Strengthening ad sales with third-party data

X’s success as a global platform for conversations and engagement makes it a prime destination for advertisers. To highlight its immense potential for impactful ad campaigns, the team at X elevates their pitches with compelling, data-driven narratives. By leveraging GWI's independent validation, X strengthens its value proposition, offering advertisers the confidence and insights they need to seize this exciting opportunity.

0270M

gamers on X

02.1T

impressions

0271B

video views

We talked to:

Isaac Butterworth

Research Analyst, X

The challenge

Proving the power of X’s audience

Advertisers in the gaming industry seek platforms offering the perfect blend of scale and high audience engagement. X already has a compelling case for both, and by clearly articulating the platform's unique value, it opens up exciting opportunities for advertisers to maximize their impact amongst relevant and engaged audiences.

Their own first-party data showed that gamers on X generate 2.1T impressions, 271B video views, and 7.1B posts globally. To highlight the full potential of these figures, the sales team has enhanced their strategy with third-party data from GWI, positioning X as a premier channel for gaming advertisers. Specifically, they aim to demonstrate that X's audience isn't just highly active, but also uniquely reachable, unlocking an exceptional opportunity for advertisers to engage with the gaming community.

X’s needs in a nutshell:

Prove the scale and engagement of their audience using external analytics, showcasing X's unmatched reach for advertisers.
Show that gamers on X are distinct from those on other platforms, offering advertisers a unique and highly valuable audience to target.
Provide their sales teams with strong data narratives to encourage advertiser investment that inspires partnerships and drives impactful campaigns.

Being able to highlight the value of the audience on X is more important than ever; having third-party-backed insights to support this narrative is therefore critical.

Isaac Butterworth, Research Analyst, X

The action

Strengthened sales conversations and growing advertiser interest

As one of 15,000 brands tracked by GWI, the X team could easily explore their customers’ attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. GWI’s data confirmed that over 270M gamers engage on X, a foundational stat that set the stage for deeper segmentation analysis. Armed with this benchmark insight, Isaac Butterworth and his team were able to:

Build precise audience segments by pairing monthly active X users with gaming-interested consumers, creating targeted opportunities for advertisers.
Highlight X’s unique gaming audience by comparing gamers on X to those not on X, showcasing distinct behaviors, content consumption, and engagement patterns that benefit advertisers.
Customize insights for advertisers by filtering data by region, age, gender, and other demographics to meet specific campaign needs.
Position X as a standout platform by identifying users who engage on X but not on other major social platforms, offering advertisers exclusive access to this valuable audience.

As Isaac put it, “The fact that X is a tracked brand in GWI is hugely valuable. It allows us to segment our audience by their actual engagement and behaviors, not just our assumptions. It means we can enrich our audience in seconds to create compelling pitches and ad stories.”

Using GWI, Isaac Butterworth and his team uncovered key insights that position X as a unique destination for advertisers, including:

Gamers on X play a wide variety of genres: 79% play shooter games, 77% play action-adventure titles, and over half engage with strategy, sports, or racing games, creating multiple high-value touchpoints for advertisers to connect with this audience.
Gaming habits differ by region: Console gaming dominates in North America, whereas mobile gaming is the most popular in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Plus, 32% of X gamers spend more than two hours per day gaming, highlighting their deep engagement and appeal to advertisers.
Gaming enthusiasts are multi-interest audiences: Compared to general X users, they’re 9% more likely to be interested in music, 9% more likely to engage with movies, and 11% more likely to watch sports, making them a valuable segment for cross-industry advertisers.
X connects advertisers with a unique segment of gamers: 32% of X’s gaming audience don’t use Facebook, 21% don’t use Instagram, and 13% don’t use TikTok — positioning X as a uniquely valuable standalone channel for reaching this untapped audience.

We used the insights from GWI to create an overarching global gaming narrative as well as EMEA and UK-specific narratives, which we supplemented with our internal data.

Isaac Butterworth, Research Analyst, X

The result

Strengthened sales conversations and growing advertiser interest

By proving the value of their audience via GWI’s third-party validation, X’s sales team can now deliver more compelling, robust ad stories and develop impactful pitches in record time.

GWI speeds up our process massively—it’s the first tool I go to for quick, reliable insights. 9 times out of 10, we find exactly what we need.

Isaac Butterworth, Research Analyst, X

Although the full impact is still unfolding, early signs indicate positive momentum, with new advertisers coming to the platform to explore the gaming community and its opportunities.

“Being able to segment by region and audience type is invaluable. It allows our team to build strong narratives while enabling sales to pull insights themselves.”