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Online sports streaming in affiliate marketing: How to promote Sports CPS offers
Wondering how to promote sports CPS offers successfully? Let us tell you everything that is to know about online sports streaming in affiliate marketing! With a user penetration of 7.6% in 2023 and an expected amount of users of 0.72bn by 2027, a growing number of sports fans prefer watching live matches and fights on online streaming platforms, straying away from TV and on some occasions, even from in-person sports events. So much so that revenue in the online sports streaming market is projected to reach US$106.90m by the end of 2023, showing an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 12.66%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$172.20m by 2027. So online sports streaming is a highly profitable vertical that could earn you very healthy revenues. To help you make the most of your sports CPS offers, we give you exclusive insights into how to start creating your sports affiliate marketing campaign, including the different types of sports offers, conversion flows, best GEOs and traffic sources, and we will also give you expert tips.
Why is online sports streaming a profitable vertical
So, why is online sports streaming a profitable vertical? First step on learning how to promote CPS sports offers is understanding how does does online sports streaming in affiliate marketing work, from a market level. Over the past few years the sports world has observed a radical change of habits by viewers and fans, with millions of subscribers facing away from traditional televised sports and turning to OTT (Over-the-top) streaming – also known as online sports streaming or internet based streaming. OTT in sports has delivered incredible results, with even the popular American Super Bowl seeing a streaming viewership increase of 67% in 2023 compared to the year before, according to Brightcove Marketing! With such a huge event experiencing this striking change of viewing methodology, all other sports events, big and small, have followed the same path. Here are 4 reasons why:
#1 Online sports streaming is simply more convenient: Yes, going to see a match at the stadium may be thrilling, however nothing beats the comfort of being able to watch your favorite players from the sofa, or even at the computer whilst completing other daily tasks, or surrounded by friends. The end user doesn’t need to travel, and their hobby becomes much less disruptive for their daily routine. Because it is so much easier and accessible, this also means that your end users will be able to consume this content more regularly and will be more aware of new viewing opportunities.
#2 Reach end users from all over the world: Every sports fan has their personal favorite team or athlete – And often these all time faves are from an entirely different country and even time zone! So, once again, as exciting as it can be to jump in a plane to go to a sports event, this is not always possible. So going online at 3AM with a few friends and a few snacks to watch their favorite wrestler fight live is a more realistic scenario, and also as exciting! This means that you have the possibility to target multiple GEOs around the world, massively expanding your sports affiliate marketing campaign’s reach.
#3 Reach younger and enthusiastic audiences: Generally speaking, online streaming platforms end up being much more affordable than cable TV (or CTV) and Pay-TV broadcasts. And a lot of younger audiences today are watching sports events live streams from their phone, and also from their laptop, so it makes complete sense to launch an affiliate campaign to promote sports streaming offers and thus reaching these young audiences who will grow older watching their favorite teams and athletes!
#4 You have the potential to really engage this end user: Traditionally, when an end user watches a sports event, in-person or on TV, the experience doesn’t go much further than just the event itself. However, with your online sports streaming offers you can offer them a lot more content to watch, from old and live matches to unedited interviews and other fan focused content. With this you can keep your end user, who is aware of an event and wants to find as much related content as possible, on your website for much longer – You can create native content doing a buildup to the event, during, and after the event, increasing your view and traffic rates, and boosting revenues.
With all this in mind, let’s take a look at how to promote sports live streaming platforms!
How to promote Sports CPS offers successfully
Now that you know why it is a great idea to promote sports CPS offers and have more in-depth information about online sports streaming in affiliate marketing in general, the next step is learning how to promote Sports CPS offers from scratch, starting by finding out what types of sports offers there are, conversion flows and top GEOs:
Types of sports CPS offers
TORO Advertising has a strong focus on online sports streaming offers and currently has got +1600 direct and exclusive offers available, as well as partnerships with premium advertisers within the online sports streaming market to allow you to access thousands of sports offers with highly competitive conditions and payouts. Here are our available Smartlinks for the best sports CPS offers:
-Multi-Sports
-NFL
-NCAA
-NBA
-Boxing
-UFC
-Champions League
-Soccer
-NHL
-Rugby
-Tennis
-Baseball
– MLB
-Cycling
-Golf
-WWE
-Car Racing
-MMA
-Rodeo
-Horse Racing
-Multi Racing
-Formula 1
-Cricket
-Lacrosse
Want to keep up-to-date with weekly major sports events worldwide? Visit this blog, which will be updates weekly with popular sports events to help you promote sports CPS offers efficiently and successfully with our Smartlinks!
