Social tactics pay-off for Super Bowl advertisers
February 4, 2015
Super Bowl XLIX lived up to high expectations, delivering a major increase of 105 per cent in customer conversion rates and an even greater jump of 163 per cent for social tactics, according to business intelligence from The Exchange Lab.
With record-breaking ad prices, this year¹s Super Bowl Sunday received unprecedented media attention with advertisers investing millions to secure a coveted-30-second or 60-second half time slot. The latest insights from The Exchange Lab show that online and social inventory were also highly sought after in the week leading up to the game, with significant results for successful bidders:
– A major spike in customer conversion rates on Super Bowl Sunday, which more than doubled (105 per cent) compared to the previous Sunday
– Social tactics showed an even bigger jump in performance, with customer conversion rates increasing by 163 per cent compared to the previous Sunday
– Impression volumes dropped 24 per cent on Super Bowl Sunday compared to the previous Sunday, with more advertisers competing for valuable space
– The price of media (CPM) increased 43 per cent on Super Bowl Sunday compared to the previous Sunday
– CPMs on Janaury 29th, 30th and 31st were actually higher than Super Bowl Sunday, indicating how brands were increasing bids to fight for audience attention leading up to the event
– Average CPM during the week leading up to the Super Bowl were $1.58 USD, compared to $1.29 USD the previous week
– Facebook’s Audience was the tactic that saw the greatest jump in CPM on Sunday, increasing 83 per cent to $10.81 USD, compared to the previous day
– CPM for video buys were up on average by 11.3 per cent during the week leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, compared to January 1 January 25
James Aitken, CEO at The Exchange Lab, commented: “These insights demonstrate the scale of opportunity for brands to engage consumers through programmatically-driven advertising campaigns, where budgets do not stretch to prime TV spots during the game, or for those employing a strong multi-channel strategy.”
He continued: “It is no surprise that advertisers who successfully bid for ad space during the event saw greater customer conversion rates compared with the previous Sunday. However, due to increased competition between brands for valuable inventory, impression volumes were actually lower on Super Bowl Sunday showing that each impression held more value than a typical served ad. Video played a key role in online ad consumption, with brands bidding against each other for quality ad space, subsequently driving up the CPM in the week leading up to the Super Bowl.”