Forecast, plan, and activate live sports with Live Events in Kokai

Live sports give advertisers access to premium, high-attention moments that can place brands at the center of culture. But traditional buying approaches can make that inventory feel expensive and leave advertisers with limited visibility into whether they are reaching the audiences that matter most. 

For Marjorie Panknin Babida of WPP Media, Live Events in The Trade Desk platform offers a more accessible, audience-driven way to approach live sports. Her team uses it to evaluate premium inventory against a campaign’s specific audience and objectives before committing budget. This offers a more accessible, audience-driven way to approach live sports. 

Predictive forecasting is central to that process. Traders can estimate spend, reach, and impressions, and predict CPMs before a campaign launches, helping them understand the scale available to their desired audience. 

For example, Panknin Babida’s team can forecast how many impressions may be available against a demo of men ages 18 to 34 within a specific sports league over a four-week flight. That gives the team a clearer picture of the opportunity and helps ensure the campaign is built around both the live event and the audience the advertiser wants to reach. 

The Live Events in Kokai feature also lets traders target at the sport or league level across participating publishers. Automated budgeting and pacing can help campaigns respond as attention rises and falls throughout a season or event, reducing the need for manual adjustments. 

For Panknin Babida, that makes live sports a more practical part of the media plan. Advertisers can place premium creative alongside programming audiences are actively watching, using programmatic tools to bring greater precision and efficiency to the investment.

How to put live events into action 

Live Events in Kokai helps traders plan around premium live moments with more audience precision and forecasting confidence. Here are a few ways to apply it: 

• Forecast before launch: Estimate available impressions, reach, spend, and predicted CPMs before committing budget to a live sports campaign. 

• Start with the audience: Evaluate live event inventory against the specific audience you want to reach, such as men ages 18 to 34 across a defined sports league and flight window. 

• Target at the sport or league level: Activate around live sports environments that align with your audience, creative, and campaign objective. 

• Use automation to support pacing: Let automated budgeting and pacing help manage delivery as viewership and demand shift across events or seasons. 

• Connect premium context to campaign goals: Use Live Events in Kokai to place premium creative alongside high-attention programming where the audience and content environment naturally align. 

With Live Events in Kokai, traders can approach live sports with more precision, flexibility, and confidence, helping advertisers show up in premium cultural moments while maintaining the control they expect from programmatic buying. 

Want to learn more about how Live Events in Kokai can support your next campaign? Reach out to your representative at The Trade Desk. 

This information is provided for background only and does not guarantee future campaign performance.