Fanatics Founder & Exec Chair Michael Rubin said social media "has become really meaningful" for the company's sales metrics, noting he now expects to see "about half" of Fanatics' digital marketing dollars being spent on sites like Instagram and Facebook. Rubin, appearing on CNBC, said, "Our marketing budget, the great majority is digital, and of that, 50% is social, which is really all Facebook and Instagram, and then 50% Google." Rubin said Facebook has received most of the marketing dollars, but Instagram is "growing very quickly." However, he noted three years ago, Facebook "was not meaningful." Rubin: "We spend $100 million in digital marketing a year at Fanatics on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars that we spend with the leagues, and Google was the place we first really turned to. ... We then really got good at how to monetize Facebook and now we're getting really good at how to monetize Instagram." Rubin added Snapchat and Twitter have "huge audiences but they're not really monetizable yet."
IN POSITIVE TERRITORY: Rubin said Fanatics is "having a great year" as the company's sales since Aug. 1 are "up 25%." Rubin noted the NFL is Fanatics' "biggest business to start with so when you see those kinds of gains, that's a really positive thing" ("Squawk Box," CNBC, 9/6).
