Spending on U.S. podcast advertising alone is expected to surpass $2 billion in 2023, accounting for nearly a third of digital audio services advertising spending. Whatsmore, audio advertising has a tangible impact that shouldn’t be overlooked by brands, with research consistently showing that audio is a powerful complement to other marketing channels including display, video, and social.

Brands seeking assurance that their audio and podcast advertising dollars are being optimally spent would benefit from creative testing data. This details pre-market and in-market success metrics. Brands can then use this actionable data to optimize their audio creative and ensure that what they are putting in the market will provide the performance, return, and competitive differentiation that they are seeking as part of their unique KPIs.

One of the most insightful elements of creative testing is the audio score. An audio score means a numerical representation of an audio asset’s overall resonance.

What Creative Testing Can Provide

With a mix of AI/machine learning (ML) and human-validated panel measurement, third-party measurement providers can determine the impact of an ad. This is as it relates to emotional resonance, memorability, purchase intent, and engagement and assigns a numerical score to it.

When aggregating scores that comprise each separate category, an overall resonance score generates. This can be benchmarked in relation to the performance by vertical or industry at large. Further, creative testing can be customized to audiences of a brand’s choosing, from the general population to specific segments, depending on the reach of a podcast, stream, or broadcast.

Additionally, second-by-second human response data can be layered in. This provides a brand with specific and actionable insights. These insights relate to the unique script points within an ad that elicits the greatest response from an audience. The combination of the audio score and second-by-second engagement data enables a brand to optimize every possible creative element of its audio asset. This allows users to gain full confidence in the medium. Other advertising mediums rarely achieve this.

Testing Helps Brands Connect with their Audiences

In addition to creative content, brands should also be looking at other factors in their audio ads, such as length. Ads of 60 seconds or more are the most common, constituting just over half of podcast ads. Creative testing has shown that 30-second ads garner the best results, particularly for established brands. Marketers can utilize creative testing. This determines if an ad is taking too long to introduce an audio logo, brand name, or special offer. For example, recent studies have determined that it’s best to state a brand name early and often in podcast ads. This allows for the highest efficacy and intent.

Another measure worth paying attention to is the effectiveness of audio logos. This is an area where creative testing can reveal both surprising and insightful results. For example, Tostito’s audio logo—being that of a drumstick, a jar of salsa being opened, and a crunch of a chip as opposed to a jingle or slogan—lasts only 1.5 seconds, yet it has proven incredibly effective. Additionally, Liberty Mutual’s “Liberty, Liberty, Liberty” audio logo lacks a melody but rates at the top.

Testing also serves to alert brands when their campaigns aren’t working. At a recent audio summit, Cassandra LaPrairie, performance marketing lead for Wise, cited a study conducted by their team that reported less than 30% of listeners converted due to the wrong target audience. “I’m making peace with that as a marketer,” she said. “Had we not done that brand-lift study, we might not have figured that out.”

Creative testing can serve as a powerful brand tool for identifying the do’s and don’ts of audio ads, leading to increasingly optimized ads that resonate meaningfully with the target audience, allowing brands to attract loyal customers more efficiently, and for lower costs.

Future Audio Performance: Built on Testing

Moving forward, brands need to regularly test their audio creative through third-party partners. An increasing number of respective, global brands are paving the way. This demonstrates the indispensable value of dedicating spend to testing audio creativity. Brands will not only need testing to remain competitive. But they also need the best use of their marketing dollars as companies tighten their budgets. Especially this is the case in light of a looming recession. Rather than taking an educated guess, testing provides the competitive edge brands need. They also ensure that their ad spend has a greater chance of producing the ROI they desire.

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Pitfalls of Not Embracing the Medium

The pitfalls of not embracing this powerful medium are significant for brands that must build stronger, stickier connections to their most coveted consumer demographics. If brands delay their audio marketing plans, they will miss out on opportunities to associate with popular content that engages their key audiences on a regular basis. Plus, they will fail to nurture passionate communities while dramatically improving the cost efficiencies and overall reach of their marketing and media spending.  

Consider some recently released statistics on podcast listeners. A large majority of individuals in the U.S. (79%) said they were familiar with podcasting, according to Edison Research’s 2022 Infinite Dial survey of more than 1,500 U.S. consumers. That was up from 78% from the previous year and 60% from 2017.

More than half of the respondents (62%) said they had listened to a podcast, and the average number of podcast shows consumers had listened to in the previous week was 8, up from 5.1 podcasts per week in 2021. The report demonstrates that podcasting had grown significantly, particularly with weekly listeners. Moreover, the demographics of podcast listeners continue to diversify.

