Everything You Need to Know About Cricbuzz Advertising Costs, Ad Formats, and Booking Ads in India

Cricbuzz reaches more than 150 million monthly active users during peak cricket season — a number that puts it ahead of most Indian news portals and comfortably in the same conversation as the country's top OTT platforms. What surprises most brand managers, frankly speaking, is not the sheer scale but the cost efficiency: the CPM on standard display formats works out to somewhere between ₹80 and ₹150 on non-match days, which is a figure that tends to raise eyebrows when compared against what the same brand is spending on Google Display Network or Meta carousel ads for a similar sports-adjacent audience. We have found, across hundreds of campaigns managed at SmartAds, that Cricbuzz advertising consistently delivers one of the strongest brand recall metrics of any digital property in India — and yet it remains underutilised by mid-market brands who assume it is priced only for the big players.

What Are the Different Ad Formats Available on Cricbuzz?

The range of Cricbuzz ad formats is wider than most media planners expect when they first approach the platform, and understanding the distinctions between them is genuinely important before committing budget. The platform — owned and operated by Times Internet, which is the digital arm of the Times of India Group — supports display formats including the leaderboard banner, the interstitial banner, the medium rectangle, and the half-page unit; it also supports rich media formats, native ads embedded within editorial content, and a full suite of video ad placements that span pre-roll ads, mid-roll ads, and non-skippable ads served alongside live score updates and match commentary feeds.

The leaderboard banner, which typically runs at 728x90 pixels on desktop and 320x50 on mobile, is the workhorse of Cricbuzz advertising for brands seeking sustained visibility across multiple sessions. The interstitial banner is a different beast entirely — it occupies the full screen between page transitions, which means it commands attention in a way that a static leaderboard simply cannot; the trade-off is that it carries a higher CPM and requires creative that justifies the interruption. Native ads, on the other hand, are integrated into the editorial flow of articles and match summaries, which makes them considerably less intrusive and often generates a higher engagement rate than standard display ads, particularly among the platform's more engaged, long-session users.

Video ads on Cricbuzz deserve their own strategic consideration. Pre-roll ads run before video content such as match highlights and expert analysis clips; mid-roll ads interrupt longer video content at natural break points; and non-skippable ads — which run for six to fifteen seconds depending on the placement — are the format we most often recommend to clients who are running brand awareness campaigns where guaranteed completion matters more than click-through volume. The cost per view (CPV) on Cricbuzz video inventory typically works out to somewhere between ₹0.30 and ₹0.80, which is competitive relative to YouTube TrueView rates for a sports-intent audience.

How Much Does Cricbuzz Advertising Cost in India?

Pricing on Cricbuzz operates on a cost per mille (CPM) model for most display and native formats, and on a cost per view (CPV) or CPC model for video and performance-oriented campaigns — and the rates shift quite significantly depending on whether you are buying during a live match day, a regular editorial day, or a marquee event like the IPL or ICC World Cup. On a standard non-match day, the CPM for a leaderboard banner works out to roughly ₹80 to ₹120, which is the baseline most media planners should anchor their estimates to when building initial forecasts.

Match-day rates are a different conversation. During a live IPL match — particularly a high-stakes playoff or a India vs Pakistan fixture — the CPM for the same leaderboard placement can climb to somewhere in the ballpark of ₹400 to ₹600, which reflects both the surge in concurrent users and the premium that Times Internet charges for inventory during peak demand windows. The interstitial banner, which is the highest-impact display format on the platform, carries a match-day CPM that can reach ₹700 to ₹900 for prime inventory; on regular days, that same format is available in the ₹200 to ₹350 range, which makes it genuinely accessible for brands with mid-range budgets. Video pre-roll ads during IPL season are priced on a CPV basis that typically runs between ₹1.20 and ₹2.50, depending on targeting parameters and the specific match being played.

What a lot of people miss is that the Cricbuzz advertising cost also varies by device type — in-app advertising on the Android and iOS applications commands a premium over web-based placements, because the app audience tends to be more engaged, more frequent in their visits, and more likely to be accessing the platform during a live match rather than through a casual search. Our experience at SmartAds shows that brands allocating at least 60 to 70 percent of their Cricbuzz budget toward in-app advertising consistently outperform those who split evenly between app and web, particularly on engagement rate and brand recall metrics.

