Media Monday

Girls Club

By Marie Lynn, Situation Media Planner

This year marked the first time in history that the women’s March Madness final garnered more viewership than the men’s final. Back in April, the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record was played between Iowa and LSU with 12.3 million viewers - awarding Van Lith of LSU an exclusive NIL deal with Adidas. This trend is not exclusive to basketball either, with 53% of the top 100 college athlete NIL deals this year being with women athletes. Caitlin Clark’s debut game on Tuesday, May 14th on ESPN2 was the most watched WNBA game in 23 years, with a viewership of 2.13 million. This surpassed the NHL playoff game with 1.99 million viewers in the same slot which played on ESPN.

As viewership and fandom continue to skyrocket around women’s sports, advertisers are centering athlete partnerships and media buys in strategy like never before. In years past, when reaching out for spots surrounding women’s championship college basketball games, units were available up until the day before. This year women’s college basketball games were sold out months in advance, and 2025 is slated to be the most competitive season yet (both on the court and commercially).?

Why Advertisers are Excited About Attention Metrics

By Kunal Kumar, Town Hall Media Group Director

Advertisers are increasingly excited about attention metrics, which offer a more refined way to measure ad effectiveness beyond traditional viewability and impressions. Companies like Amazon and The Trade Desk are leveraging these metrics, which combine AI-driven eye-tracking data with web page layouts to assess how much attention ads truly capture. Vendors like Lumen Research, Adelaide, and Playground XYZ are at the forefront, using AI to analyze where users look on a page, how long ads remain in view, and how users interact with them. This data helps advertisers understand which placements are most effective and ensures their ads are seen and engaged with by the right audience. With the new integrations enabled between TTD & vendors like Lumen, buyers can add-on attention-first measurement for both display ad and video ad groups directly within the campaign.?

Agencies are using attention metrics to improve their strategies, better attribute the success of their ads, and understand sentiment. By pinpointing which ads genuinely capture attention, agencies can optimize their spending, placing ads in spots proven to engage viewers. This shift leads to more effective and impactful advertising, as agencies can provide clients with detailed insights into the quality of ad impressions and overall campaign performance. Ultimately, attention metrics drive more informed decision-making and ensure that every advertising dollar contributes to measurable business goals, transforming how digital advertising success is measured.?

Meta Announces Introduction of Daily Budget Flexibility

By Jacqueline Watson, Situation Media Buying Specialist, Paid Social Media

In Meta’s May 2024 Business Partner Newsletter, it was announced that the platform is in the process of gradually rolling out “daily budget flexibility” across Ads Manager accounts.

With this update, Meta explains that an advertiser’s daily budget (i.e. what is set as the average daily spend over the course of a week in-platform) will now be used as a guide, and the platform may spend more than this budget on certain days when better performance opportunities are available. On days where better performance is identified, up to 75% over an advertiser’s daily budget may be spent. This behavior is very similar to dynamic budgeting already used in Google Ads for YouTube and Performance Max campaigns, where the daily budget fluctuates based on days with better performance or higher search volume.

While Meta will be able to spend up to 75% more than the set daily budget on some days with this new flexibility, it’s important to note that the platform won’t spend more than 7 times the daily budget, and charges will average out over a calendar week (Sunday to Saturday). For example, if the daily budget set in-platform is $100, Meta may spend up to $175 on a given day, but will not go over $700 in one calendar week.

With this change come obvious questions and concerns regarding platform overspend. While Meta offers a Lifetime budget option (less flexibility), it’s currently best practice for all Situation Meta campaigns to utilize the “overall spending limit” in tandem with daily budgeting (not available when using a campaign lifetime budget). The “overall spending limit” works as a safeguard, and will continue to be with this change, as it stops all ad sets from spending once that limit has been reached.?

While any platform change of this nature can be nerve-wracking, weekly spend maximums and current safeguards make this new opportunity for increased performance on the platform an exciting change to monitor.

For FAQ’s, and more information regarding this change, continue reading here.