Optimized digital audio advertising campaigns with conversion tracking can help brands realize the power of digital audio campaigns. This approach can help brands overcome the challenges of highly-effective digital audio advertising, which include having to navigate a wide range of platforms and formats, holding listeners’ interest during ad breaks, and tracking and measuring user engagement and conversions.
People are spending more time listening to digital audio than they spend engaging with any other digital content, including streaming video and scrolling through their social channels. In the last quarter of 2024, U.S. consumers spent almost four hours a day listening to digital and satellite radio, podcasts, and streaming music, according to a report by Nielsen and Edison Research. They spent 67 per cent of this time on ad-supported platforms.
The numbers were the same the previous quarter. Digital audio is a big part of daily life and analysts predict the demand for content will only continue to grow.
Brands have a huge opportunity to tap into the new and fast-growing world of digital audio advertising and engage their target audiences in a personal and immersive way other media can’t. Research shows the benefits of digital audio advertising are clear – and proven. Investing in digital audio advertising campaigns enable brands to:
- engage with their target audience on their preferred platforms in a meaningful way
- lift purchase intent
- drive 24 per cent higher recall on average than display ads
- build trust (consumers trust audio advertising more than any other type of advertising)
- gain a higher return on investment (ROI) than traditional media and other digital advertising formats
- improve targeting
- easily integrate digital audio ads with their multi-channel, cross-platform marketing strategy, improving brand awareness
- deliver an immersive, globally accessible listening experience
While highly effective, digital audio advertising does come with a few key challenges, including having to navigate a wide range of platforms and formats available, keeping listeners’ interest so they don’t tune out during ad breaks, and tracking and measuring user engagement and conversions.
The following are best practices Postmedia recommends for optimizing digital audio campaigns to maximize conversions and ROI.
How to Optimize Digital Audio Campaigns
Define your target audience
Be specific in your targeting criteria: demographics, interests, listening habits, and behaviours. Leverage the advanced targeting and analytics tools digital audio platforms offer to pinpoint high-intent audience segments.
Choose the ad format that aligns with your campaign goals and will best connect with your audience
Make your selections based on what you are trying to achieve with your campaign and what will best resonate with your audience. These can include: dynamic creative based on context, place and time; interactive ad formats featuring voice recognition technologies; immersive ads using advanced spatial audio technologies; highly personalized, context-aware AI generated audio ads; and live, serialized and interactive podcasts.
Create great content
As with all ad content, digital audio ads should be compelling, clear and relevant to listeners while also reflecting your brand’s voice, style and values. This is the most effective way to ensure listeners do not skip ads.
Tip: Shorter ad formats and interactive ads can help keep listeners engaged.
Set an appropriate budget
Align your budget with marketing objectives, the size of your target audience, the length of the campaign, ad frequency and the platforms that will host the ads.
Leverage programmatic ad buying to drive and measure performance
Many digital audio platforms offer the automated buying, selling and fulfillment of ads. Programmatic ad buying can help optimize your spending based on real-time performance data. To simplify buying programmatic ads from multiple platforms, consider platforms that centralize purchasing digital audio ads and have tools to compare rates, formats and audience criteria. Most digital audio platforms provide analytics tools to track reach, impressions, engagement, listen-through and conversion rates metrics, allowing you to assess the ROI of your campaign. Use this data to make informed decisions about future campaigns and optimize your strategy for better results.
Implement conversion tracking
Conversion tracking in digital audio campaigns is the process of directly tracking and assessing the desired actions listeners take after hearing an ad – a key challenge because of the audio-only nature of digital audio campaigns. Tools and tracking methods such as pixels, unique promo codes, dedicated landing pages and call-to-action URLs can track website visits, purchases, downloads and newsletter sign-ups. Understanding what listeners do after hearing an ad helps marketers understand effectiveness and improve strategies.
The amount of time people spend listening to digital audio continues to grow. For brands, this represents a massive opportunity. Postmedia can help. We have a proven track record of helping brands optimize their digital audio campaigns to boost reach, engagement and sales.
