask whether the proposed audience evidence measures those criteria in Australia.

Interpret player research in context

The 2025 Australia Plays report says that, among Australians who play, 71% are working-age adults, 19% are children and 10% are older adults of retirement age. It reports a gender split of 51% female and 48% male. These figures can help test assumptions about the broad player population, but they do not describe the eligible audience for a specific buy.

The IAB Australia Game Advertising State of the Nation report found that 45% of respondents cited the diversity of gaming audiences as a key reason to use game advertising. This is evidence about advertisers’ motivations, not a measurement of the people a campaign can reach.

Australia Plays 2025: age profile of Australians who play games

Player research figures to test assumptions against

Connect people to the proposed inventory

Ask for the named games or apps, devices and placements. Then request evidence for the people who could receive those ads under the proposed targeting and dates. A player may use a version without the placement, fall outside the campaign geography or never encounter the point in play where it appears.

When requesting reach estimates, ask the provider to state whether the unit is people, households or devices. A device total is not automatically a people total, and reach does not prove that someone paid attention.

Check audience segment claims

Audience segments can be another planning input, but ask what they represent and how they connect to the proposed inventory. Foxtel Media and Livewire announced a multi-year partnership in September 2025, including plans to integrate Foxtel Media’s “Characters” audience segments into the Livewire environment. A segment name alone does not establish its Australian composition or the number of eligible ad opportunities.

The partnership also announced a data collaboration using Gamer.ID, described as Livewire’s privacy-safe identity solution. The announcement says it uses consented data collected through SDKs, APIs and active campaign engagement, with signals anonymised, encrypted and unified into cross-platform gamer profiles. When a proposal relies on such profiles, ask what population and inventory the estimate covers and what reach unit is reported.

Platform scale is not a substitute for campaign reach. The partnership announcement describes Roblox as having 380 million users spending 6 billion hours on the platform each month, with its audience growing by 21% each year. Those figures indicate platform scale, but do not establish how many Australians meet a campaign’s targeting rules or could receive its proposed ads.

Platform scale figures cited in the Foxtel Media and Livewire partnership announcement

Use genre and geography as checks

Treat genre as a hypothesis about audience fit. Compare the particular titles and placements offered, using Australian evidence where the brief requires it. A genre label alone does not establish who will receive an ad.

For an Australian campaign, define what makes an ad opportunity eligible: a location signal assessed near delivery, an account country or another stated rule. Ask when the signal is assessed and how missing or conflicting information is handled. A detailed-looking location value does not by itself establish a player’s current location.

Record the buying decision

The audience plan should name the intended customer, proposed inventory, Australian eligibility rule, reach unit, evidence source and material gaps. Ask whether forecasts remove overlap across games and devices; do not add separate reach estimates and call the sum unique people without a supported method.

Agree on the definitions and reporting period before booking. After launch, compare delivery with those definitions and keep unclassified geography and unmeasured reach visible. If a material audience claim cannot be explained, narrow the claim or treat it as unproven when deciding whether to buy.

What the audience plan should name before booking