WHY TRUST INFLUENCER MARKETING HUB?
Influencer Marketing Hub sets itself apart from conventional review platforms through the involvement of Digital Marketing experts such as Werner Geyser, Djanan Kasumovic, Camille Kennedy, Dave Eagle, and other notable industry figures. This expert team brings a profound understanding of the Digital Marketing landscape, assessing tools and platforms with an insiders perspective on capabilities, experience, and industry acumen. Unlike user-generated review platforms, Influencer Marketing Hubs evaluations are rooted in extensive firsthand experience and direct interactions with the tools and platforms in question. This ensures that the reviews are not only trustworthy but also deeply informed. High-caliber brands like Viral Nation, SmartSites, and Disruptive Advertising undergo rigorous monthly evaluations, highlighting the platforms commitment to identifying and showcasing top-tier solutions in Digital Marketing and beyond.
Influencer Marketing Hub employs an expert-driven methodology to evaluate Digital Marketing agencies, ensuring that our recommendations are both reliable and comprehensive. This approach is designed to help businesses and individuals find the best agencies to meet their specific Digital Marketing needs. Heres how we assess the various agencies like Viral Nation, SmartSites, and Disruptive Advertising:
Strategic Analysis of Agency Capabilities: We start by examining each Digital Marketing agencys core competencies, such as SEO, PPC, content marketing, and social media strategy. Our focus is on identifying Digital Marketing that not only offer a wide range of services but also demonstrate exceptional skill in executing high-impact Digital Marketing campaigns.
Sports marketing involves creating a strong brand presence, generating revenue, and fostering long-term fan engagement across products, events, athletes, teams, and organizations. Marketers operate in a dynamic, tech-powered environment where multicultural audiences enjoy sports as entertainment through immersive experiences liketeam events, live streaming, video content creation, social media, mobile apps, mixed reality, and metaverse activities.
The sports marketing industry is booming, its value is expected to reach$1.63 billionby 2027 in North America alone. The lifting of brand sponsorship and endorsement restrictions by the NCAA in 2019 has expanded partnership opportunities for U.S.-based sports brands. Student-athletes can now leverage their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights to earn from attending events and posting branded content, creating a market estimated to be worth$1 billion yearly.
In this fast-paced landscape, sports marketing agencies can help you with research and strategy development to reach new audiences through the most impactful campaigns. They understand how to leverage technology to amplify your brand, create memorable experiences, and foster real-time interactions with fans.
In this post, we explore the top sports marketing agencies and showcase their strengths, as well as shed light on some fascinating facts and statistics related to sports marketing. Whether you're an athlete, a team, or a brand looking to make a mark in the sports industry, we equip you with the knowledge to make informed decisions and forge successful partnerships.
Top
sports marketing agencies
2024
Best for: Enterprises and Large brands
Location:United States, Canada
Min. project size:$50.000+
Notable clients: LA Dodgers Markus Lynn Mookie Betts, Harlem Globetrotters, World Axe Throwing League.
An important section of Viral Nation is their talent agency, which provides award-winning talent representation for todays digital stars. By digital stars, however, they dont just mean those who spend all their time online making TikTok videos or Instagram posts. They also represent todays up-and-coming sports stars who have embraced the digital world and operate sizable social accounts.
Indeed, Viral Nation Talent claims to have the largest creator roster in the world, representing over 900 diverse creators across 35 verticals.
Their sports division, VN Sports, has leveraged its expertise in influencer marketing and talent representation following the NCAAs 2021 policy change that allows collegiate athletes to form brand partnerships. The agencys sports division is composed of seasoned marketers with extensive experience managing and representing professional athletes.
The agencys influencer lineup has been bolstered by new sports signings in 2023 and 2024, including college athletes transitioning to full-time content creation. Recent signups include Division II basketball player Carlos Famous Los/Da Funny Sports Analyst Sanford, Canadian tennis player Ayan Broomfield, former basketball player and impersonator-comedian Maxim Maxisnicee Perandize, slam dunk specialist Chris Staples, and basketball trainer Devin In the Lab Williams.
A month before announcing VN Sports launch in September 2021, Viral Nation had displayed its sports campaign management prowess when it organized the PUBG Superstar Showdown. The project aimed to promote Tencents new PUBG format, the 4 x 4 Death Match. Viral Nation produced a four-part web series in which the agency pitted the following against each other: NBA stars who were gaming fans, PUBG Mobile content creators, FaZe Clan, and superfans. The campaign exceeded target goals by over 35% after earning over 42 million impressions and over 9 million views across all platforms.
In July 2023 Viral Nation announced that it was collaborating with the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters across sports entertainment. The collaboration focuses on growing and developing the overall Harlem Globetrotters brand as well as amplifying their overall reach and its connectivity with digital-first audiences.
