Case Study: Hearst achieves 10x sponsorship scale and doubled CPMs with ComScore Activation

Hearst Activates Inventory to Improve Sponsorship Packages for Advertisers

Hearst Newspapers’ digital properties, including SFGate and the San Francisco Chronicle, needed a better way to create targeted sponsorships — especially for niche opportunities like the Titans of Mavericks Surfing event near Half Moon Bay. The manual process for packaging Surfing inventory was time-consuming, left valuable content unmonetized, and limited the scale of custom advertiser deals.

Hearst automated sponsorship creation with comScore Activation, using pattern-recognition page analysis and configurable criteria to package all Mavericks-related inventory in real time and include users who previously consumed relevant surfing content across Hearst properties. The result was a 10× increase in sponsorship scale (from 200,000 to 2,000,000 impressions), doubled CPMs for the premium package, faster workflow efficiency, and highly customizable, advertiser-aligned offerings.

Hearst

Alex Gibson

Senior Manager Ad Operations and Planning