Celebrating 12 months in market, SponsorshipBI is reshaping how brands measure partnership impact like never before.

For the first time ever, we can provide a tangible figure against partnership measurement, using actual transaction data instead of claimed brand perception.

SponsorshipBI can quantify:

• Sponsorship awareness and brand perception

• Category penetration

• Competitor market share

• Purchase frequency

• Basket size

• Average spend per buyer

• Differences between fans and non-fans

A reflection on its impact in market to date – SponsorshipBI became a finalist in the 2025 Sports Technology Awards, in the category Best Data and Analytics for Business Intelligence, sharing finalist status with the likes of Aston Villa and Ticketmaster.

How are brands using SponsorshipBI? How is it resonating in market? What does it mean for the product to make a global shortlist within its first 12 months in market?

We spoke to Global Head of Strategy and Product, Craig Roberts, to unpack these burning questions.

How is SponsorshipBI resonating in market?

Craig: Everyone we speak to about SponsorshipBI, whether they’re at a brand or a rights holder, leans in when we say we’re bringing actual transaction data to sponsorship measurement. It’s clearly something the industry has been looking for. When we developed the product, in partnership with Fonto, we had a pretty good idea that this would be of interest in the market – and we were right. Usually the conversation moves very quickly past the questions of “Why do fans provide their transaction data into the platform?” and “But what if the data shows the sponsorship isn’t working?”, and onto strategic discussions around collaboration between brands and rights holders on agreeing on partnership objectives, measuring what matters, and being able to respond and change things up if the sponsorship isn’t performing.

Fonto Chief Operating Officer, Sam Almutair, commented:

“The ability to connect how people think and feel to commercial outcomes is central to what we offer at Fonto. In working with the MKTG team we knew there was a clear opportunity to apply this framework to create an innovative solution which would elevate the way return on investment for sponsorship is measured. We’re proud of the success this partnership has delivered to date and excited to see how it continues to evolve.”

Craig: Since landing in market, SponsorshipBI has supported several prominent sporting codes and brands, including Victoria Racing Club, Virgin Australia, Asahi Beverages, Bupa, BWS, Cricket Australia and the National Rugby League in their sponsorship measurement.

What drove the product innovation?

Craig: We set out to solve the perennial problem of the sponsorship industry, namely: is this sponsorship actually delivering bottom-line benefit for the business? Research shows that only 17% of the industry feels very confident they can measure the business returns of sponsorship.

By shifting the conversation beyond traditional top-of-funnel metrics like reach, exposure and brand health, we seem to have hit upon something that all parts of the industry have been looking for an answer on. We strongly believe the sponsorship industry needs to evolve how it thinks about measurement, or risk becoming discounted as a part of the marketing mix in favour of digital and performance marketing. Measuring sponsorship performance across the full consumer funnel – both brand impact and business impact (that’s where the BI in SponsorshipBI comes from, by the way) – brings sponsorship more into line with other marketing channels in terms of quantifying effectiveness.

What types of challenges has SBI tackled to date/in its first 12 months?

Craig: The core use case for SponsorshipBI is in tracking the full-funnel brand and business impact of sponsorship, looking at the differences between fans and non-fans, to ultimately quantify the uplift in sales, market share, or profitability for the sponsor. But every conversation we have in market leads to new use cases. For example, rights holders are using SponsorshipBI not just to demonstrate the impact of existing partnerships, but to prospect and convert new partners in new categories based on never-before-available insights into spending patterns among their fan base.

We have analysed the ideal retail partner for branded merchandise based on reach, frequency and average basket size of fans across the retail sector. We have identified attendees of a certain sport based on grouping anonymized transactions at the venue on match days, then looked at differences in spending patterns at fast-food chains across the year – showing that a seasonal sponsorship can have a long-tail impact beyond the main activation period. We’ve shown uplifts in conversion and switching among health insurance brands linked to a sponsorship of a sporting club. And we’ve trigged custom research based on specific transactions to explore deeper insights into brand preferences in the alcohol category and reactions to mass media and in-store activations around a major sporting event.

How is SponsorshipBi best applied?

Craig: In some ways, SponsorshipBI is both a product and a philosophy. As a product, it works best in categories with high frequency of transactions and high penetration across the population – like grocery, fuel, retail, utilities, QSR, alcohol retailers. Where we get lots of transaction data, that gives us lots of scope to really dive into the data and find the granular insights and patters to drive sponsorship strategy and improve impact.

As a philosophy, it’s actually about elevating the conversation between rights holders and brands – opening up strategic discussions before and during the partnership about what’s working, what’s not, and how partnerships can add value to both partners. Not just leaving it to the end of the season to report on how much media exposure was generated, and hoping that’s enough to justify a renewal.

What does it mean for the product to make a global shortlist within its first 12 months in market?

Craig: Of course, we’re not in this for the awards but it was an early indication that we had something here that was going to be of value to the industry – not just in Australia but globally. Clearly this is a problem that others in our industry want solved, so we’re excited to be pushing ahead and working with forward-thinking brands and properties about how to evolve sponsorship measurement.

Want to chat? Contact insights.au@mktg.com.