Roblox rolls out in-platform video ads

Advertisers can now run video ads on Roblox without building a game. On Wednesday, the gaming platform announced that video ads would become available to all advertisers after testing them with select brands in November.

Video ads come in two forms: non-interactive spots and portal ads, which transport users to the advertiser’s Roblox game. Brands can choose for video ads to automatically play or require players to click on them. They can also decide to make their video ads rewarded.

“We want to have this immersive quality to our ads but also lower the bar to entry for advertisers,” said Enrico D’Angelo, VP of economy at Roblox. “Portals require somebody to own a place that players are teleporting to, and a lot of brands don’t have that place yet. The launch of video ads was meant to welcome those brands.”

Brands could previously advertise on Roblox without having a game, but those ads were limited to static images.

E.l.f Beauty, Hugo, Walmart, Warner Bros. Pictures and Dentsu were early testers of video ads. 

Early this year, Roblox conducted an audience impact and brand lift study with Latitude. Seventy-five percent of respondents said they were more likely to notice brands advertising on Roblox compared to brands that advertise elsewhere.

Roblox will split video ad revenue with the developer of the experience that’s hosting the ad. D’Angelo declined to provide the split.

Media buyers can bid on inventory from within Roblox’s ads manager. Prices will vary on how competitive the campaign’s targeted audience is, but won’t be affected by the length of the video. Buyers purchasing through the ad manager will have to bid on ad spots, but Roblox is also in the process of striking Upfront deals, D’Angelo said.

The ad manager is where advertisers can set their budgets, target audience and engagement goals (choosing between player visits, awareness and video views). Roblox will provide measurement reports on video completion and impressions at least two seconds long. If a video is longer than 15 seconds, it will be considered completed at the 15-second mark. 

During testing, Roblox counted an impression when a player saw a video ad for at least two seconds while it occupied at least 1.5% of the screen and had at least half of its pixels viewable. If the ad was mostly obstructed by an in-game object, that view didn’t count.

To build on its measurement offering, Roblox partnered with Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Kantar. IAS is providing 3D in-experience viewability and invalid traffic measurement to offset the challenge of players constantly moving around while video ads play. Kantar is offering brand lift studies utilizing forced-exposure methodology in the interim while Roblox is looking to partner with more measurement companies.

Advertisers can also choose between three brand safety categories on the platform. In the most lenient category, video ads may appear in games containing violence or depictions of drinking, for example.

Media buyers will likely lean on those controls once they can purchase video ads on Roblox programmatically, thanks to a recent partnership with Pubmatic. Programmatic video ads will become available “in the near future,” according to a release from the company. D’Angelo didn’t provide additional details on timing.

He emphasized that brands don’t need to make video ads specifically for Roblox and can instead upload repurposed creative. However, gaming advertisers typically recommend making gaming-specific ads to reach that audience.

On Monday, Walmart started selling physical products to players inside Roblox, Digiday first reported.

“The vision for ads and the vision for commerce…will be one value proposition for brands,” D’Angelo said. “You can run your business and make money directly on this platform. Here are all of the advertising tools you could possibly need to drive an audience to the business action that you care about.”