Digital Audio Ads & Digital Radio
What are digital audio ads and digital radio?
With the boom of technology, consumers have more and more devices and new opportunities to consume content and media. And one media that grew exponentially with this boom was audio. Audio not only is present in more devices than ever but is also taking part in a large variety of consumer activities. For example, we have today radio, music streaming and podcasts available in connected cars, smart speakers, smart TVs through apps, mobile devices, connected smartwatches, and more. And each of these devices is largely associated with consumer behaviours and activities such as doing sports, commuting, cooking, mind fullness, partying and more. Such activities are prime for brands and advertisers as one can quickly understand. So digital audio ads are all the advertising through music, sound and voice that can be listened to and placed in front of consumers on platforms such Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Digital Radio from radio broadcasters and more. Below are some of the most common advertising platforms for audio ads.
Spotify Advertising (Spotify Ads, Spotify for Brands)
Spotify Audio Ads are a great way of building awareness in a more engaged and relatable way. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the consumer is actively listening and passively such as other media. The second one it’s because people rely on Spotify’s curated playlists to set moods for activities they are about to do such as work, do sports, cooking, road trips and more. So for a brand selling services or products that match these activities, advertising on Spotify is a great opportunity to deliver their marketing message. Like other audio platforms, Spotify serves non-skippable ads to non-paid subscribers (roughly about half of their listeners) with audio ads (a voice-over) or a video, or both. Spotify is the largest streaming service with advertising available to brands.
Pandora Ads (Pandora for Brands)
Less popular but still relevant than other platforms, Pandora advertising works the same way as Spotify and others. It allows advertisers to dynamically insert audio ads between, for example, songs being streamed to the listener. One key advantage is the ability to hyper-personalise your audio messages by leveraging rich listener data in real-time with intelligent ad technology that optimises various triggers such as location, weather and time of day to serve the right message to the right listener at the right time. This custom audio execution allows your creative to scale to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of variations.
SoundCloud Ads (SoundCloud Promoted Content)
SoundCloud is a more indie music platform and the world’s largest open audio space, powered by a connected community of original creators, listeners and curators on the pulse of what's new, now and next in culture with over 190 million tracks from 20 million creators heard in 190 countries. Working with SoundCloud’s ad platform offers your brand more ways to engage with a highly influential and indie audience. They offer both audio and display and native and sponsorship advertising opportunities.
Podcasts Sponsorship & Advertising
Podcasts had explosive growth, to say the least in the past 2 years. With more connected devices around us at home, work or commuting, Podcasts took over these spaces and provide consumers with a great unobtrusive way of consuming content. Podcast listeners are typically educated, loyal and affluent that are highly engaged having 80% of them listened to full episodes. Podcast advertising commonly takes the form of a sponsorship where the podcaster announces a service or product during a specific recording. But with the growth of this medium, advertising platforms such as Spotify and others allow audio ads to be dynamically inserted in the recordings the same way, for example, YouTube cuts a video mid-way to show a video ad. Because of this highly engaged audience, podcast advertising is a great opportunity for brands to deliver a message.
Digital Radio (Global DAX, ITV, Sky & TuneIn)
DAX is the largest digital audio ad sales and insertion platform in the UK, and one of the biggest in the world. Connecting advertisers, brands and agencies with publishers of the world’s best audio content in the UK, mainland Europe, the US and Canada. It has advanced capabilities to sell, serve, target, scale and track customised advertising into audio streams of Global’s stations on connected devices, as well as major platforms like SoundCloud, ITV, Sky and TuneIn. DAX’s platform can reach 27 million people a month across connected radio, music streaming and podcasts.