TRAFFIC
Figure 1: Change in mobile banner impressions before and during
the World Cup
higher impressions, of more than 122%
in some cases. But perhaps this is less
surprising if you take into consideration
the share of ticket sales – a week before the
tournament, FIFA reported that fans from
the US had purchased the second-largest
number of tickets, behind only Russia.
Yet this pales in comparison to the
percentage increase in qualifying countries,
where we saw impressions rise as much
as much as 155% for some banner sizes in
the UK. So for multi-market campaigns
it’s worth considering where you focus for
future tournaments.
Igaming won the Golden Boot
Figure 2: Change in banner impressions
Figure 3: Change in CTR and impressions per industry during
the World Cup
It’s important to note the improvement to
CTR in the igaming industry. Not only did
impressions rise by 43% but click-through
rates also increased, by 15% (see Figure 3).
There is a correlation between spikes
in sports betting and the performance
of display advertising. This may seem
unsurprising but it is in contrast to other
sectors, where we see fluctuations in
CTR data. Although financial services
and travel either improved or remained
steady, impression data for ecommerce
and entertainment suffered.
The lesson we can take from all this
(other than that Sweden did better than
expected) is that events such as these
present exciting opportunities for display
advertising. The World Cup winners
were those who invested in mobile-first
strategies and took advantage of the
tournament to create relevant adverts
for both viewers and their brands.
BJÖRN KARLSTRÖM is
product owner at Bannerflow.
He has been working within
online media and e-commerce
since 2004, covering strategy,
ad production and e-commerce
for both agencies and clients.
Bannerflow was founded in 2009
to remove the mystery of digital
marketing and empower brands to
take advertising in-house. The creative
management platform allows for the
easy production, publishing and
analysis of display advertising.
iGB Affiliate Issue 70 AUG/SEP 2018
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