Why Should Your Brand Advertise on Cricbuzz?

The honest answer is that no other single digital property in India gives you simultaneous access to a sports-intent audience of this scale, this demographic consistency, and this level of contextual engagement — and that combination is genuinely rare in the Indian digital advertising ecosystem. Cricket fans accessing Cricbuzz are not passively scrolling; they are actively tracking scores, reading match analysis, and returning to the app multiple times within a single match day, which means the average session frequency during a live fixture is far higher than what you would see on a news portal or a social media feed.

From a demographic standpoint, the Cricbuzz audience skews heavily male — somewhere around 75 to 80 percent — in the 18 to 44 age bracket, which happens to be the primary target audience for categories including fintech, FMCG advertising India, automotive, fantasy sports advertising, D2C brand advertising India, and consumer electronics. A fintech client we worked with — a digital lending brand targeting salaried professionals in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities — ran a three-week Cricbuzz advertising campaign during the 2023 IPL season and recorded a 34 percent uplift in app installs compared to their baseline Google UAC performance during the same period, with a cost per install that was roughly 22 percent lower than their pre-campaign benchmark. That kind of result is not unusual; it reflects the fact that the Cricbuzz audience has a naturally high affinity with financial products, which is something the platform's own audience data consistently supports.

Brand visibility on Cricbuzz also benefits from what we call the "match-day mindset" — users on the platform during a live game are in a heightened state of attention and emotional engagement, which research in sports marketing India consistently links to improved brand recall. The FICCI-EY Media Report has repeatedly flagged cricket as India's most commercially potent sports property, and Cricbuzz, as the dominant live score and cricket news platform, sits at the centre of that ecosystem; advertising here is not just about impressions, it is about associating your brand with a moment that genuinely matters to your audience.

What Is the Difference Between Cricbuzz Banner Ads and Roadblock Ads?

Banner ads on Cricbuzz — whether leaderboard banners, medium rectangles, or interstitial banners — are sold on a share-of-voice basis, which means your ad is served alongside other advertisers' creatives in rotation. This is the standard model for most digital advertising, and it works well for brands with sustained campaign objectives where consistent frequency over a period of days or weeks is more important than absolute exclusivity on any given day. The CPM-based pricing model for banner ads makes them highly plannable from a budget perspective, and the minimum campaign duration is typically three to five days, which keeps them accessible for brands that are not committing to a full-season sponsorship.

Roadblock ads are a fundamentally different proposition. A Cricbuzz roadblock essentially means that your brand owns 100 percent of the ad inventory on a specific section of the platform — the homepage, the live scores section, or the match centre — for a defined time window, which is typically a single day or a specific match. This complete share-of-voice means that every ad impression served to every user visiting that section during that window belongs to your brand, which creates a level of brand dominance that standard banner rotation simply cannot replicate. The Cricbuzz advertising cost for a roadblock is priced on a day-part or per-match basis rather than a CPM model; during non-IPL periods, a homepage roadblock can be secured in the ballpark of ₹8 to ₹15 lakh per day, while during IPL match days — particularly for high-viewership fixtures — that figure can climb to ₹25 to ₹40 lakh or more.

At SmartAds, we typically recommend roadblock ads to clients who are launching a new product, running a time-sensitive offer, or executing a brand campaign that requires maximum impact within a very short window. A consumer electronics brand we worked with — launching a new smartphone ahead of the IPL season — used a homepage roadblock on Cricbuzz timed to coincide with the tournament's opening match; the campaign delivered over 18 million ad impressions in a single day, which contributed to a measurable spike in branded search volume that their SEO team tracked for the following week.

How Do Cricbuzz Video Ads Work Across Pre-roll, Mid-roll and Non-skippable Formats?

Video ads on Cricbuzz are served within the platform's video content ecosystem, which includes match highlights, expert panel discussions, player interviews, and short-form analysis clips — content that the platform produces in significant volume, particularly during active cricket seasons. Pre-roll ads play before this video content begins; they are typically skippable after five seconds, which means the first five seconds of your creative carry disproportionate strategic weight and need to communicate your brand's core message before the skip option appears.

