As game marketing evolves, studios and publishers face an increasingly fragmented digital landscape. Traditional advertising methods often struggle to effectively reach high-intent gamers, resulting in wasted impressions and underperforming campaigns. For those looking to scale their reach while maintaining precision, Second Stage’s Gateway offers a data-driven, fully managed programmatic solution designed specifically for PC and console games.
At the core of Gateway’s success is Game Affinity Targeting (GAT)—a proprietary approach that goes beyond conventional audience segmentation. Instead of relying on generic demographic or interest-based targeting, GAT analyzes real player behavior, identifying overlapping game ownership, playtime, review activity, and engagement signals. This allows advertisers to serve ads to players with a proven affinity for similar titles, ensuring that campaigns connect with the audiences most likely to engage, wishlist and convert.
Reach alone is not enough. In a space where fraudulent traffic and non-viewable impressions remain persistent challenges, Gateway operates exclusively within a curated ecosystem of 100+ top ad exchanges. By partnering with premium ad exchanges, authorized direct and reseller inventory, the platform ensures that advertisers have access to brand-safe, high-quality placements while avoiding invalid traffic. This level of control not only protects media investment, but also improves ad performance by prioritising placements that deliver real engagement.
For game publishers, traffic quality is just as important as reach. Visibility on Steam, the Epic Games Store, or custom landing pages is a critical driver of both discovery and conversion. Gateway is designed to drive quality traffic to these destinations, ensuring that users who click through are truly interested in the game. Using advanced audience modelling and real-time bidding strategies, the platform optimises for users who are most likely to wishlist, purchase or engage, rather than just generate clicks.
The power of any programmatic solution lies in its inventory. Gateway delivers premium placements across the gaming, entertainment and news ecosystem, ensuring that ads appear where gamers are most engaged. From industry-leading platforms to broader entertainment networks, the platform maximises exposure in high-value environments that directly influence gaming decisions. This approach ensures that game ads reach players in the right mindset, at the right time, resulting in higher engagement and better campaign results.
Running successful programmatic campaigns can be resource-intensive, but Gateway eliminates the complexity with its fully managed service model. From campaign setup and creative optimisation to real-time reporting, traffic monitoring and continuous performance improvement, Second Stage ensures that every advertising dollar is spent efficiently. Advertisers benefit from a hands-off, results-driven approach, allowing them to focus on game development while the platform handles the intricacies of programmatic media buying.
The gaming advertising landscape is changing, and success depends on precision, reach and automation. With Gateway, studios, publishers and agencies gain access to a powerful, gaming-specific ad platform that delivers targeted reach, premium inventory and a fully managed experience designed to maximize impact and minimize inefficiencies. As competition for player attention intensifies, leveraging a programmatic solution built specifically for gaming isn’t just an advantage – it’s a necessity.
