Roblox is reaching new heights as a platform. Grow a Garden, one of the ~40 million games and experiences published on its platform, just hit nearly 12 million concurrent players, shattering records from games like PUB:G and nearly toppling Fortnite, which peaked at ~14 million players last November. At the same time, it continues to grow its nascent programmatic ad sector, which–if things go well–could make 2025 its highest-earning year yet.
So, does that mean all those millions of players are seeing brands’ ads?
Hard to say.
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Digiday reports that ad agencies who’ve placed marketing with Roblox’s programmatic ads are leery of the fact that it hasn’t added third-party campaign measurement yet. Sure, brands are getting data back from Roblox showing the performance of their ads–but that data is only coming from Roblox, with no objective, outside measurement company confirming the numbers.
Having third-party ad performance analytics is standard. If a brand buys ad space on YouTube, for example, it will get campaign measurement data from AudienceProject, Comscore, DoubleVerify, Dynata, Gemius, IAS, Intage Inc., iSpot, Kantar, Macromill, Nielsen, Video Research, VideoAmp, and Zefr. Having data from all these different companies lets brands confirm their ads are performing the way YouTube’s internal analytics say they are.
Agency execs who spoke to Digiday described Roblox’s lack of third-party measurement as “growing pains” that platforms tend to go through when setting up to court bigger ad budgets. In the past, when a company wanted to do something on Roblox, Roblox would act as a middleman, introducing the brand to one of the aforementioned independent development studios. The studio would then work with the company (often for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars) to create a bespoke branded experience on Roblox’s platform.
Now, Roblox is keeping those relationships for itself, and is competing for the kind of ad dollars that might otherwise go toward YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, all of which offer robust (and, again, third-party) metrics.
All this being said, Roblox did secure a partnership with Nielsen in April, but so far, brands/agencies aren’t getting any numbers from that partnership.
“Other platforms went through similar headwinds in the early stages,” one agency that specializes in Roblox told Digiday. “The breakthroughs are when third-party measurement gets reliable and consistent, and then adopted. Roblox is close.”
When reached for comment, Roblox pointed out its recent partnership with Google, which offers players rewards for watching ads. Through ads placed through that specific partnership, brands and agencies will have access to Google’s performance metrics.
“Agencies and brands tell us daily how excited they are about the potential of Roblox and how they see their key audiences, particularly Gen Z, rapidly shifting to immersive platforms like ours,” Allison McDuffee, Roblox’s Global Head of Brand Insights and Measurements, said. “We are working with a range of top-tier partners, from Google to Kantar, Cint, DoubleVerify, IAS and Nielsen, to quickly expand and bring both standard measurement and innovative approaches to advertisers. We are committed to helping clients effectively measure the impact of showing up across ad surfaces on Roblox, including in immersive environments.”
Roblox also noted its partnership with research firms like MediaScience, which last month unveiled a study showing consumers have better brand recall with Roblox ads than ads on social or streaming. (Whether brands care about recall more than conversions is a different story.)
Neither Roblox nor Nielsen commented on a timeline for Nielsen data to be introduced. A Neilsen rep simply confirmed “Nielsen is actively working with Roblox to make Nielsen measurement of Roblox’s ads available.”
So where does all this leave us? The way we see it, brands that are pop culture-savvy and willing to take the metaverse plunge with Roblox as the cool new kid on the ad block have likely already begun experimenting with buying ad space there. But brands that aren’t plugged in, the same brands that were hesitant to buy TikTok ads because the platform was new and unproven, will probably hesitate without third-party proof of what Roblox can deliver.
As we wrote about previously, Roblox is going after serious ad money here. It really doesn’t have an equivalent in the gaming world; no one can place ads within Apex Legends or Marvel Rivals. So instead, it’s competing for social media dollars–and if it wants to do that, it has to scale quickly and provide the sort of amenities brands are used to from platforms that have been doing this for two decades.