What countries to target for sports cps offers
According to our account managers, all available to advise you on how to promote sports CPS offers anytime you need, US, NZ, AU, ES, IT and FR are the best performing GEOs to target with TORO advertising. As we can observe, these are all tier 1 countries, most of them English speaking. Tier 1 GEO end users are most likely to pay to watch their favorite sports online, so you are more likely to convert your offers and reach high EPCs by targeting these countries. However, it is important to still test out all GEOs since different nationalities like different sports, and also every country has their own teams and favorite athletes. For instance, football might be very popular in Spain, however, so it is in Brazil, so it would be wise to also target Brazil in a BR vs. ES football match.
Tip! Test out all tiers: Although the best countries to target for sports CPS offers are tier 1, if you haven’t been promoting sports affiliate marketing campaign for long, it is a good idea to target tier 2 and tier 3 as you learn more about this vertical, since although the payout might be lower, the traffic will also be more affordable.
CPS: The most popular conversion flow for online sports streaming offers
The most popular conversion flow for your online sports streaming offer is CPS (Cost per sale). In this conversion flow, advertisers pay their affiliates for every sale, meaning when a transaction made by credit card is completed. This kind of affiliate marketing reduces vulnerability to frauds by banning IP addresses with fraudulent behavior, making this method one of the most cost-effective and fraud protective, which is ideal for online sports streaming offers. It is possible to calculate it by dividing costs by a number of all sales. Another way is to divide the cost per click by conversion rate.
What are the best traffic sources for online sports streaming offers?
There are several traffic sources available to promote your CPS sports offers, with the most popular ones being:
Organic SEO and SEM traffic
Organic SEO is potentially the most important traffic source for online sports streaming in affiliate marketing. It is no secret that a great Search Engine Optimization (SEO) game is one of the very keys to attract end users to your website and to your online sports streaming offers. The term SEO makes reference to organic unpaid techniques in order to appear on top search results on online search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo- If you want some SEO tips for affiliates, have a look at our blog on how to rank higher on search engines. Organic traffic can also be generated through social media platforms (which we will discuss below) such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and many others.
Organic SEO tends to go hand in hand with Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which refers to using paid advertising to generate traffic and help your website’s content rank higher among search engine traffic. Below we will tell you more about paid advertising formats such as push notifications, native and display advertising.
Social media traffic
Whether organic or paid, social media traffic provides high conversion rates as you can connect with your target audience through many channels. Also, as stated above, it is a great way to direct traffic to your website. End users spend a lot of time during the day finding their favorite entertainment through the diverse social media channels. So, you can boost your sports offers’ visibility and maximize conversions by connecting with your target audience through instant messaging chats like Whatsapp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Snapchat, etc. This also represents a great opportunity to create a community of fans that will daily engage with your content to find relevant updates and information about their favorite teams.
Tip! Join social media groups: Especially on social media, your end users will orbitate towards groups that have ‘inside knowledge’ and more personal facts about their favorite athletes. They are great fans that want to feel close to their team, so join social media groups on social media platforms such as Telegram and Facebook, where you can promote live streaming offers and join the discussion.
Push traffic
These are notifications that are sent to the end user on top of website content on their devices. The end user clicks on the Push Notification ad and is taken to the offer landing page. There are two kinds of push traffic:
– Traditional Push Notifications: Users that visit a publisher’s website are offered the opt-in option of receiving Push Notifications featuring CPS sports offers. End users that opt-in become subscribers, making them a very high quality traffic source because they have agreed to receive Push Notifications. The Push Notification Message appears within the screen of the end user’s device ensuring maximum visibility and qualified clicks.
– In-Page Push Notifications: Website end users do not have to opt-in to see this ad, because it is really a display ad that is designed to look exactly like a Push Notification. The ad fades in over your website’s content, making it really eye-catching to end users. In-Page Push Notifications are displayed to all website users and not just users who previously opted-in to a website to subscribe to see Push Notifications, giving your offers a much greater reach.
Tip! Use emojis! Adding emojis to your Push Notification message enables you to shorten your text to make it more punchy, effective and easier/quicker to read. Use Sports based emojis that match your offer’s focus. For instance, if you are promoting a wrestling match, you could use the 🥊 emoji.
