DataBeat’s Paris Olympics 2024 Playbook

2024 Global and US Ad Spend Forecast:

Magna forecasts a 7.2% increase in global ad spend for 2024, bringing the total to $914 billion. In the US, ad spend is projected to grow by 9.2% this year, reaching $369 billion, driven largely by major events such as the Summer Olympics and the Presidential elections.

Forecasted US Digital Ad Spending Data by eMarketer (Excludes Traditional)

The Impact of Paris Olympics:

With the Paris Olympics 2024 approaching, the Olympic advertising landscape is set to become highly competitive. This event alone is expected to capture around $3.5 billion of the total advertising budget. This marks a significant surge of nearly 30% compared to the Tokyo Olympics.

Viewership Minutes Stats:

During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, over 3 billion viewers tuned in worldwide. With the 2024 Paris Olympics set in France and scheduled at more convenient times for U.S. audiences, viewer engagement is expected to rise, especially among American viewers.

This event, offering over 150,000 hours of programming, is poised to significantly boost US viewership minutes. Since most of the audience prefers watching live, CTV advertisers have a massive opportunity to capitalize on this extensive engagement.

Strategies to seize opportunities during 2024 Paris Olympics:

To help publishers and advertisers effectively capitalize on this opportunity and capture the maximum share of Olympic ad spend, our yield experts at DataBeat have prepared a comprehensive checklist to guide your strategies for this global event.

• Optimize UPR Floors for Sports Content:
  

  If you have a dedicated sports section on your site, increase the UPR floor for these pages  to capture more spend from sports advertisers. For the rest of the non-sports-related content, maintain the current floor to ensure a good fill rate (as most of the advertisers prefer to spend on Sports content).

• Tune Ad Inventory Levers:

  • Adjust Refresh Intervals:
    Reduce the refresh interval time for the most viewable ad slots on sports-related pages as shorter intervals can capture more ad spend by increasing the frequency of ad displays during high-traffic periods. Adjust the refresh time based on demand and bid density to optimize performance.
  • Modify Lazy Load Settings:
    Increase the lazyload pixel value or remove the lazyload entirely on the sports content pages. While this change might slightly lower CPMs, it will significantly boost the number of impressions per page view, ultimately improving your overall RPM.
  • Increase Ad Inventory:
    Add one or two additional ad slots to sports content pages to capture more ad spend, ensuring that the ad density ratio remains below 40%.

• SEO Optimizations:

  Encourage content writers to produce more articles and posts using keywords related to the Paris Olympics, Olympic Advertising, Best Olympic Ads, and Ads for Olympics In this way engaging and relevant content will attract more traffic and interest from advertisers looking to target Olympic viewers.

  • Target Olympic-related keywords: Athletes names, country, specific sports and events, olympic medal and popular tourist attractions alongside the Games and for more keywords you can refer to this sheet.
  • Long-tail keywords: Use longer, more specific phrases like “best places to watch cycling in Paris during Olympics” to attract targeted visitors.
  • Page Title and Meta Tags: A good keyword-focused headline/title tag and reader-friendly deck/meta description
  • URLs: Ensure your URL aligns with the content and search intent. It should be keyword-focused, (for example: /day-one-live-olympics-2024/)
  • Image Optimization: Use high-quality images related to the Olympics and optimize them with descriptive alt text containing relevant keywords.
  • Internal linking: Link your Olympic content to other relevant pages on your website to improve user engagement and keep visitors exploring.

• Leverage Sales Opportunities:

Provide your sales team with a list of sports advertisers or Olympic sponsors bidding on your inventory through Open Auction. Aim to convert these into PD, PG or PMP deals.

• Conduct Extensive QA:

Review ad blocks thoroughly to ensure no sports-related brands or Olympic sponsors are restricted from bidding at full spend.

• Engage Programmatic Partners:

Reach out to header bidding programmatic partners to run campaigns related to the Olympics and Paralympics on your sites.

• Optimize Video Adpods:

Publishers or OTT platforms featuring Olympics-related videos should increase the number of ad pods. As more ad pods can boost ad revenue from video content significantly during the high-interest Olympic period.

• Strategize for CTV Content Syndicators:

With NBCUniversal securing the U.S. streaming rights for the Paris Olympics and planning to broadcast live events on their platform, Peacock, we anticipate a decrease in streaming minutes for all CTV publishers with content syndicators currently using Peacock. Therefore, we recommend that these syndicators shift most of their content to alternative platforms such as Samsung, Hulu, and Rakuten during the Olympics period.

• Programmatic Opportunity for CTV Advertisers:

The Olympic Games are among the most premium advertising opportunities in the market and have never been accessible through a programmatic environment before. NBCU announced that The Trade Desk will be the exclusive programmatic partner for the Paris Olympics. 30% of Peacock’s inventory, along with other NBCUniversal platforms, will be available through programmatic channels. This transition opens the door to more accessible advertising methods during one of the most watched events globally.

Conclusion:

As the Paris Olympics 2024 approaches, the Olympic advertising industry is gearing up for a surge in ad spend, presenting lucrative opportunities for publishers and advertisers alike. By implementing strategic measures such as optimizing content, adjusting ad settings, and leveraging partnerships, stakeholders can maximize their share of the Olympic ad spend. With the support of DataBeat’s yield experts, stakeholders can explore the strategies already in place and their outcomes by referring to our case studies to help you in implementing them and capitalize on the immense potential of the Paris Olympics to drive revenue growth and audience engagement in the adtech industry.