• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 4, 2024

Sports score tickers enhance videos, display, and ads running across connected television (CTV) to keep the attention of viewers, but one ad company began using it for political ads to keep watchers in front of the message.

Sharethrough, a sell-side platform (SSP), has been supporting the ability to add sports scores to political ads running across programmatic-based platforms.  

In the battleground states, there’s a massive population of sports fans, says Sam Vangelovski, political strategy lead at Sharethrough, an Equativ company and ad exchange.

“It’s 30 seconds before the programming starts, but they are not really engaged as they wait,” he says. “We are putting on sports score along with a [Kamala Harris or Donald Trump] commercial.”

It's crazy how much money is going into political ads this election cycle. Eleven thousand political groups spent 14.7 billion to influence the 2024 election, Bloomberg reported Friday. 

There are no legal limits on how much can go toward electing candidates to the White House or Congress to influence voters. A  "flood of TV commercials, frantic fundraising appeals and litany of door knockers is the result of $14.7 billion worth of spending from candidates, parties and political action committees, about 92% of the total that OpenSecrets projects will be shelled out through the election cycle," Bloomberg reported. 

Political advertisers in the United States spent more than $619 million on the two largest digital ad platforms between the beginning of 2023 and the end of August 2024, according to Brennan Center, OpenSecrets, and the Wesleyan Media Project.

The numbers were compiled using publicly available data from Google and Meta and a methodology and analysis that sheds light on the scope of online spending this election cycle on the two largest online platforms.

With so much money spent on political advertising, politicians want to ensure they get seen. Sports score tickers are a way to get viewers to stick with the ads, Vangelovski says.

With sports fans, there is a 91% increase in attention when a sports score serves on the screen, according to about 10 studies Sharethrough has conducted.

During one of those studies, Sharethrough found that 76% of sports fans don’t pay attention during commercial breaks and 79% are on their phone at that time. Those numbers were the inspiration for the sports score ticker.

Tickers can be used to run across most ads that create a sense of urgency. For the holidays, it’s a countdown to holiday sales. In health care there is a countdown to open enrollment for insurance at the end of the year.

This is the first year that brands have relied on the countdown clock or sports scores from Sharethrough for political ads.

These enhancements, while originally for display ads, can be used for connected TV (CTV) and for all types of digital advertising including online video, native, standard displays. Combining it all makes the most sense, he says.

“We’re seeing viewability rates for display at about 73% or 74%,” Vangelovski says, adding that the company optimizes at the ad placement and domain level. “These are above-the-fold viewable rate of the ad that we know the viewer sees the impression.”

What can advertisers learn in a time when it is so difficult to gain the attention of consumers? Younger audiences are cord cutting. It's expensive to subscribe to traditional television services. One minute worth of ad time can cost advertisers more than what they return. So, keep it short and interesting, Vangelovski says.