Benefits

There are several strategic benefits to moving toward audio and podcast advertising. For one, audio and podcasts can unlock new audience segments to expand a brand’s reach. For another, leveraging audio and podcasts supports the long-term omnichannel strategies of brands as digital and display advertising continues to evolve. Audio is simply another leg to that strategy, as consumers expand their media consumption habits to screenless, always-on mediums.

In addition, podcasting has a much more intimate relationship with its listeners, which brings in an element of trust. For example, a beloved podcast host can have a big impact and influence on consumers. And this is an opportunity for brands to leverage that.

Creative Approaches

A key to success with audio and podcast ads is determining which creative approaches will yield the best results. Oftentimes, this depends on several key factors. This includes the brand’s market share and penetration, the amount of ad budget at its disposal, the industry, audience, style of podcast, and more.

Sometimes even the most tried and true ads can fail when the ad creative is actually in-market. That’s why pre-market testing to a specific audience, in the right environment and channel, is critical.

Audience Diversity

Sticking to one product within a single ad is important. However, different audiences respond to different messages. Using a variety of ad creative with slight differences in tone and messaging can work together to provide optimal results as an aggregate performance.

Because of the more intimate experience of audio and specifically podcasting, sincerity and trust tend to perform well, specifically with host-read ads. Consumers can tell when an ad is scripted and not spoken from a genuine endorsement. If it’s going to be highly scripted and read by a host, you might be better off going with voiceover talent for an ad.

Brands also need to consider the most effective ways to reach multi-cultural audiences with audio and podcast ads. SXM Media and Studio Resonate released a study supported by Veritonic data around the power of black voices. The research showed that Black listeners found Black voices to be the most resonant. While white voices seemed indifferent to any race. This is despite the fact that the majority of voice representation in audio to date has been white.

Research and Testing

It’s important to understand what resonates with the audience you are reaching. The best way to do that is through research and testing. 

Brands need to know what messages are resonating with their core audience before going live—or at least shortly into going live. Many marketers make the mistake of repurposing the same creative from radio or other channels on podcasts. Yet, this does not always stick. And most often, they either learn this too late (when the campaign is over). Or not at all.

By executing a quick creative measurement study against their target audience (or to mirror their target audience prior to the campaign) through Veritonic, marketers will be able to see a wealth of performance data. This includes second-by-second engagement by script point. This enables them to understand exactly what is resonating (or not!) with their audience. And how that ties to expected performance against key performance indicators (KPIs) such as recall, memorability, and intent.  This also provides an opportunity to adjust the creative early on if needed, inform distribution levers for impressions, and even project performance of the campaign.

Best Practices for Measuring Audio & Podcast Ads

Effective marketing is more than just driving a conversion. Building brand equity is just as important for potential future consumers as it is for today’s consumers. Brand lift is a phenomenal way to measure that, empowering advertisers to understand how their campaigns are having an impact throughout the entire funnel – top to bottom – looking at metrics such as brand awareness, consideration, and intent.

Attribution

We know all advertisers (and specifically podcast advertisers) need to know the immediate impact of their campaigns. This is where attribution comes in. Attribution solutions allow you to measure bottom-of-the-funnel activity including impressions, site visits, cart activity, incremental lift, conversions, and more.  

Creativity

It’s important to remember that campaign performance is not just tied to where the ads are placed. The creative, and most importantly the competitive activity around your campaign, can impact the overall performance significantly.

If your largest competitor has a major campaign live around yours and your results come back flat, that can actually be considered a positive. You protected your brand from being negatively impacted by your competitor. On the other hand, it can be helpful for managing expectations of future campaigns, if all of your competitors were silent during your campaign and you saw strong results.

Resonance

Last, if your creative is not resonating with your audience, that’s likely a driver of less than favorable performance as well. Everyone wants to see positive performance. But, there might be larger contextual elements in play to consider before jumping to any conclusions.

How can brands and agencies make sure that they are measuring the right things correctly? It’s a good idea to start simple. Know what your KPI is before starting. Then test against that before you go to market.

Also, it’s important to avoid common mistakes such as treating audio and podcast ad measurement like other media. It’s unique and should not be treated as an afterthought. In addition, don’t just look at any one metric. Build context to understand what else could be impacting performance, such as competitors and creativity. And don’t hold back on budgets for testing.

By taking these steps, companies can leverage audio and podcast advertising to deliver powerful brand lift and big returns.

The post Why Audio and Podcast Advertising Delivers Powerful Brand Lift & ROI – And the Pitfalls of Not Embracing This Medium Now appeared first on DMNews.