It’s no secret that every year live sports content make up a primary source of ad spend. Watching sports is truly a national pastime, and fans watching their favorite teams are a perfect audience for advertisers. However, what do we do when the sports are either no longer there or in limited supply?

The Current Normal

With circumstances around COVID-19 shifting so rapidly, it’s hard to know what to consider “normal.” But one thing has remained constant since the pandemic began: more people staying at home has caused streaming media numbers to skyrocket. Even back in March, Nielsen predicted that COVID-19 could lead to a 60% increase in the amount of video content watched in the U.S. Even now, with economic reopening efforts slowly progressing, recent surges in COVID-19 suggest that time spent at home will not be significantly decreasing in the near future.

So what’s the connection here for advertisers looking for another place to spend ad dollars now that fall sports on traditional, linear TV are in jeopardy? Well, we’ve already seen a Q2 with no sports, and the second half of the year isn’t looking particularly promising. This means that advertisers are going to have to find another place for that ad spend to go now.

With that in mind, we’ve already seen that OTT/CTV advertising is the perfect avenue for reaching homebound consumers during the pandemic. And it’s also the ideal alternative for advertisers unsure of what to do if televised sports continue to be in short supply. On top of that, it’s an effective way to get in front of the same sports enthusiast that you would on Linear TV in a more cost-effective manner with minimal waste and the ability to attribute an ROI to your advertising efforts.

As truncated sports seasons continue into the fall, eyeballs will undoubtedly continue their path to digital. Advertisers can successfully reach these streaming adaptors, especially those sports enthusiasts, with Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV advertising solution.

Sub in OTT/CTV Advertising with Simpli.fi

With Simpli.fi, advertisers moving spend to OTT/CTV advertising get the impact of TV with the precision of digital. By tapping into our unparalleled household-level targeting, advertisers can curate their ideal audience based on over 500+ location and demographic variables that fit their ideal target market of sports enthusiast and serve them OTT/CTV ads on the big screen in the living room and/or across other small screen devices within the household. Using Simpli.fi’s Addressable Audience Curation tool, advertisers can target those interested in sports in real-time using parameters such as sports interests, purchase history such as previous sports outing purchases, locations visited such as stadium visits, life events, gender, age, household income and more.

Simpli.fi’s advertisers have access to our massive reach and can successfully reach 90% of all AVOD homes in the U.S.,

allowing you to build and execute campaigns using a single source for any market. Already have some linear buys running? Never fear. With a truncated sports season, you can still reach those viewers through linear TV buys as you normally would, and then achieve incremental reach with Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV solution for homes you haven’t touched.

Add to that the ability to target each household with ease via all 210 designated TV markets across the U.S. regardless of the local MVPD. Say goodbye to having to work with multiple suppliers to find the designated TV market scale and targeting that you require. Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV targeting has the reach and execution that you need to be successful this fall.

Additionally, since we can target sports enthusiasts all the way down to the household-level, gone are the concerns of in-market delivery. With Simpli.fi, we serve 100% in-market guaranteed. What’s not to love about that?

As for inventory access, our team of experts have custom curated industry-specific packages for buyers like yourself that already know which audiences are important. With Simpli.fi’s Sports Inventory Package, advertisers can easily target those consuming streamed content on ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL, NHL, Sling Sports, Roku Sports, ESPN Deportes, The Golf Channel, The Tennis Channel, NBA, MLB, Fubo TV, and more.

Attributing ROI When It Matters

With Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV solution, not only can we get you in front of the same audience that would have been watching live sports, we can also provide advanced metrics that would be unheard of in Linear such as:

Ready to start shifting sports ads dollars to OTT/CTV advertising? Reach out to us at hi@simpli.fi to get started.