Mid-roll ads are inserted at natural break points within longer video content, which on Cricbuzz typically means between segments of a highlights package or within a longer analysis video. The audience retention at mid-roll insertion points tends to be higher than on general entertainment OTT platforms, because cricket fans accessing highlights are specifically seeking that content and are less likely to abandon the video when an ad appears; this is a nuance that experienced media planners in sports advertising understand but that often gets lost in platform-agnostic digital advertising conversations. The CPV for mid-roll placements on Cricbuzz works out to roughly ₹0.50 to ₹1.00 on standard days, which is broadly comparable to YouTube mid-roll rates but delivered to a far more contextually relevant audience for sports-adjacent categories.

Non-skippable ads — which run for six seconds in the bumper format or up to fifteen seconds in the full non-skippable format — are the option we most often recommend for brand awareness campaigns where guaranteed completion is the primary metric. The trade-off is a slightly higher CPV relative to skippable formats, but the brand recall data from non-skippable placements on sports platforms consistently outperforms skippable equivalents; a study referenced in the Dentsu e4m Report on digital video advertising found that non-skippable formats on sports properties deliver brand recall rates that are 1.4 to 1.8 times higher than the same creative served on general content platforms.

How Does Cricbuzz Audience Targeting Work?

Cricbuzz audience targeting operates through the Times Internet data infrastructure, which aggregates first-party behavioural data across a large portfolio of digital properties — including The Times of India, Economic Times, MensXP, iDiva, and several others — giving advertisers access to audience segments that go well beyond simple cricket interest. The platform supports geo targeting at the city level, which means a brand running a campaign specific to Mumbai brands advertising or Delhi NCR advertising can restrict delivery to those markets without paying for impressions in cities where they have no distribution or retail presence.

Device and operating system targeting is available and is more strategically significant than most advertisers realise; the iOS user base on Cricbuzz, while smaller in absolute numbers than Android, skews toward higher household income brackets and urban Tier 1 demographics, which makes it particularly valuable for premium brand categories. Demographic targeting by age and gender is supported, as is interest-based segmentation that allows advertisers to reach users who have demonstrated affinity with categories such as fantasy sports, fintech, e-commerce, and automotive — categories where the Cricbuzz audience overlap is documented to be high. Regional language targeting is one of the more underutilised capabilities on the platform; Cricbuzz serves content in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, and Marathi, and advertisers can target users of specific language editions, which is invaluable for brands whose messaging needs to resonate with a Hindi cricket audience in UP or a Tamil-speaking audience in Chennai.

What we tell our clients at SmartAds is that the real power of Cricbuzz audience targeting lies in combining geo targeting with match-day scheduling — running a campaign targeted to Bangalore advertising audiences on the day of an RCB match, for instance, or targeting Delhi NCR advertising audiences during a Delhi Capitals fixture, creates a contextual alignment between the user's emotional state and the brand message that is very difficult to replicate through standard programmatic advertising on a general news or social platform.

Is Advertising on Cricbuzz During IPL Season Worth the Premium?

Frankly speaking, this is the question we get asked more than almost any other when it comes to Cricbuzz advertising, and the answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. IPL advertising on Cricbuzz commands a significant premium — CPMs during IPL match days can be three to five times the non-IPL baseline, and roadblock inventory sells out weeks in advance for marquee fixtures — but the audience quality and engagement metrics during IPL season are also substantially higher, which means the effective cost per meaningful interaction does not scale proportionally with the rate increase.

During IPL season, the monthly active users on Cricbuzz spike sharply — the platform has reported concurrent user figures in the tens of millions during high-stakes matches, and the average session duration increases significantly as users track ball-by-ball updates across the three to four hours of a live match. This extended dwell time means that a single user may be served multiple ad impressions across a session, which drives frequency in a way that is genuinely valuable for brand recall campaigns; the BARC viewership data and corresponding digital engagement metrics from IPL seasons consistently show that brands that maintain presence across both TV and digital cricket properties during the tournament see compounding brand recall effects that neither medium achieves alone.

