A recent study estimates that 193 million people listen to online audio on a monthly basis in the US alone. It also found that listeners are more likely to interact in a myriad of ways with ads that run on their favourite podcast; 45% will visit the brand website, 42% consider making a purchase of a new product or to buy a service, whereas 37% do further research. Globally, digital audio advertising is projected to grow by 8% this year according to Statista.

So what’s all the buzz about audio advertising? What are the benefits of incorporating digital audio into your digital marketing strategy, and how can digital marketing teams create and deliver the best audio ads across all digital audio channels? 

Benefits of Advertising on Audio Streaming Platforms

  • Key Messaging and Information Retention 

Research shows that digital audio ads ensure greater levels of messaging recall and are more effective than radio ads. Sympaphonic ads are ads that are integrated with participants’ personal playlists. Using Pandora as a case study, sympaphonic ads were found to be 49% better than radio, 36% better than TV and 29% better than mobile video ads in terms of positive impacts on long-term memory. Dunkin Donuts similarly enjoyed a 238% increase in audience engagement when they ran a sympaphonic advertising campaign that closely matched the message of the advert with the audio content that they were listening to.

  • Near-Effortless Organic Traffic 

Advertisers benefit from having access to established audiences on well-regarded audio-streaming platforms with relatively less effort and higher pay-off than would be the case on other marketing channels. These platforms offer listeners the opportunity to seamlessly navigate to an advertiser’s website and support efforts to drive business.

  • Better Quality Leads

Provided ads are carefully designed and feature on relevant, brand-safe platforms, advertisers can benefit from better audience targeting, stronger leads, higher conversion rates and an increase in purchase intent from the audience.

What Makes a Great Audio Ad?

To ensure the greatest success with audio advertising, brands are encouraged to establish the approach the ad will take (i.e., how overtly ‘salesy’ should the language used be?), ideally keep ads simple and no longer than 30 seconds, and maintain a conversational tone in the script that matches a brand’s ‘voice’.

The best audio ads create narratives that listeners can emotionally relate to, and have a well-executed ‘sonic logo’ through appropriate use of music and sound effects that complement the messaging of the ad script, and avoid prolonged periods of silence at the start and end of the ad.

Clear, specific and direct calls to action should also feature in ads, ideally with the value proposition being made clear within the first 10 seconds. This will act as a hook to maintain the audience’s attention, and convince them to visit brand websites or make purchases. 

How can digital marketing teams deliver the best audio ads? 

In an ever-changing world, with digital marketing trends changing every few months, brands should consider using real-time campaign analysis to stay ahead of the curve to really understand which ads resonate the most with their audience and change their strategies and the needs and demands of these audiences evolve over time. AdTonos is an audio-centric ad tech company offering unparalleled solutions for advertisers and impressive monetisation opportunities for publishers.

We have a reach of over 272 million unique listeners worldwide and can serve 5 billion interactive audio ad playouts each month on audiobook, music streaming, mobile gaming, online radio and podcast channels across the UK, US, LATAM and Europe. Our solutions are compatible with iOS and Android devices, as well as Google Assistant and Alexa-enabled devices. Find out more about our solutions here.