If programmatic media buying were a sport, media agencies would probably say they won their first Olympics medal this year.
The vast majority (90%) of programmatic Olympics ad sales on Peacock are coming from brands that are new to the Games, according to exclusive data that NBCU shared with AdExchanger earlier this week. At the beginning of the Games, this number was 70%.
And agencies are seeing good results.
“At this point in the Games, programmatic campaigns are exceeding expectations,” said Rebekah Shalit, VP of partnerships and platforms at Dentsu Media US. Clients are hitting their reach and frequency goals and achieving positive return on investment, Shalit said.
NBCU told AdExchanger that two top advertisers running programmatic Olympics ads saw between 94% and 96% incremental reach on Peacock compared to campaigns on other ad-supported streaming services.
But not all programmatic buyers have been using the Olympics as a mass reach and awareness vehicle. Others are taking advantage of programmatic to get more granular with their Olympics campaign targeting.
But regardless of the targeting strategy, most media buyers expect their Olympics campaigns to hit the desired goals at a cost-effective rate, said Mohammad Chughtai, global head of advanced TV at programmatic buying company MiQ.
Media buyers hit their Olympics targets
Tens of millions of people are tuning in to watch or follow the Games on Peacock, which is why many buyers are treating the Olympics as a mass reach opportunity.
But programmatic creates an opportunity for advertisers to target specific viewers, said Sarah Karges, SVP of performance investment at Havas Media Network.
Havas Media, for example, is using a mix of first- and third-party data to help clients create custom audience segments based on interests or behaviors, such as people in the market for a car or a new home.
Considering that viewership of the Paris Olympics so far is 77% higher than that of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, according to NBCU, this level of targeting doesn’t sacrifice scale, Karges said.
And there are other benefits to targeting narrower audience segments amid seemingly endless waves of impressions.
Compared to the general population, Paris Olympics viewers are 24% more likely to be in market for a car, 79% more likely to visit casual dining restaurants and 38% more likely to be regular moviegoers, according to NBCU data from the first week of the Games.
Havas measures these targeted Olympics campaigns based on mid-funnel metrics, such as cost per unique household reach, Karges said, in addition to more typical upper-funnel metrics, including reach, frequency and brand awareness.
A race for data-driven Olympics reach
On the other hand, however, many marketers and media buyers are taking a less targeted approach to the Olympics.
Most programmatic advertisers during this year’s Games haven’t bought against the Olympics before, so they’re using it as an opportunity to reach as many new viewers as possible, MiQ’s Chughtai said.
Even so, Chughtai added, media buyers with a broad approach still need a certain amount of data to make sure they’re reaching people who will be receptive to their ads.
MiQ, for example, is leaning on geotargeting for regional advertisers like fast-food chains that only advertise in the states they’re operating in, Chughtai said. MiQ is also helping programmatic advertisers retarget certain TV viewers on other devices, including mobile phones – a popular strategy among advertisers that want to apply performance marketing tactics to broader TV and streaming campaigns.
PMG is another agency that’s using data to help clients balance mass reach objectives with performance-oriented goals.
For example, PMG uses first-party data to either target or suppress a marketer’s existing customers, said Mary O’Brien, the agency’s head of programmatic media. Through suppression, advertisers can reach more new, prospective customers who are watching the Olympics, she said.
And because targeting specific sports events isn’t an option for programmatic Olympics buyers, PMG is using dayparts as a “proxy,” O’Brien said. If a brand’s current customer base happens to include a lot of soccer fans, for example, it might choose to run ads during the dayparts when most of the soccer games are airing.
The daypart method isn’t perfect – it doesn’t differentiate between live events and pre-recorded content or recaps – but it does give brands a better chance of running during specific sporting events they want to align with, O’Brien said.
The cost of competing during the Olympics
No matter the ad targeting strategy, though, Olympics inventory is quite costly.
Private marketplace deals for live Olympics programming through The Trade Desk start at $60 CPMs, while competitive bidding can cause floor prices to rise by double-digit percentages, based on the Olympics trial NBCU ran in June to test programmatic buying for the Games.
“The CPMs have been high – but we were expecting higher costs and [intense] competition,” O’Brien said. “No one seems shocked and no one’s shying away.” High CPMs “have been justified by the performance we’ve seen overall,” she added, referring specifically to brand awareness, brand lift and incremental reach.
But CPMs are even higher for campaigns with more specific audience targeting. And there could be a point where the cost outweighs the value to advertisers.
“The delta between directly negotiated CPMs and programmatic CPMs can be quite large, with direct negotiations often netting out more efficiently than programmatic activation,” said Rachel Costanzo, senior director of media investment at Tinuiti.
Even so, Costanzo said, plenty of brands are willing to pay the programmatic price to access Olympics inventory from the same place they’re already doing other digital ad buys.
Buyers are also tolerating high costs because the Olympics is a prestigious media opportunity. There’s a lot of value in reaching engaged viewers who are likely to convert, Karges said.
And there are ways for buyers to manage costs, she said, such as placing max bids and keeping a careful eye on bid optimization. If buyers are consistently clearing their bids, for example, they have more room to lower their bid prices.
Buyers should also ensure they’re paying less on impressions for broad reach than they would for more targeted impressions, Chughtai said.
From an investment standpoint, he said, “you don’t want to be overpaying for mass reach.”
