New data-driven solution links fans and brands, combining consumer purchase transactions with sports ad and media investment to optimize performance and maximize returns
Initial research with EDO finds adding live sports to a TV ad mix nearly doubled sales lift from 8% to 17%
Affinity Solutions, the leading consumer purchase insights company, today announced the launch of Fansactions™, a solution that connects fans and brands by providing unprecedented visibility into the relationship between sports media investment and consumer purchase behavior. Fansactions™ enables advertisers to directly see and measure ROAS for optimal, real-world outcomes by combining billions of deterministic online and in-store transactions with sports fan media consumption and ad exposure. This solution seamlessly integrates with any media and measurement platform across linear TV and CTV, giving advertisers more flexibility and opportunities to unlock greater value from their investments.
The epicenter of fan and brand engagement, Fansactions™ empowers brands with a clear understanding of which sports and leagues their customers — and competitors’ customers — engage with, to activate precise targeting and optimization, and ultimately maximize ROAS. Further, Fansactions™ helps brands discover promising market segments, including emerging sports and leagues that present ideal environments for advertisers to engage and acquire new customers.
With digital viewing of live sports projected to reach 127.4 million in the U.S., ad dollars will follow. TV outcomes company EDO reported that in 2024, TV advertisers spent an estimated $12.4 billion on live sports, marking a 6% year-over-year increase. Fansactions™ fulfills a critical need in the market by connecting these significant ad dollars to the outcomes metric that matters most, the purchase.
“There’s no denying the influence and impact sports have on both our culture and our wallets,” said Damian Garbaccio, Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, Affinity Solutions. “As live sports ad investments grow against a backdrop of an increasingly fragmented viewing landscape, marketers need to identify high-performing audiences and channels – and confidently quantify ROI. Fansactions™ empowers brands to transcend traditional post-campaign analysis and basic targeting by offering real-time insights into the direct impact of live sports advertising on brand engagement and sales among sports fans with a demonstrated purchase history, enabling outcome-driven marketing optimization.”
Recognizing the opportunity, EDO is the first to leverage Fansactions™ with its syndicated outcomes database, enabling brands to quantify the end-to-end impact of live sports advertising — from brand searches to website engagement to confirmed purchases.
Through joint research using Fansactions™, EDO and Affinity Solutions measured the impact of live sports advertising exposure on both mid-funnel engagement — such as brand searches and website visits — and lower-funnel outcomes, including actual QSR purchases. The findings show how live sports advertising influences consumer behavior across the funnel, helping brands identify which campaigns and markets are most likely to drive sales. Initial results found that integrating live sports into TV advertising campaigns can significantly amplify brand performance. Specifically, adding live sports to a TV ad mix more than doubled sales lift from 8% to 17%, depending on the sports involved. A full report with more findings will be released at a later date.
“Sports fans represent one of the most passionate and valuable audiences for advertisers, but translating that passion into business outcomes requires immediate, actionable data,” said Laura Grover, SVP, Head of Client Solutions, EDO. “Our latest research with Affinity Solutions shows that brands can maximize ROI by strategically selecting the right sports — like hockey and soccer — which often deliver higher engagement and sales at a more efficient cost. This insight helps advertisers invest smarter and drive meaningful results by clearly connecting media and sports investments to consumer behavior.”
Garbaccio continued: “Whether it's buzzer-beaters during March Madness or the intensity of playoff seasons, live sports deliver unmatched moments that unify audiences and directly influence consumer behavior — creating unique moments for brands to authentically connect and convert. We’re proud to partner with EDO as we work to revolutionize sports marketing and fan engagement through Fansactions™.”
To learn more about Fansactions™, visit: https://info.affinitysolutions.com/fansactions.
About Affinity Solutions
Affinity Solutions is the leading consumer purchase insights company. We provide a complete view of U.S. and U.K. consumer spending, across and between brands, via exclusive access to fully permissioned data from over 150 million debit and credit cards. Our proprietary AI technology, Comet™, transforms these purchase signals into actionable insights for business and marketing leaders to drive optimal outcomes and build lasting customer relationships. Visit us at www.affinitysolutions.com to discover how we're shaping the future of consumer purchase insights.
About EDO
EDO is the TV outcomes company. Our leading measurement platform connects convergent TV airings to the ad-driven consumer behaviors most predictive of future sales. EDO empowers the advertising industry to maximize media impact, optimize creative performance, and know the fair value of every impression — across linear and streaming for an increasingly programmatic world. By combining immediate engagement signals with world-class decision science and vertical AI, EDO equips industry leaders with syndicated, investment-grade data that aligns media to business results — with detailed competitive, category, and historical insights. Leading brands, agencies, networks, streamers, and studios trust EDO’s TV intelligence to know what works.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250604855137/en/
Contacts
Media Contact:
Sara Serbanoiu
sserbanoiu@daddibrand.com