As Viral Nation said in the above Instagram post,
Working directly with the athletes to create top-notch content was a huge passion project for us and allowed us to connect with the players on a personal level. We are obsessed with the results!
The partnership leverages the Globetrotters existing reputation as a beloved family and sports entertainment brand and helps them build a robust digital presenceboth for the team and the individual playersthat captures the attention of audiences and brands.
Viral Nation creates original digital programming for publication across the Globetrotters accounts on platforms like YouTube (where they have nearly 800K subscribers) and TikTok (722K).
As Viral Nation says on their Telent website, We Create Icons, and if youre into baseball, youll recognize that Dalton Chandler fits that description.
Viral Nation added Dalton to their roster in early 2023.
As you can see from his active social accounts, (TikTok 916,200 followers, Instagram 263,000 followers) Dalton can engage audiences, through his content and personality.
Best for: Small and Medium Size Businesses
Location:Paramus, New Jersey
Min. project size:$1.000+
Notable clients: Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center, Agile Data Sites, Anexio.
SmartSitesoffers a comprehensive suite of services to cater to businesses of all sizes, including small enterprises and Fortune 500 companies.
Itssportsdigitalmarketing teamcatersto sporting goods, golf courses, and sports coaching businesses.
Theagency offersdynamic website design, sports-specific SEO, and personalizedPPCmarketing.
SmartSites hashad the privilege of working with well-established brands,such as PGA Village Golf Resort andsports website builderLeague Lineup, elevating the promotion of their sports products to new heights.
Fitness Kid Corp provides indoor kids gyms to allow for exercise within your home. They initially created and sold the product in Europe before testing the market in the United States.
The main problem Fitness Kid Corp faced was that indoor kids gyms are a highly niche product. Many parents already have some form of existing setup in their backyard for their kids to play, or they take their kids to parks instead.
They found the demand for the Fitness Kid indoor gyms was highly seasonal parents are more interested in buying the gyms in winter when they have fewer outdoor options.
They approached SmartSites to create and implement a marketing strategy for them.
The campaign returned impressive results. Fitness Kid Corp received a 383% Increase in total site traffic and a 350% Increase in conversions. There was a 64% increase in CTR.
Pleasingly, SmartSites strategy led to a 74% decrease in the CPC. Overall, there was a 383% increase in referral traffic.
Strategic Approach
SmartSites authored compelling content that highlighted the benefits of having an indoor gym to allow children to have year-round fun while exercising. They made this part of an ongoing content writing and link-building strategy to increase overall traffic to Fitness Kids website.
They also created a PPC campaign for Fitness Kid. This included running shopping ads and remarketing ads simultaneously to capture sales and brand awareness at the same time.
As part of this PPC campaign, SmartSites implemented a responsive and flexible bidding strategy to cater to changes in return on ad spend (ROAS).
Dr. Rizio of the Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center specializes in sports injuries of the upper and lower extremities, cartilage repair, and reconstructive procedures of the knee and shoulder. He is a team physician and orthopedic surgeon responsible for treating the injuries of many sports teams in the greater New Jersey area.
The practice found it challenging to attract new patients and promote their services without a strong web presence, so sought out SmartSites services to remedy their ailments.
The new website and SmartSites other measures led to a 667% increase in total site traffic. Search gave even better results, with a 947% increase in organic search traffic. Page views increased by 405%, and there was an overall improvement of 38% in the CTR.
Strategic Approach
SmartSites opted to create a professional website for the Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center in WordPress, as this would make for easy editing. Currently, 43.4% of all websites are built on the WordPress platform.
As part of this project, SmartSites designed a sophisticated logo to represent the upscale brand.
The agency optimized the site for SEO and pursued an aggressive link-building campaign.
Finally, they set up a PPC campaign in Google, optimizing paid search to increase click-through rates and leads to the site.
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
Location:Utah, USA
Min. project size:$5,000+
Notable clients: BPI Sports, Being Well with Dr. Rick Hanson.
Disruptive Advertising is a lead generation powerhouse, offering comprehensive ad services across all platforms
Prioritizing long-term growth partnerships with outstanding companies, Disruptive Advertising limits itself to a limited number of clients. This approach allows them to provide undivided attention and create customized strategies aligned with a clients business objectives.
Disruptive Advertising encourages teamwork, which guarantees their strategies across platforms will produce meaningful results that also reflect the clients business goals.
With over 1,000 positive reviews, management of millions in digital advertising budgets, and numerous industry awards, they prove that actions speak louder than words.
Sports Card Zone (SCZ) offers a huge inventory of sports cards covering baseball (2017-2024), Basketball (2019-20 2023-24), Football (2000 and 2015-2024), Hockey (2020-21 2023-24), and Soccer (2019-20 2024). They also stock some non-sports cards (e.g. Pokmon) and a range of sports memorabilia.
Although the company was meeting its goals, they felt they were getting stagnant. They were seeing growth, but not at amazing levels.
