The Sponsored Content KPI Everyone Gets Wrong

👋 Welcome back to Sponcon Sports, a weekly newsletter dedicated to sponsored content strategy in the sports industry! 

Most brands spend months trying to create a cultural moment.

Touchland found one and became part of it in less than a week.

During the New York Knicks' championship run, one of the biggest stories wasn't happening on the court.

It was happening on Jordyn Woods' shoulder.

Woods, who is also Karl-Anthony Towns' fiancée, carried the same orange Tux Clutch Mini from her Woods by Jordyn brand to every playoff game. The Knicks won every time.

The lone exception came in Game 3 of the Finals, when a special security policy prevented the bag from entering Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks lost.

The superstition exploded online.

After the Knicks won the championship, Towns summed it up perfectly:

"That bag won the championship."

Days later, the bag was headed to the Guggenheim Museum.

Most brands would have watched the story unfold from the sidelines.

Touchland saw an opportunity.

Between the Knicks winning the title and the championship parade six days later, the brand partnered with both Woods and Towns, connecting itself to one of the biggest sports stories in the country.

The fit wasn't forced.

Touchland has spent years positioning its products as accessories, not just hygiene products. The colorful bottles are designed to be clipped onto bags and carried visibly as part of someone's personal style.

So when one of the most talked-about accessories in sports became a cultural phenomenon, the partnership made sense.

The activation came to life in several ways:

• Touchland sponsored the final episode of Towns' six-part behind-the-scenes Finals series, which focused on the championship parade.

• The episode opened with Towns using Touchland's Performance Body Spray, while the Powermist Hand Sanitizer was clipped to Woods' famous bag as they left their home.

• Woods shared a Get Ready With Me collab post on Instagram and TikTok featuring Touchland products before attaching the sanitizer to the bag on her way out the door.

• During the parade, Touchland captured its own photo assets featuring Woods, the bag, and the product front and center.

• A nice touch: all Touchland products were Knicks orange

The content delivered strong results across channels:

KAT's parade vlog: 401K views, 36.1K engagements, 9.0% engagement rate

Woods' GRWM: 598.8K views, 38.0K engagements, 6.5% engagement rate

But what I like most is the strategic thinking behind it.

1. First, Touchland recognized a cultural moment in real time and moved quickly enough to capitalize on it.

2. Second, they understood that their product wasn't just relevant to the story. It naturally belonged in the story.

3. Third, they partnered with both Towns and Woods, giving the campaign reach across multiple audiences and content formats.

4. Finally, they showed strong asset discipline. The GRWM lived on Woods' channels, while the parade photos lived on Touchland's channels.

And those same assets were repurposed into paid media across Instagram and TikTok.

A lot of brands talk about meeting consumers where culture happens.

Touchland identified a moment people were already talking about, found an authentic role for the product, and built an entire campaign around it in less than a week.

• The KPI Comes Last 🛑

• Courtside Color Commentary 🎙️

• Driven To Juventus 🚘️

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
The Sponsored Content KPI Everyone Starts With (But Shouldn’t)

At the Gondola Sports Summit in May, I joined David Brickley for a session called:

"Your Sponsored Content Is Trash (Here's How To Fix It)."

During the Q&A, someone asked a question that comes up all the time:

"What's the main metric that moves the needle for partners?"

It's a fair question.

If you asked 100 people in sports partnerships, you'd probably hear a lot of different answers.

Some would say impressions. Others would say engagements.

A few years ago, engagement rate was the "smart" answer.

Today, you're just as likely to hear sends per reach, hook rate, average view duration, or another platform-specific metric.

My answer was simple:

None of them.

At least not yet.

The most important metric for a sponsored content campaign isn't determined during reporting.

It's determined during discovery.

Before anyone starts brainstorming content ideas, building a proposal, or creating a deck, you need to understand what the partner is actually trying to achieve.

That's why content teams should be involved in the pitch process.

Too often, sales teams sell an idea, content teams execute it, and reporting teams figure out how to measure it afterward.

The better approach is to establish goals and KPIs first, then build the activation around them.

When you do that:

• Ideas become more strategic.

• Campaigns become easier to sell.

• Reporting becomes easier to build.

• Renewals become easier to earn.

Most importantly, you're putting the partner in the best position to achieve the outcome they're actually paying for.

The eight questions below help make that possible.

1. What are your goals?

Determine the specific objectives, especially where they fit within the marketing funnel.

If the goal is to drive website traffic or generate leads, recommending an organic social content series by itself may not be the right solution.

On the other hand, if you're working with a new brand that needs awareness among your audience, a high-frequency or high-performing content series (even a logo slap - gasp!) may be exactly what's needed.

2. How will we measure success?

Once goals are established, define the KPIs that will determine whether the campaign worked.

A "high-performing" content series can mean very different things depending on the objective.

Are we measuring impressions? Engagements? Clicks? Video completion rate? Leads?

The answer depends entirely on what the partner is trying to accomplish.

3. What is your budget?

Understanding budget early helps shape realistic recommendations.

It also makes it easier to create a good-better-best proposal structure with options below, at, and above the partner's investment range.

4. How would you rank your goals?

A brand may have multiple goals, but not every objective carries equal importance.

This question becomes especially valuable when budget limitations prevent you from including everything on a partner's wish list.

Understanding the difference between must-haves and nice-to-haves helps guide both strategy and investment decisions.

5. Are there any channels you want to prioritize?

Identifying preferred channels helps narrow your recommendations and focus the package.