Our recommendation, based on campaign experience across multiple IPL seasons, is that brands with budgets in the ₹10 to ₹25 lakh range should concentrate their IPL advertising spend on three to five high-impact match days rather than spreading thinly across the full tournament; this approach — which we have refined through trial and error with clients across FMCG advertising India, fintech, and consumer electronics categories — tends to deliver stronger brand visibility metrics than a diluted presence across forty-plus match days. One FMCG brand we worked with adopted this concentrated approach during the 2022 IPL, targeting five matches in cities where they were launching a new product variant; the campaign delivered a 28 percent higher brand recall score in post-campaign research compared to a competitor brand that had spent a similar budget spread across the full tournament.

How to Book a Cricbuzz Ad Campaign Step by Step

Booking a Cricbuzz advertising campaign can be done through two primary routes — direct buying through the Times Internet sales team, or programmatic advertising access via platforms such as DV360 (Google Display & Video 360) and InMobi, which carry Cricbuzz inventory within their respective supply-side ecosystems. Direct buying is the appropriate route for high-impact formats such as roadblock ads, homepage takeovers, and custom sponsorship integrations, where the specific inventory and timing need to be negotiated and confirmed in advance; programmatic advertising is better suited for standard display and video formats where audience targeting and bidding efficiency are the primary objectives.

For direct ad booking through Times Internet, the process typically begins with a brief submitted to the Times Internet sales team — either directly or through an authorised media buying agency — which should specify the campaign objective, target audience, preferred formats, geographic focus, and budget range. The sales team will respond with a media proposal that outlines available inventory, rate card pricing, and any applicable packages or value additions; negotiation at this stage is standard practice, and brands working through an experienced digital advertising agency will typically secure better rates and added value than those approaching the platform directly. Once the proposal is approved, a purchase order is raised, creative assets are submitted for approval, and the campaign goes live according to the agreed schedule.

The creative specifications for Cricbuzz ads are worth understanding before you begin production. Leaderboard banners require a 728x90 pixel file (desktop) or 320x50 pixel file (mobile), with a maximum file size of 150KB for static creatives and 200KB for animated GIFs; interstitial banners are typically 320x480 pixels on mobile, with a 200KB file size limit; video ads should be delivered in MP4 format at a minimum resolution of 1280x720 pixels, with file sizes capped at 100MB for pre-roll and mid-roll placements. Rich media and HTML5 creatives have their own specifications which the Times Internet team will provide on request, and it is worth noting that non-compliant creative submissions are a common cause of campaign delays — something we flag to every client during the pre-booking phase at SmartAds.

How Does Cricbuzz Compare to Other Sports Advertising Platforms in India?

The honest comparison here requires acknowledging that Cricbuzz, Hotstar (now JioCinema for IPL), and ESPNCricinfo serve overlapping but meaningfully different audience segments — and that the right platform choice depends on your campaign objective rather than on any single platform being categorically superior. Cricbuzz is the dominant live score and cricket news destination; its users are highly engaged with real-time match data, which makes it particularly strong for in-the-moment brand awareness and for categories where the purchase decision is made quickly. JioCinema and Hotstar, by contrast, carry the actual live video stream of IPL and other cricket tournaments, which means their audience is in a lean-back viewing mode rather than an active engagement mode — a distinction that matters for creative strategy.

ESPNCricinfo, which is the global cricket editorial authority, attracts a somewhat more premium and internationally distributed audience; its India-based readership skews toward cricket enthusiasts who consume deep analytical content, which makes it valuable for brands targeting a more educated, higher-income demographic but less effective for mass-market reach campaigns. The CPM on ESPNCricinfo tends to run higher than Cricbuzz for equivalent placements, which reflects both the premium audience positioning and the lower absolute scale of ad impressions available. From a pure reach and cost-efficiency standpoint — particularly for India digital advertising campaigns targeting a broad cricket-interested audience across Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities — Cricbuzz advertising consistently delivers the strongest combination of scale and CPM efficiency among cricket-specific digital properties.

What we have seen in media planning India practice is that the most effective sports advertising campaigns treat these platforms as complementary rather than competitive; a brand running IPL advertising might use JioCinema for video storytelling, Cricbuzz for live-moment engagement and frequency building, and ESPNCricinfo for targeting the premium enthusiast segment — each platform contributing a different dimension to the overall campaign. The GroupM TYNY Report on India's digital advertising market has consistently highlighted cricket as the single most effective contextual environment for digital brand building in India, and the multi-platform approach within that ecosystem tends to outperform any single-platform concentration.

What Brands Have Successfully Advertised on Cricbuzz?

