Big game: strategic partnership between GPM Ads and APIQ

GPM Ads announces a strategic partnership with an automated AI platform APIQ. This collaboration focuses on developing influencer advertising solutions on the Twitch platform.

The Russian video game market is experiencing strong growth. According to Statista*, its volume reached 218 billion rubles in 2024, a 15% increase from the previous year. In the coming years, the video game market is expected to keep expanding and may even approach the 300 billion ruble benchmark, outpacing many traditional media segments in terms of growth rates. The rising popularity of mobile games, widespread access to high-speed internet, and burgeoning interest in interactive entertainment formats, particularly cybersports, are key drivers behind this growth.

A defining feature of gaming as a medium is the high concentration of audiences on a limited number of platforms. Twitch remains the undisputed leader in the industry: the platform occupies 12.6% of the game streaming market — more than any other platform. The service allows users to communicate, broadcast, and watch video game streams, including major cybersports tournaments.

More than 70%** of the platform’s users are aged 18-34, and 65% of them are not active on traditional social media. Twitch’s audience in Russia*** amounts to 10-12 million unique users per month, placing Russia second globally after the United States and generating roughly 10% of all user traffic on the platform.

The partnership provides brands with an opportunity to cement their presence in Twitch livestreams and gain access to the consumer pool of both top-tier content creators and smaller streamers with engaged communities — while fully automating the interaction process. APIQ’s technology enables the delivery of more than 50 million views per month across streamers in various categories.

This flagship advertising product is a sponsorship overlay, which is modeled after traditional TV sponsorship integrations but adapted to Twitch’s specific environment. This format includes non-standard banner placements in various areas of the interface to ensure high audience engagement. To boost engagement and conversions, the formats are optimized for clicks and support additional features such as: QR codes, pinned chat links, and other mechanics designed to increase click-through rates.

Alexey Krupenin

Director of Digital Advertising Sales Department, GPM Ads

By following global trends and analyzing the development of the Russian market, we aim to offer advertisers the most effective solutions for communicating with their target audiences. Partnership with the leading gaming platform in Russia is a logical step in our strategy. The first campaigns have clearly demonstrated the strong performance of these formats across a wide range of business objectives, confirming their relevance to the current demands of the digital advertising market.

Denis Martasov

Director of the Marketing Department, Abi

The Hot Stuff brand regularly supports projects related to cybersports and gaming. Our first campaign dates back to 2018, when we partner with a Dota 2 tournament. As part of our ongoing strategy, Hot Stuff has launched various special projects, including collaborations with top CS:GO and Minecraft streamers. In 2025, to support the launch of our new Hot-Dogster product, Hot Stuff successfully ran an advertising integration on Twitch together with GPM Ads.

Pavel Ivanov

CEO of APIQ

The market for advertising integrations on the APIQ platform in Russia is showing remarkable growth: over the past two years, advertising budgets have increased manifold. At peak hours, audience reach can climb into the hundreds of thousands of viewers, making the platform highly attractive to advertisers. At APIQ, we continuously develop our platform and advertising formats for audience interactions. We also note the strong potential of the new formats, which are expected to scale rapidly over the next year, further improving campaign effectiveness and brand awareness.

* Statista Market Insights, May 2025.

** According to Twitch.

*** According to SimilarWeb.