Innovid Report Details Trends, Creative Benchmarks, & Best Practices for Advertising on Live-Streamed Sports

“Live-streamed sports on CTV isn’t the future—it’s the present”

The report delves into why some of the world’s biggest brands and agencies are turning to live-streamed sports to engage with audiences. The findings underscore how CTV’s digital advantages—personalization, interactivity, and advanced measurement—allow brands to tap into the unparalleled engagement of sports fans with relevant, engaging content while also gaining granular insights into ad performance and ROI.

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In addition to landscape growth stats, creative and measurement trends, case studies, and quotes and Q&As from leading brands, agencies, and publishers, the report includes Innovid’s analysis of approximately 200 billion video ad impressions from the first half of 2024. Findings include:

• Lean-In Audiences Engage: Interactive ads on CTV deliver an engagement rate 4.5 times higher than standard video ads. Additionally, the use of QR codes in the first half of 2024 surpassed all of 2023 by 11%, and their engagement rate has more than doubled in that same timeframe.
• Relevancy = More Time Earned: Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) ads, which are personalized to the viewer, earn an additional 20 seconds of engagement time compared to standard video ads. Tailored creatives result in longer, more meaningful connections with viewers, particularly during high-stakes live sports moments.
• Reach is Growing: The average CTV campaign reach has more than doubled since 2021 and is expected to increase, fueled by the surge in live-streamed sports viewership.

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While CTV continues to attract more viewers than linear TV, ad spending has not yet kept pace. Despite CTV’s rapid growth, brands still allocate over 100% more of their budgets to linear TV, spending approximately $61 billion on traditional TV compared to $30 billion on CTV. This gap underscores the opportunity for brands to capitalize on streaming, especially as eMarketer projected that CTV has surpassed linear in viewership this year.

“Live-streamed sports on CTV isn’t the future—it’s the present,” said Dani Cushion, CMO, Innovid. “Brands now have unprecedented opportunities to leverage the massive engagement of live sports with digital capabilities like personalization and measurement. Our latest report is a roadmap for advertisers looking to maximize their impact and ROI in this evolving landscape.”