World Cup season hasn’t started yet, but Netflix is already looking ahead to 2027. The streamer is offering advertisers the option to buy dynamically inserted ads during its broadcast of the Women’s World Cup next summer, the company confirmed to Marketing Brew.
Since debuting an ad tier in 2022, Netflix has been steadily building out its ad capabilities, including adding dynamic ad insertion (DAI) options for live sporting events like NFL games. As the ad capabilities grow, so too is the revenue coming in; the streamer’s ad revenue is expected to hit $3 billion this year, Netflix co-CEO, president, and director Greg Peters said during Netflix’s Q1 2026 earnings call earlier this month.
Advertisers are cautiously exploring some of Netflix’s newer ad formats, including DAI, they told Marketing Brew.
“We are garnering high interest from clients on live entertainment; they really want to know about it,” Amanda Wallingford, programmatic director at indie agency The Shipyard said, later adding, Netflix is “doing everything [it] can to get more streamlined and get into the programmatic industry, and it’s made a difference.”
Slow ‘n’ steady
DAI, a technology that serves personalized ads to different viewers in real time on streaming, is relatively nascent, and some advertisers aren’t all-in on the technology yet. While acknowledging the value that the real-time nature of live sports represents, Kasha Cacy, chief media officer at the agency Known, noted that DAI may only be right for certain clients and briefs. She noted that for some pharmaceutical clients seeking out older viewers, like Moderna, which Known works with, Netflix might not be the right platform to use to reach that audience—but DAI could be useful to target specific demographics in specific cities that those brands may be looking to attract.
Other agencies are balancing an interest in the offering with the challenges presented by live CPMs across Netflix that may be too high for some advertisers. One strategy The Shipyard has discussed with certain travel and tourism clients is targeting consumers on Netflix who have or may be considering traveling to LA for sporting events such as this year’s World Cup or the 2028 Summer Olympics. That could mean targeting viewers who have an interest in travel, advertising on travel-related content genres, and leveraging Netflix’s “escape” and “adrenaline” viewing-mood targeting options, Wallingford said.
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DAI could come in handy for that, she added.
“With Netflix’s reach, it’s still a powerful platform, even if the event itself isn’t streaming on Netflix,” she said. “A great way to find our target audience for fun and travel-minded audience is to catch them after a crazy-busy day, kicked back, shoes off, and immersed in their Netflix escape, when our ad can spark inspiration to step away from the daily grind and go see their favorite sports team or the best of the best fighting for gold.”
Wallingford said she’s “excited to run those as soon as we have a chance.” However, the agency hasn’t yet inked any live ad deals with the streamer mostly due to the cost of CPMs, she said.
DAI still has room to scale further available across the broader broadcasting and streaming ecosystem. But it is slowly growing in popularity; the streamer offered it on certain live events, like its NFL Christmas Day games, last year. Certain other streamers have leaned in, too: Disney began offering DAI on Disney+ live events in April 2025.
Dan Rayburn, NAB Show Streaming Summit conference chair, said that while the technology is compelling in theory, it remains to be seen whether it can scale successfully. Streamers have had some issues with large-scale livestreamed events in the past: Netflix’s livestream of the November 2024 boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson faced major buffering issues, while Amazon Prime Video experienced similar issues with an NBA play-in game livestream.
“There’s been plenty of DAI implementations for streaming where the audience has been small, but scale is really where the complexity comes in,” he told us.
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