Teaming Up For Programmatic, Moment-Based Streaming Ads

For advertisers, appearing directly after THAT moment of a game has long felt like an inexact science.

Some ad pods are too early for the highest moments of attention and audience engagement. During a lopsided contest, later ad placements can simply come after attention has already waned.

While second-by-second measurement and programmatic advertising have helped brands better pinpoint where to achieve more reach (targeted or otherwise), pouncing on a key moment during live programming has largely remained elusive.

Or, it used to be.

This week, StreamLayer and Curated.Media announced a new way to programmatically access real-time moment-based inventory for streaming video. 

As the companies explain, these high-attention ad opportunities have been relatively difficult to implement and scale inside of traditional programmatic workflows. However, with StreamLayer’s server-guided ad insertion (SGAI), advertisers and agencies using Curated.Media will now have access to these highly valuable moment-based units – making for a clear path between StreamLayer-enabled inventory through established programmatic demand channels.

In an environment where Americans are exposed to near-100 ads per day, and traditional ad loads are increasing across video and audio mediums, the chance to capitalize on these high-attention, real-time moments is an opportunity for advertisers to measurably break through the noise. Best of all, these insertions don’t interrupt the viewing experience.

The new development is a welcome one as live sports takes over Upfronts and more of that premium inventory also moves to streaming environments from Netflix, Amazon and Peacock to YouTube and more.

Research from iSpot in 2024 shows that despite the value of these events, though, not all placements are created equal, with second-by-second impressions differing wildly from program averages. 

In one NFL example, the data shows that 36% of the game advertisers only start appearing after the impressions fall below the average (where they stayed and kept dropping for the final 10 ad pods. The data showed a cumulative shortfall of 209 million impressions for the advertisers appearing across the final 44 units of the game.

Utilizing the partnership capabilities unlocked by StreamLayer and Curated.Media, advertisers skirt around this under-delivery issue entirely, and get the boosted engagement of placements outside of an “official” ad break and appearing inside of the content itself where it’s more unavoidable (but also far less disruptive).

The companies have shared that activations with select publishers and advertisers starting in the coming months to leverage StreamLayer’s pause-based and event-triggered formats.