Game Companies Making Good Use of Social Network Ads

September 2nd, 2009

By Eric Eldon

Top social game developer Zynga, quiz-maker Pangea Media and casual game site GameVance were three of the top advertisers by impressions on social networks this past June, mostly MySpace and Facebook, according to a comScore report on social network advertising published yesterday.

While still dwarfed by some major brands, gaming companies are getting more impressions than some and doing an effective job of drawing people to their games.

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Zynga had 484 million impressions, for 96.8 percent of its total impressions on the web, with 40 million unique visitors to its applications as a result. Zynga notably spent a couple million dollars to advertise its hit new game, FarmVille, starting in June. Its spending on Facebook’s own advertising service has been successful enough that we hear many other developers are beginning to use it as well. A metrics-driven company, Zynga has apparently honed its ability to target users through ads. It has found these ads cost-effective because they can make more money from these games — possibly above $200 million by the end of this year, I’ve heard from various source. In general, as competition among games continues to heat up, social network advertising has become an important channel for developers to gain new users.

Pangea had 572 million impressions, 89.6 percent of the company’s total online ad impressions, and 33.1 million unique visitors. GameVance had 450 million impressions, only 33.9 percent of its total impressions on the web, with 34.5 million unique visitors coming to its site as a result.

In terms of larger brands, carrier AT&T had 2.07 billion impressions for 29.5 percent of its total, but only 87.1 million unique visitors. Verizon had only 435 million impressions — fewer than the three gaming companies — for a small 10.5 percent of its online totals, but it received 54.1 million visitors as a result.

Note, however, that it’s not clear how fully comScore is able to measure impressions on Facebook; comScore numbers should be taken more as one view of social network spending rather than the a complete picture.

And one last thought: The three gaming companies, and likely many others, are mostly advertising on social networks now, because social networks are the easiest place to find social network users. Zynga and other companies will likely use some of their revenues to try to find more users in other channels as well, through using behavioral targeting, click-trails and other data to figure out where on the web they can reach social network users.

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To dig deeper into the social gaming market, check out our new report: Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010.

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Filed in Advertising, Business, Marketing, Metrics, MySpace, Social Games, VirtualGoods, facebook

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8 Responses to “Game Companies Making Good Use of Social Network Ads”

Social Networks More Than 20 Percent of Online Ad Impressions Says:
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
[...] into how gaming companies are taking advantage of this advertising inventory to find more gamers, see our report from earlier today. Companies like Zynga are now some of the largest advertisers on social networks, according to the [...]
Social Networks – new social network | Know Marketing Blog Says:
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
[...] Game Companies Making Good Use of Social Network Ads7 hours ago by Eric Eldon Top social game developer Zynga, quiz-maker Pangea Media and casual game site GameVance were three of the top advertisers by impressions on social networks this past June, mostly MySpace and Facebook, according to a comScore report on … – [...]
Social Networks – internet social network | Know Marketing Blog Says:
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
[...] Game Companies Making Good Use of Social Network Ads2 Sep 2009 by Eric Eldon Top social game developer Zynga, quiz-maker Pangea Media and casual game site GameVance were three of the top advertisers by impressions on social networks this past June, mostly MySpace and Facebook, according to a comScore report on … – [ ] [...]
Social Networks – best social network | Know Marketing Blog Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 8:38 am
[...] Game Companies Making Good Use of Social Network Ads2 Sep 2009 by Eric Eldon Top social game developer Zynga, quiz-maker Pangea Media and casual game site GameVance were three of the top advertisers by impressions on social networks this past June, mostly MySpace and Facebook, according to a comScore report on … – [ ] [...]
The 20 Fastest Growing Facebook Apps: Not Just Social Games Says:
September 8th, 2009 at 7:02 am
[...] farming game that Zynga has been promoting across its already-large network of apps, as well as through advertising. The results have been [...]
Facebooks FarmVille: Eine der aktuell wohl größten Web-Erfolgsgeschichten | ethority weblog Says:
September 8th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
[...] So generiert Zynga gigantische Klick- und Visitzahlen. Nach Berechnungen des Branchen-Blogs Insidesocialgames.com erreichte Zynga über Facebook im Juni 2009 über 40 Millionen Unique Users und 484 Millionen Page [...]
Matthew Anton Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
The space is only going to continue to become more saturated because video games need to become more accessible, and let’s face it, they are fun. These social game networks should team up with other community based sites such as http://gamefriends.com as well as myspace, fb, etc.
The long tail of online game development « excapite Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
[...] Eric Eldon’s Game Companies Making Good Use of Social Network Ads provides some useful insights. In the article he quotes extracts from a comScore press release on [...]