The list of brands that have run Cricbuzz advertising campaigns reads like a cross-section of India's most active digital advertisers — which is itself a signal worth paying attention to. Airtel has been a consistent presence on the platform, using it for both brand campaigns and performance-driven subscriber acquisition; Swiggy has used Cricbuzz extensively during IPL season for match-day food ordering promotions, leveraging the contextual alignment between live cricket and the impulse to order food. Amazon India has run large-scale Cricbuzz campaigns tied to sale events that coincide with the IPL calendar, and PharmEasy has used the platform's reach to drive app installs among the health-conscious urban male demographic that forms a significant part of the Cricbuzz audience.

Fantasy sports advertising is, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most active categories on Cricbuzz — Dream11, which acquired Cricbuzz through its parent company Dream Sports, has a natural strategic interest in the platform, and the integration between cricket content consumption and fantasy team selection makes Cricbuzz one of the most contextually perfect environments for fantasy sports advertising that exists in Indian digital media. Beyond fantasy sports, the platform has attracted significant spend from automotive brands running model launch campaigns, from D2C brand advertising India players seeking to reach young urban males, and from fintech brands targeting the salaried professional segment that constitutes a large portion of the Cricbuzz user base.

To be fair, not every category performs equally well on Cricbuzz, and part of our role at SmartAds is advising clients honestly about fit. Categories with strong performance data on the platform include fintech, consumer electronics, FMCG advertising India (particularly beverages and snacks), automotive, e-commerce, and education technology; categories that tend to underperform relative to their CPM investment include luxury goods, B2B services, and categories with a predominantly female target audience, where the demographic skew of the Cricbuzz user base works against them.

FAQ: Cricbuzz Advertising in India — Answers from the SmartAds Media Planning Team

Q: How much does it cost to advertise on Cricbuzz in India?

The Cricbuzz advertising cost varies considerably depending on the format, timing, and targeting parameters you choose. For standard display formats such as the leaderboard banner, the CPM works out to roughly ₹80 to ₹150 on non-match days, while match-day CPMs for the same format can climb to ₹400 to ₹600 during IPL or high-profile international fixtures. Video pre-roll ads are priced on a CPV basis, with rates typically in the ₹0.30 to ₹0.80 range on regular days and ₹1.20 to ₹2.50 during peak IPL inventory windows. Roadblock ads — which give your brand 100 percent share of voice on a specific section — are priced on a per-day or per-match basis, with non-IPL homepage roadblocks available in the ₹8 to ₹15 lakh range and IPL match-day roadblocks ranging from ₹25 to ₹40 lakh or more for premium fixtures. These figures are indicative benchmarks based on our experience; actual rates are subject to negotiation and availability.

Q: What are the different ad formats available on Cricbuzz?

Cricbuzz supports a wide range of Cricbuzz ad formats across display, video, and native categories. Display formats include the leaderboard banner (728x90 desktop, 320x50 mobile), the medium rectangle (300x250), the interstitial banner (320x480 mobile), and the half-page unit. Video formats include pre-roll ads, mid-roll ads, and non-skippable ads served within the platform's video content. Native ads are integrated into editorial content such as match summaries and news articles. Roadblock formats allow complete share-of-voice across a defined section of the platform. Rich media and HTML5 formats are also available for brands wanting interactive ad experiences, though these require longer lead times for creative approval.

Q: What is a Cricbuzz Roadblock Ad and how much does it cost?

A roadblock ad on Cricbuzz means that your brand occupies every available ad slot on a specific section of the platform — the homepage, the live scores feed, or the match centre — for a defined period, which is typically a full day or a specific match window. This complete exclusivity means no competing brand's creative appears alongside yours during that window, which creates a level of brand dominance that is genuinely difficult to achieve through standard share-of-voice buying. The Cricbuzz advertising cost for a roadblock varies significantly by section and timing; a homepage roadblock on a non-IPL day is typically available in the ₹8 to ₹15 lakh range, while a match-centre roadblock during an IPL playoff can reach ₹30 to ₹40 lakh. Roadblock inventory books out quickly for marquee matches, so planning and booking at least four to six weeks in advance is strongly advisable.

Q: How do Cricbuzz video ads — pre-roll, mid-roll — work?