They approached Disruptive Advertising to see what they could do to push SCZs performance to the next level.
The company spent $14k at a 27k ROA for a month-long PPC campaign.
The PPC campaign ultimately generated $381k in additional revenue for Sports Card Zone.
Strategic Approach
Disruptive Advertising built multiple new PPC search campaigns using a keyword planner. One used competitor terms, another used broader sports card terms. They then segmented their Performance Max campaign by sports versus all products. Performance Max campaigns are a type of enhanced Search and Shopping campaign that enable advertisers to reach Googles entire ad inventory with a single campaign with qualifying objectives.
Thanks to the success of this initial campaign, Sports Card Zone increased its budget, meaning that Disruptive Advertising was able to further expand the PPC ads to include Facebook and Amazon.
Crossover Symmetry has the mission to bring effective, easy-to-use shoulder rehab directly into your home; to put you in charge of your own rehab. Their dream is to help save 10 million shoulders in 10 years.
The company was looking for someone who could scale their Facebook advertising and increase their revenue while maintaining profitability. They wanted a partner that could grow their current efforts in the United States so they would then be in a place where they could expand to Europe and Canada. On evaluation, Crossover Symmetry decided that Disruptive Advertising could best meet their needs.
Disruptive Advertisings efforts paid off. In the first three months, monthly revenue from Facebook advertising increased by 158%. This success resulted in Crossover Symmetry extending its work with the agency to include CRO, and expanding Facebook advertising into Europe and Canada.
Strategic Approach
Disruptive Advertising initially implemented a strategy to improve Crossover Symmetrys Facebook advertising.
They began by researching buyer personas and expanding them to include other applicable athletes.
They then introduced dynamic retargeting Facebook dynamic retargeting ads promote relevant products to customers who have visited your online store.
The agency improved the quality of the ads themselves, ensuring that the ad copywriting gave more details on the product.
Disruptive Advertising created highly engaging ads, stacking the social proof generated from these ads throughout all campaigns.
Best for: Mid-sized to Enterprise Businesses
Location:Evanston, Illinois
Min. project size: $10.000+
Notable clients: Coleman Powersports, Intersport Global, Old World Industries.
Fresh Content Society (FCS) is an award-winning, family-owned social media management and sports marketing agency, offering a comprehensive range of services like community management, content production, strategy development, paid media campaigns, influencer management, and detailed reporting.
Founded in 2014,theagencyprovidesexpertise in social media management and sports marketing.
FCS distinguishes itself through its commitment to grasping clients business objectives and tailoring strategies for optimal online visibility and exposure. With a deep focus on data-driven decision-making and influencer partnerships, theyre an excellent choice for a social media marketing team. Whether youre a local or global business, FCS can help you build, manage, and grow your social media communities, ultimately increasing conversions.
Content is a vital part of any social media strategy and is particularly important in the high-action world of sports marketing. Your creative will determine if your community is going to engage with you or not.
FCS produces content calendars and creates short and long-form videos, photos, graphics, memes, and copy. They are a full-service creative social media agency. If you need those high-quality action pics of your sports products in use, to splash across your Instagram or X posts, or TikToks featuring athletic stars showing their human side, FCS can be there for you.
Fresh Content Society doesnt boast about its achievements, but each year it showcases the years results. They achieved the following on behalf of their clients (everybody, not just sports) in 2023:
While most people may not think of arm wrestling as a sport, it is actually one of the most universal forms of competition, with matches occurring across the globe. Most of us have tried arm wrestling at some point in our lives.
Chicago is home to the World Arm-Wrestling League (WAL). They claim to be the fastest-growing professional arm-wrestling league in the world, showcasing intense matches, and offering the ultimate fan experience with the sports top superstars.
The league tasked Fresh Content Society with building up fan engagement, fan growth, and video views, and enabling monetization from the content produced.
FCSs work resulted in increased fan engagement and $50,000 in revenue from the monetized content on YouTube and Facebook. One post alone received 100 million video views.
Strategic Approach
FCS scaled the World Arm-Wrestling Leagues social content to make it more authentic to the community. They developed a YouTube and Facebook monetization strategy and created long-form videos that resonated with the target audience.
Best for: Large Companies and Fast-Growing Start-Ups
Location:San Francisco, California
Min. project size:$50.000+
Notable clients: TikTok, NVIDIA, Clash.
NeoReach is a top influencer marketing agency that specializes in creating authentic, data-driven campaigns tailored to the unique needs of its clients. By integratingitsteam with yours,itensuresproactive, real-time communication that gets to the heart and soul of your brand story. With a focus on developing data-backed strategies derived from competitor audits, audience demographics matching, and channel-specific opportunities, NeoReach stands out in the sports marketing world.
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Top 27 Sports Marketing Agencies Taking the Lead in 2024 - Influencer Marketing Hub