The majority of audio advertising is connected with traditional radio advertisements.
However, due to the increasing reach and the popularity of digital audio, like broadcasting services like streaming, digital radio and podcast streams, audio advertisements are undergoing an evolution. Digital audio advertisements, the presentation of advertisements on the rapidly growing streaming audio service, is getting quickly in popularity.
It’s clear the reason. With the rise of streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and podcasts the number of people listening to digital audio is growing at a fast rate. For the United States alone, the digital audio marketing industry is expected to reach a market value of $6.66 billion in 2027. In the overall Digital Audio Advertising segment, the amount of listeners is projected to be around 231.2 million people in 2027..
Evidence from empirical studies shows that accurately targeting consumers of audio can bring significant advantages for publishers and advertisers. This is the point where digital audio advertising comes into play. While it might sound like a simple concept but it’s a significant improvement over conventional methods in terms of providing information to a specific audience, assessing the impact of campaigns and delivering a higher return on investment.
We will discuss the benefits of audio-based digital advertising and how it can create value for publishers and advertisers seeking to make the most of their marketing budgets.
WHY DIGITAL AUDIO ADVERTISING MATTERS
Digital audio ads allow advertisers to reach their target public effectively and adjust to changes in behavior of the consumer.
Advertising can benefit from this in many ways, such as:
Effective reach to consumers
Digital audio is listened to not just while driving as well as during personal time like running, exercising or even working remotely. Audio content is still popular since it doesn’t need users to focus on their screens and thereby allowing them to work in multiple places. Additionally, the growing popularity of smart speakers allows users to access the audio content they love anytime, anyplace.
Because people choose to listen to audio content that is important to them, advertising or messages included as part of this digital audio files have the potential to have a greater impact. A further benefit is that there are less chances of digital ads being blocked by ads blockers.
Contextualized advertisement
Programmatic audio ads allow advertisers to position ads within the context of a specific customer. This means that you are able to connect with the audience you want to reach in the context of the importance of your product in the lives of consumers and the demographics of their the way they behave, their geo-location, or even the type of device. For example, let’s say that a person is listening to workout music. Imagine the impact of putting an advertisement for a health product in between the music. A well-planned placement like this could prove to be a game changer.
In-depth real-time information
Programmatic audio ads also permit users to collect real-time data on how people react to advertisements. Nowadays, smart devices allow users to take action upon a product advertised and explore it more deeply or find similar products and so on. This leads to a better understanding of the effect of the campaign and how the campaign is doing in attracting consumers depending on their geography, demographics, similar. It can also help you know your audience and develop new targeting strategies.
Optimized cost of advertising
Audio ads outperform video-based ads in a significant way as far as costs are concerned, which benefits advertisers tremendously. Because of the cutting-edge technology that’s available today, the delivery time for advertisements has been reduced significantly. The new capabilities are already reducing costs for forward-thinking marketers as well as advertisers, allowing them to swiftly reduce the cost of their advertising campaigns.
HOW PROGRAMMATIC AUDIO ADVERTISING CREATES VALUE
Adtech is the foundation of programmatic audio advertisements.
The Adtech ecosystem is comprised of eight essential elements (see Figure 1.).
- The typical advertising tech ecosystem
The inventory of ads is purchased and sold with different tools, without the requirement for face-toface negotiations. The advertisements targeted for purchase can be put in album art, banners or even in pre-roll (before that contents) as well as in mid-roll (in-content).
Publishers and advertisers can effortlessly conclude these negotiations and transactions online, in either of two ways using automation.
- Direct programmatic: Both the advertiser and the advertiser discuss the purchase of advertising inventory, settling on an amount per mille (CPM).
- Real time bidding: With this manner that the advertiser makes an inventory accessible for public auction that is live.
THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF THE ADTECH SPACE
Acquisitions and mergers are the current season in digital audio, however the challenges are there.
The market is becoming increasingly consolidating with large media companies purchasing smaller players to offer an array of services and to control the advertising market. This could result in an industry-wide dominance by a few players. The positive is that, even while Facebook and Google are the dominant players in the market today there are new players developing to provide more specific solutions that are specifically tailored to businesses.
Privacy issues are another issue to be faced with. Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) could limit the ability of DMPs to focus on their intended customers. This will require the entire digital advertising industry the whole to find more efficient ways to protect user data to guarantee the security of their data and offering specific services.
THE FUTURE IS DIGITAL
Digital audio advertisements are likely to compete directly with traditional advertising.
As the popularity of digital audio grows the impact of programmatic ads is anticipated to expand in proportion. As technology advances, AI machine learning, machine learning along with big data advertising platforms will be able to precisely identify and categorize user behaviour and allow advertisers to better target their audience and publishers to better manage their inventory.
As advertisers and publishers look at ways to boost their reach on smart and mobile devices, companies in adtech are accelerating their innovation to reach the right audience with greater precision. They also create an open platform for content delivery.
With the advent of wearable devices and the capacity to make use of big data and machine learning, AI and IoT the ability to deliver hyper-personalized advertisements is quickly becoming the norm. The development of smart streaming devices will expand, possibly leading to an future of audio ads that are interactive that allow listeners to respond to advertisements via smart speakers.
It is clear that the coming years of audio digital will bring new technologies that are game-changing, creating significant opportunities in the advertising sector. Brands that invest in this area are the best placed to grab the attention of customers and maximize their marketing budgets.