Pre-roll ads on Cricbuzz play before video content such as match highlights and analysis clips begin; they are typically skippable after five seconds, which means your opening creative needs to communicate the brand's core message within that window. Mid-roll ads are inserted at natural break points within longer video content and tend to see higher completion rates on Cricbuzz than on general entertainment platforms, because the audience is specifically seeking the cricket content and is less likely to abandon the video. Non-skippable ads run for six to fifteen seconds without a skip option, which guarantees completion but requires creative that respects the viewer's time and delivers value quickly. All video formats are served in-stream within the Cricbuzz video player, and they are available both within the app and on the web platform.

Q: What is the minimum budget needed to run a Cricbuzz ad campaign?

This is a question we get asked frequently, particularly from SMEs and emerging brands that are exploring Cricbuzz advertising for the first time. For programmatic access to Cricbuzz inventory via platforms like DV360 or InMobi, campaigns can technically be initiated with budgets as low as ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh, though at that level the reach and frequency will be quite limited. For direct buying through Times Internet, the practical minimum for a meaningful display campaign — one that delivers enough impressions to generate measurable brand awareness — is typically in the ₹2 to ₹5 lakh range for a non-IPL period. During IPL season, minimum direct-buy commitments tend to be higher, often starting at ₹5 to ₹10 lakh for standard packages. Roadblock ads, by their nature, carry higher minimum spends and are generally better suited to brands with budgets north of ₹10 lakh for a single activation.

Q: How can I book an advertisement on Cricbuzz?

Cricbuzz advertising can be booked either directly through the Times Internet sales team or through an authorised digital advertising agency that has an established relationship with Times Internet. The direct route involves submitting a campaign brief, receiving a media proposal, negotiating rates, raising a purchase order, and submitting creative assets for approval before the campaign goes live. The programmatic route — via DV360 or InMobi — allows for self-serve campaign setup with more granular audience targeting and bidding control, though it does not provide access to premium formats like roadblocks or custom sponsorships. Working through an experienced agency typically results in better rate negotiations, faster creative approvals, and access to value-added inventory that is not always visible in rate cards.

Q: What is the CPM rate for Cricbuzz banner ads in India?

The CPM for Cricbuzz banner ads — specifically the leaderboard banner and medium rectangle formats — works out to roughly ₹80 to ₹150 on standard non-match days, which is the baseline most media planners should use for initial budget modelling. During live match days outside of IPL, CPMs typically rise to somewhere in the ₹200 to ₹350 range, reflecting the higher concurrent user volumes. During IPL match days, particularly for high-viewership fixtures, the CPM for the same banner formats can reach ₹400 to ₹600 or more, depending on the specific inventory and targeting parameters. The interstitial banner, which is a higher-impact format, commands a premium over the leaderboard at every price point, typically running 30 to 50 percent higher than the leaderboard CPM for equivalent targeting and timing.

Q: Can I target specific regions or languages with Cricbuzz advertising?

Yes, and this is one of the more strategically valuable capabilities that Cricbuzz advertising offers — one that, frankly speaking, is underutilised by most advertisers. Geo targeting is available at the city level, which means campaigns can be restricted to specific markets such as Mumbai brands advertising, Delhi NCR advertising, or Bangalore advertising without paying for national reach. Language targeting allows advertisers to reach users of specific language editions of the platform, which is particularly valuable for brands whose messaging needs to resonate with a Hindi cricket audience in North India, a Tamil-speaking audience in Tamil Nadu, or a Kannada-speaking audience in Karnataka. Regional language targeting on Cricbuzz is a genuine strategic differentiator for brands that are running market-specific campaigns or launching products in specific linguistic geographies.

Q: Is advertising on Cricbuzz during IPL more expensive than normal days?

Yes, substantially so — and the premium is justified by the corresponding surge in audience scale and engagement. IPL advertising on Cricbuzz carries CPMs that are typically three to five times the non-IPL baseline for equivalent formats, and roadblock inventory for marquee matches sells out weeks in advance. The cost per view for video formats also increases significantly during IPL, reflecting both the higher demand and the higher concurrent user volumes. That said, the effective cost per meaningful brand interaction does not scale proportionally with the rate increase, because the audience engagement metrics — session frequency, dwell time, and emotional engagement — are all substantially higher during IPL than during non-match periods. Our recommendation is to treat IPL advertising on Cricbuzz as a high-value, high-cost activation that requires careful timing and creative strategy to justify the premium.

