Programmatic Audio Advertising: What Is It & How Does It Work?

The role of advertisers is to continuously look for and locate new ways to reach engaged audiences. Programmatic Audio Advertising is on the rise! But why? 

In today’s highly mobile and connected world, you can’t look around without seeing consumers immersed in digital audio. Whether it’s your morning commute, the office, gym or simply walking down the street, the proliferation of digital audio, podcasts, and streaming is hard to ignore.  

The role of advertisers is to continuously look for and locate new ways to reach engaged audiences. In today’s highly mobile and connected world, you can’t look around without seeing consumers immersed in digital audio. Whether it’s your morning commute, the office, gym or simply walking down the street, the proliferation of digital audio, podcasts, and streaming is hard to ignore.  

Approximately 66% of Australians, that’s nearly 17 million people, listen to online audio every week. With 26% of all Australians listening to podcasts weekly, a statistic that increased 53% over 2020 and is only projected to rise. Furthermore, the average time a user spends listening to online audio is over 12 hours per week! That is some pretty valuable time. 

Today, digital audio is able to reach a wealth of diverse and highly engaged consumers. Programmatic audio advertising has evolved into a powerful and immersive tool to connect consumers with your brand.  

What is Programmatic Audio Advertising?

Firstly, Programmatic Audio is the use of technology to automate the selling and insertion of ads into audio content like podcasts, digital radio and music-streaming services. 

Programmatic Audio Advertising involves the buying of targeted ads from major audio publishers using one automated system. Ad space is available pre-roll, which works to catch a user’s attention before an audio segment or mid-roll, interrupting an audio segment mid-way through when a user is already highly engaged. Reaching listeners through multiple devices, including desktop, mobile, and tablet. 

The bidding, buying and campaign execution process is completely automated using algorithmic artificial intelligence. This technology strategically delivers your ads in real time to listeners based on their interest and behaviours. 

Who is Listening to Programmatic Audio Ads? 

Digital audio listeners are an extremely valuable audience. Listeners in the digital audio space, in particular podcasts, are affluent and highly educated. In Australia, 44% of Spotify basic users have a university or post graduate degree and they are 20% more likely to earn between $175,000 and $200,000 a year – making them well positioned for general prospecting.

“In Australia, 44% of Spotify basic users have a university or post graduate degree”

Another important characteristic of digital audio listeners is their age. Digital audio is most popular among tech savvy millennials and Gen Zer’s. Giving advertisers the opportunity to reach and capture this younger, bountiful audience. Many of whom are entering their prime spending years. When done right, audio advertising can allow a brand to build long-lasting relationships, with increased customer lifetime value. 

What are the Benefits of Programmatic Audio Advertising?

No distractions

70% of monthly podcast listeners don’t do anything else while listening to a podcast. This means a brand’s message doesn’t have to compete for a consumer’s attention because users aren’t listening to or watching anything else. 

These screen-free moments are rare and valuable to a brand. Connecting in a distraction-free environment can give your message more impact. 

Emotional engagement 

Audio is an engaging, emotional and personal experience for a listener. When done right, it should feel like a brand is talking directly to you. Creating a more intimate experience and setting the stage for a deeper, more meaningful connection and greater resonance of a brand’s message. 

The personal nature of audio results in ads having a lasting and more memorable effect, driving higher engagement and ad recall. 78% of listeners actually approve of podcast sponsorship, and 61% pay for a product or service they learned about on podcasts.

High performance targeting 

Programmatic audio advertising provides advanced targeting across demographics, interests, locations, device type, genres, playlists and so much more. Giving advertisers the ability to create uniquely personal ad experiences by harnessing data from audio partners. 

Think about it, podcast categories are endless. Allowing advertisers to supercharge their targeting through the existing skeleton of niche podcast characterisation and segmentation. Marrying up ads to specific digital audio relating to industries, beliefs, interests, products or services. In turn garnering higher engagement from highly interested, high-intent listeners. 

Personalisation

Spotify, among other platforms, collects over 500 billion data points every day – that’s more than Google Earth and Maps combined. Using the automated programmatic platform and real-time data, advertisers can deliver more relevant and personalised ads in a more efficient and cost effective way than traditional marketing. 

Advertisers can customise audio creative in real-time, serving thousands of different automated marketing messages to different consumer segments. Creative can feature multiple product messages tailored to the weather, location, time of day, day of the week and so much more. Creating a deeply personalised, fluid form of advertising. 

How do you Measure the Success of Programmatic Audio Advertising?  

Programmatic audio advertising platforms provide data on the number of impressions, reach and frequency of ads as well as demographic information such as age, gender, device type and interests of listeners. But how does a business actually measure their ROI? 

Advertisers can use ad-specific, time sensitive promo codes, URLs, and checkout surveys to measure their return on investment from audio advertising. As well as observing the direct impact on sales and social media followers during the campaign. 

The increasing prominence and consumption of audio provide an exciting opportunity for advertisers to create personalised experiences to connect and convert high-value customers. Thinking about adding programmatic audio advertising to your marketing strategy? Get in touch today: hello@rumblr.com.au