In-Game Ads for Small Businesses: How to Advertise Inside Mobile Games in Australia
Look around any train, waiting room or lounge room and you'll see it: people playing games on their phones. Puzzle games, word games, card games, building games — a few minutes here, half an hour there. For a lot of your customers, that's more screen time than Facebook.
Those games are paid for by ads. And until recently, buying them was something only big app companies did. That's changed. Here's how in-game advertising works, which businesses it suits, and how to try it without wasting money.
What an in-game ad actually is
Most in-game ads appear at natural breaks: between levels, after a round, or when a player chooses to watch an ad for a reward like an extra life. The ad fills the whole screen for a few seconds — usually a short vertical video — with your business name and one big button: Order now, Book, Shop the sale.
You don't pick individual games. You choose the audience and area, and the ad network places your ad across thousands of games and apps.
Where small businesses can buy them
- Google: Google's ads already run inside mobile games through AdMob, the largest in-game ad network — it served roughly a third of all mobile game ad impressions in 2025. Google Ads campaigns can include this inventory alongside YouTube and search.
- Meta's Audience Network: extends your Facebook and Instagram ads into other apps and games.
- AppLovin: the company behind many of the world's biggest mobile games opened its self-serve ads platform to all advertisers in June 2026, with campaigns starting from around US$10 a day.
Who in-game ads suit (and who they don't)
In-game ads are usually cheaper per view than social feeds, but they come with a catch: the player wants to get back to their game. Some taps are accidental, and attention is short. One experienced Meta advertiser found the in-app placement soaked up most of a budget with cheap, low-quality clicks when left unchecked.
So they work best when the decision is quick and the offer is simple:
- Great fit: food and takeaway, online shops, venues and events, gyms, entertainment, and apps.
- Weaker fit: trades, professional services, and anything people research carefully before buying. Nobody books a hot-water service between levels.
What it costs
The platforms let you start small — AppLovin's floor is around $10 a day — but starting is different from working. The algorithms need enough results to learn, which in practice means a few hundred dollars a week before you judge a campaign. For most small businesses, the sensible approach is to treat in-game ads as one part of a wider budget: test a slice, measure cost per enquiry or order, and keep it only if it beats your other placements.
How to make an in-game ad that works
- Land the offer in two seconds. "Two pizzas for $30 this weekend" beats any build-up.
- Vertical video, captions on. Many players have the sound off.
- One big button. Order, book or shop — never "learn more".
- Be bright and clear. You're competing with a game, so make it easy on the eyes and impossible to misread.
- Track what happens next. Judge it on orders and enquiries, not taps.
How Soulwidth does it
Soulwidth now offers Mobile games & apps as an ad placement. Your weekly ad comes in three versions, and each one already includes a vertical video, so it's ready for in-game placements without any extra work. A Soulwidth ad expert decides whether in-game ads suit your business — and tells you straight if they don't.
See plans and example budgets →
Sources
- AppLovin's self-serve ads platform opening to all advertisers: AppLovin blog; budgets and minimums: Sprites.
- AdMob's share of mobile game ad impressions (Sensor Tower, 2025), cited in Segwise; Google on in-game ads: Google.
- Audience Network click quality: Jon Loomer.