Native traffic
Native ads are designed to look like the content on your website and don’t really look like an ad at all! They are non-intrusive ads that match the look, feel and function of your website, looking like part of the surrounding content, and avoiding ad blindness. The ad consists of:
-An image which will appear like a content thumbnail e.g. like a video screenshot, article or
editorial. The image should be 300x300px
-A short title for a catchy headline (max. 50 characters)
-A short description (max. 90 characters) to expand on the title
– A Brand name (max. 30 characters) to ensure quality clicks as the end user knows it is an ad.
TIP! When the end user clicks the Native ad, it is best to follow the Native flow. Because Native ads should appear like the editorial content of your landing page should be in an editorial style like an article. This could be insights on the teams competing, profiles of the athletes, etc, then place your CTA at the end of the landing page. The secret to converting Native is not to go for the hard sell, but to educate and capture the interest of the end user with your landing page.
Display advertising traffic
Banner ads are a type of Display advertising placed on websites, social media platforms, or apps. They contain an image, text and a CTA with a link that drives users directly to the conversion page, whether it is the dating offer URL directly, or a landing page. Here are the best performing banner ad formats according to Google AdSense:
-Medium rectangle: 300×250
-Large rectangle: 336×280
-Leaderboard: 728×90
-Half page: 300×600
-Large mobile banner: 320×100
Tip! Use your best visuals: Banner and Display ads perform their best when used with very eye-catching visuals with very contrasting colors – Use the colors of the team or athlete that is going to be featured in the match, focus on facial expressions and action shots to evoke the emotional response that the fans are craving from the match, fight or race!
Top tips on how to promote Sports CPS offers
Tip! Use branding to attract the audiences: Consumers trust popular brands, especially when it comes to sports. So if you are the product owner or affiliate of one or more online sports streaming offers, make sure that branding is prominent in your ad creatives, landing pages and the rest of the marketing materials. This will make your sports affiliate marketing campaign more eye-catching and likely to be clicked on.
Tip! Customize your texts to the right sport: If for instance you are targeting football fans, use football based creatives. Football fans’ ultimate high during a match is the scoring of a goal, or the team members’ celebration on the field, right after the goal. Make sure that you translate this feeling both on your text and creatives, with images of the goal being scored, the excited facial expressions, and copy such as ‘Watch your team win!’ or ‘Watch the match of the century’, etc.
Tip! Make it highly visual! Marketing a sports streaming offer is all about eye-catching creatives, especially for highly visual formats like some Banner formats. Every football team has its own colors, which are recognized and worn with pride by fans. Also, during big sports events, online media around the event will dress up for the occasion. Combine both elements on your ads’ creatives and make them extra flashy and visual to make them pop! Use GEO targeting to reach end users for specific countries so they can bet on their countries team matches.
Tip! Combine video with image: With banner formats you can combine video and image, which gives you the potential to feature in-game videos, small interviews with team players, but also very striking and impactful static content. Once again, sports generate very intense emotional responses, so make sure to inspire these. For instance, imagine that you are promoting a horse racing event and want to focus on a specific racer. You could show an image from an previous race where he is riding the winning horse as they reach the finish line.
Tip! Localize your sports affiliate marketing campaign: As mentioned above, one of the biggest GEOs for sporting events is the US, but so is Europe. So, although you could theoretically get away with promoting all of your offers in English, the engagement and conversion chances will be much bigger if you speak to your audiences in their own languages. So make sure that you translate your ads to the right languages ato target your preferred GEOs.
Tip! Know your target’s favorite sport: Although it is ultimately down to the individual’s taste, there are GEO-wide tendencies when it comes to favorite sports. For example, a lot of European countries, such as Spain, Italy and France are quite drawn to football. US sports fans, on the other hand, will be more likely to watch baseball, UK fans, rugby and tennis, and so on. Make sure that you investigate these tendencies before you start promoting online live sports events offers.
TIP! Work with a reputable affiliate network: To choose the best sports affiliate network it is crucial to know that it partners with premium sports advertisers who offer exclusive conditions and deals to affiliates. Also, sports offers must ensure top EPCs and high payouts – TORO Advertising offers all this and more! Our talented account managers work towards improving promotion conditions for affiliates such as payment terms, payout increments, exclusive traffic source tips, and high-performing creatives.
Contact us!
Do you have more questions about how to promote online sports CPS offers or anything related to online sports streaming in affiliate marketing? Or do you simply want to join one of the best sports affiliate networks in the market? Why not get in touch with the TORO Advertising team and start promoting the best sports CPS offers now?