The Untapped Potential of Audio Advertising

[#1]

Think of digital advertising a couple of years back, video was new trending topic and channel to become "THE" next thing in the market. Think of it now and Video is still ruling but we have more avenues to explore. More content is being consumed on mobile devices and people are spending more times on their phones. Audio has silently made its way into digital and is now a prominent avenue for advertisers!

If you listen to podcasts and suddenly hear the presenter talking about a new product or service they have started liking recently, they make  it sound intriguing and we listen about the same thing throughout the week . The product or the service is now etched to your memory and will be the first recall when you have a need for the same.

Another example can be streaming music. Between 2 songs can be an advert about a product or a new app or even another podcast releasing soon! Before we know it, advertisements are reaching us through another of our senses – hearing!! Who knew this would be the future when the first Marlboro appeared on a newspaper?

The fact that digital Audio is the new wave in advertising can be understood by the 2019 Infinite Dial Report by Edison Research and Triton Digital, the average American over the age of 12 now listens 17 hours of online Audio per week

eMarketer data also suggests that digital audio will be listened to more than radio by 2021

Even though we have many forms of audio inventory, lets talk about the 2 major avenues in Audio – Podcasts and Streaming Audio

Podcasts are no more a new thing for us. Most of the people around us are listening to podcasts as a preferred source of entertainment. In-fact the statistics are exciting and shows that podcasts have a tremendous potential to grow and be a medium of reaching more customers on the platform. Here are some statistics for Podcast –

• There are more than 850,000 active podcasts and more than 30 million podcasts episodes in over 100 languages
• This is a ~60% increase from 2018
• Podcast ad revenue is forecasted at $659 Million in 2020 and it was $514 million for 2019
• 69% agreed that podcasts made them aware of new product and services

Source – Music OOMPH

With such promising numbers and exciting engagement hours, podcasts are a must explore option for advertisers in 2020

Streaming Audio, however, if compared with Podcasts is a different pitch to play on. With programmatic advertising for audio, we can control who is served the ad. DSPs can control the exposure of ad to a set of users leveraging 1st and 3rd party audiences. We can take advantage of premium inventory on TuneIn, Pandora and Spotify. Ad blindness is vastly reduced, and we can ensure that the ad is not wasted on irrelevant audience

Here is a look at the data in 2019 from The Infinite Digital which shows Pandora and Spotify on top in terms of audio inventory

It's worth noting that many of these streaming audio services don’t just focus on audio ads. Depending on the platform, there could be a wide range of multimedia placements to choose from, including:

• Cross-Device Audio - Ads that play on mobile, desktop, tablets, gaming consoles, smart TVs, and even in-car apps.
• Display Ads - Banners that appear in various placements across a streaming app’s free version, including takeover screens.
• Sponsored Sessions - Video ads that offer users a stretch of ad-free listening in exchange for watching.
• Video Takeovers - Clickable video ads that cover the entire app screen during a commercial ad break.
• Sponsored Content - Branded experiences such as sponsored playlists or stations.

Source – The CSI Group

With the current unprecedented situation where we stay indoors to fight the pandemic, audio streaming and podcasts become a much more lucrative solution for brands. In the world with smart speakers and connected homes imagine the scale of tailor-made audiences you can reach with Audio advertising in your media plan We are already seeing tech brands with Adobe focusing and spending on audio campaigns and they are all giving excellent ROIs!

Who knows one day we can take a step further and listen to keywords from the search queries people make with smart speakers to serve a custom audio ad to a person!! How cool would that be? And it’s never too far with the way we are taking leaps in advertising.

With this, the forum is always open for ideas. But Audio Advertising for sure is here to stay and grow!

Hope you enjoyed reading!

[#2]

A very informative and well written blog!

[#3]

Thanks for sharing these insights @ArpitAgrawal. The industry-level data numbers and examples just made it so relevant to understand how audio ads are going to be the next big thing in the digital industry!

Great stuff!