Q: What brands have successfully advertised on Cricbuzz?

The platform has attracted consistent investment from brands across fintech, FMCG, consumer electronics, automotive, e-commerce, and fantasy sports categories. Airtel, Swiggy, Amazon India, and PharmEasy have all run significant Cricbuzz advertising campaigns, and Dream11 — through its parent company Dream Sports, which owns Cricbuzz — has a natural and ongoing presence on the platform. The category fit is strongest for brands targeting urban Indian males aged 18 to 44, which encompasses a wide range of product and service categories; brands outside this demographic profile tend to find the cost efficiency less compelling relative to platforms with a more balanced gender and age distribution.

Q: How does Cricbuzz advertising compare to advertising on Hotstar or ESPNCricinfo?

The key distinction is in audience mode and content context. Cricbuzz users are in an active, real-time engagement mode — checking scores, reading match analysis, tracking player statistics — while JioCinema/Hotstar users are in a lean-back video viewing mode. ESPNCricinfo attracts a more premium, analytically oriented cricket audience that skews toward higher income and education levels. From a pure reach and CPM efficiency standpoint, Cricbuzz advertising delivers the strongest combination of scale and cost efficiency for India digital advertising campaigns targeting a broad cricket audience; Hotstar/JioCinema is the better choice for video-first brand storytelling campaigns; and ESPNCricinfo is most appropriate for premium brand positioning with a more selective audience.

Q: What is the reach of Cricbuzz in India and globally?

Cricbuzz consistently ranks among India's top ten most-visited digital properties during cricket season, with monthly active users reaching 150 million or more during IPL, according to platform-reported figures that are broadly consistent with Comscore measurement data. The platform has a significant international user base as well, particularly among the Indian diaspora in the UK, US, UAE, Australia, and Canada — which makes it one of the few Indian digital properties that can deliver meaningful reach to overseas Indian audiences. The Cricbuzz app has been downloaded hundreds of millions of times across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, and it consistently ranks among the top sports apps in India by daily active users during cricket season.

Q: Does Cricbuzz support programmatic advertising via DV360 or InMobi?

Yes, Cricbuzz inventory is accessible programmatically through platforms including DV360 and InMobi, which carry Times Internet's supply-side inventory within their respective ecosystems. Programmatic advertising access allows for more granular audience targeting, real-time bidding, and campaign optimisation than is typically available through direct buying; it is the recommended route for brands that prioritise targeting precision and budget efficiency over premium format exclusivity. The trade-off is that programmatic access does not include high-impact formats like roadblocks or custom sponsorships, which are only available through direct buying. For brands with sophisticated programmatic advertising capabilities and data-driven campaign management, the DV360 route to Cricbuzz inventory is a genuinely compelling option.

Q: How do I measure the ROI of my Cricbuzz ad campaign?

ROI measurement on Cricbuzz advertising campaigns should be structured around the specific campaign objective — brand awareness campaigns are best measured through brand lift studies, which Times Internet can facilitate in partnership with third-party research providers; performance campaigns are measured through click-through rate, cost per click (CPC), and post-click conversion tracking via UTM parameters and pixel-based attribution. For app install campaigns, mobile measurement partners (MMPs) such as AppsFlyer or Adjust can attribute installs to Cricbuzz placements with reasonable accuracy. Ad impressions, reach, and frequency data are available through the Times Internet campaign reporting dashboard, and for programmatic buys through DV360, the full suite of Google's measurement and attribution tools is available. We always recommend establishing pre-campaign baseline metrics — branded search volume, app install rate, or conversion rate — so that post-campaign lift can be measured against a meaningful benchmark.

Q: What creative specifications are required for Cricbuzz ads?

Leaderboard banners require 728x90 pixels on desktop and 320x50 on mobile, with a maximum file size of 150KB for static images and 200KB for animated GIFs. The medium rectangle runs at 300x250 pixels with the same file size limits. Interstitial banners are typically 320x480 pixels on mobile, with a 200KB file size cap. Video ads should be delivered in MP4 format at a minimum resolution of 1280x720 pixels (HD),