CBS Sports Drives Live Video Engagement via Journey Shaping with Admiral Convert

Publisher: CBS Sports (Paramount/CBS Interactive)

CBS Sports, a premier sports news and media platform under Paramount/CBS Interactive sought to elevate viewer engagement for its live video content. Facing the challenge of capturing the attention of a diverse and large audience during high-stakes events like the NFL playoffs, Super Bowl, and March Madness, CBS Sports aimed to convert casual visitors into highly engaged viewers.

Challenge

As a leader in sports media, CBS Sports needed a strategy to ensure that its live video content reached the widest possible audience while driving meaningful engagement. The primary challenge was to create a seamless experience where visitors were not just viewers but active participants in their most high-value content, resulting in higher retention, more extended viewing periods, and increased interaction with additional CBS Sports offerings.

Solution: Admiral Convert Implementation

CBS Sports partnered with Admiral to implement the Admiral Convert module to meet these challenges. This powerful journey-shaping tool allowed CBS Sports to deploy highly targeted messaging campaigns to effectively promote live video content to the right audience, at the right time.

• Targeted Campaigns: Over 10 targeted campaigns were launched using Admiral Convert, each tailored to specific events such as the NFL playoffs, Super Bowl, and March Madness. These campaigns were designed to capture visitor attention through personalized and real-time messaging that resonated with the audience's interests and viewing habits.

• Real-Time Adjustments: The flexibility of Admiral Convert enabled CBS Sports to adjust their messaging on the fly. As performance data from the campaigns rolled in, CBS Sports could tweak and optimize their strategies in real-time, ensuring that each campaign remained as effective as possible throughout the event.

• Seamless Integration: The ease of implementing Admiral Convert was a significant advantage for CBS Sports. With a simple single-tag installation, the tool was up and running quickly, allowing the marketing and technical teams to focus on strategy rather than troubleshooting.
  
  

Goals: Driving visitors to live streams of games, and converting non-subscribers to Paramount+

Campaign Example: Super Bowl Countdown

One of the standout campaigns was for Super Bowl LVIII. CBS Sports created a countdown-based messaging strategy using Admiral Convert, launching creative updates at key intervals—two days before, the day before, and on game day. Each message emphasized Paramount+ subscriptions, urging visitors to watch the Super Bowl live. The strategic countdown built anticipation and captured viewers’ attention right when it mattered, helping to drive subscriptions.

Target and engage visitors with 'countdown' schedule

Campaign Example: NFL Gameday Targeting

For NFL Gameday, CBS Sports tailored their approach even further by targeting visitors on football-related content pages. They launched creatives tied to specific cities/teams using DMA codes, dynamically serving content based on the user's geographic location. This hyper-targeted approach maximized relevance and engagement, launching creatives at game start times to drive viewers to watch live.

Timely offers: Used Admiral's scheduler to incorporate time-based engagements within target DMAs

Results:

The implementation of Admiral Convert led to substantial improvements in user engagement, revenue, and content interaction during CBS Sports' major live events:

• Reach: 18.5 million visitors engaged
  
  
• Impressions: 20 million impressions for the live events in real-time
  
  
• CTR: Campaigns achieved click-through-rates from 4.4% to 33.33%
  
  
• Views Across Campaigns: Over 12 million total views across CBS Sports' Convert campaigns
  
  
• CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions): eCPM of over $100
  
  

Each game day or sporting event provided opportunities to maximize visitor engagement and conversions.

"Admiral Convert has been a key driver in boosting our live sports events' performance. The ability to tailor messaging in real-time has significantly increased viewer engagement and revenue. Proactive journey shaping to high-value content increased engagement, subscriptions, and revenue."

- Sophia Wung, Sr. Director of Marketing, CBS Sports

The collaboration between CBS Sports and Admiral Convert highlights the power of proactive, targeted, real-time engagement in driving audience participation during major live events. By leveraging the journey-shaping capabilities of Admiral Convert, CBS Sports not only enhanced its live video strategy but also achieved higher viewer retention, increased engagement, and revenue opportunities.

We asked the CBS Sports team to name their top 3 favorite things about working with Admiral:

1. No Development Required
   Admiral’s solutions were easy to implement without needing any development work, allowing for fast deployment.
2. Out-of-the-Box Campaign Builder
   Admiral’s Journey Builder provided an out-of-the-box solution, making it simple for CBS Sports to create and launch targeted campaigns quickly.
3. Customer Love Support
   Admiral’s Customer Love team offered hands-on support, helping CBS Sports test, refine, and scale campaigns for maximum impact.