It also helps avoid proposing assets that don't align with the partner's expectations.

6. Who is your target audience?

Channel selection and audience targeting go hand in hand.

Many partners immediately request TikTok or Instagram because they're popular platforms.

But if their target audience skews older, those channels may not be the best primary recommendation.

In some cases, Facebook, X, or YouTube may be better fits.

And if a partner still wants a presence on TikTok or Instagram, paid social can help ensure the content reaches the right audience.

7. Have you ever done anything in the past or seen anything in the market that you love?

This question provides valuable context around a partner's preferences, expectations, and previous successes.

If they point to a campaign they admire, don't feel obligated to recreate it exactly.

Instead, identify the underlying reason they liked it and adapt that insight to fit your team, audience, and resources.

8. Are there any key messages you want to prioritize about your product/brand?

The best sponsored content doesn't operate in isolation.

Understanding a partner's key messages helps you connect sponsored content to the larger marketing campaign they're already running across paid media, owned channels, retail, events, and other sponsorships. When fans encounter the same message across multiple touchpoints, it creates stronger brand recall and a more cohesive campaign experience.

It also opens the door to measuring success beyond traditional social metrics. If reinforcing a specific message is a priority, brand lift studies and message recall can become important KPIs alongside impressions, engagements, or video views.

Last week, I highlighted how FIFA has approached this with 10 World Cup sponsors. They reinforced messages that audiences were already seeing elsewhere, giving sponsorships a greater chance of being memorable.

The Takeaway

The next time someone asks for the most important sponsored content metric, resist the urge to jump straight to something specific.

The right KPI depends on the answers to these eight questions.

Get those answers first, then build the idea.

More importantly, make these questions part of your process.

If you're on a partnerships team, use them during discovery conversations with prospective sponsors.

If you're on a content team, work with your partnerships counterparts to ensure these answers are included whenever an idea is requested.

The best organizations don't treat ideation as a guessing game. They create systems that make good ideas easier to develop.

That's especially important because content and partnerships teams often face opposite challenges.

Partnerships teams are under pressure to move quickly, respond to prospects, and hit growing revenue targets. Content teams are supporting an entire organization, often with limited time for sponsorship ideation.

When these questions are answered upfront, both teams benefit.

Partnerships teams gain a better understanding of what should and shouldn't be sold. Content teams gain the context needed to develop stronger ideas in less time.

The result isn't just better sponsored content. It's a stronger working relationship between two departments that need each other to succeed.

And in an industry where the best partnerships are increasingly built around content, that alignment can become a competitive advantage.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

If you're planning to launch a Mic’d Up series, or even try your hand at the Overheard at Wimbledon concept, you may want to look at beauty or paint brands. The New York Liberty served up a great name for the format with Color Commentary presented by essie.

Really smart move by Juventus to feature front-of-shirt partner Jeep in its transactions content. I've always liked pairing a jersey sponsor with player signings because it's the first time new players put on the club's kit. Not only does the brand appear on the welcome graphics, but its vehicles are also featured in a behind-the-scenes video following the players' first day with the club. I would have liked to see a bit more intentional product integration, maybe a conversation in the car while traveling between locations, but it's still effective.

Speaking of behind-the-scenes content, Arsenal Women cleverly incorporated Oakley Meta glasses into Georgia Stanway's announcement video shoot, generating as many Instagram views (1.5M vs. 1.5M) as the original announcement itself.

We've seen strong results across sports from content focused on installing the ice in hockey, the court in basketball, and the field in football. The X Games applied that same insight and made sure to feature Official Equipment Partner Bobcat Company as its machines laid down the dirt ahead of the latest event in Sacramento.

And last but certainly not least, LEGO brought back its life-sized cars for this year’s British Grand Prix, but with a twist. Instead of building one car for each team, LEGO created cars for all 22 drivers. The change kept the activation fresh, and despite some driver pushback about participating, this post in particular captures the essence of the partnership: bringing the joy of play to F1 fans of all ages. For a deeper look at what was my 2025 Digital Partnership of the Year, click here.

🚨 ICYMI
Sports Industry News & Insights

Stat of the Week: According to Horizm's 2026 Sponsorship Intelligence Survey, 92% of respondents say social media is now the leading driver of sponsorship value, ahead of broadcast.

The Invisible Fan: The Fourth Quarter explored why fragmented vendor data remains the biggest obstacle to AI-powered fan intelligence and outlined two structural approaches that can help franchises unlock new revenue opportunities across ticketing, sponsorships, and more.

Scripted Sneaker Dreams: The Chicago Bulls launched a fout-part mockumentary series, My Boss Benny, on Benny the Bull's YouTube channel in partnership with BMO. The series follows the iconic mascot's chaotic quest to create a signature sneaker alongside his hilariously dysfunctional team.

Juve Doc Drop: Juventus will debut “Becoming Her: Before We Grow Up,” a new Juventus Creator Lab documentary that follows three young female players from academies in Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Los Angeles, showing how football shapes their identities and dreams for the future. The film will premiere at the Giffoni Film Festival before streaming on Disney+ in September.

Perks That Matter: Craig Pintens sat down with Paris Buchanan, Senior Associate Athletics Director at Auburn, to discuss how the program modernized the fan experience, including the impact of offering OTT subscribers discounted concession pricing [via Margins of Victory Podcast].

A Run At Engagement: Chelsea became the first Premier League and WSL club on Strava, where the club plans to activate challenges, prizes, and more.