Emily Malis Greathouse
Emily is Director, Market Research at G2. She earned her Bachelor of Science in business administration and Master's of Business Administration degree with a concentration in marketing and business analytics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She's worked in various industries, including media consulting, information technology, employee wellness, and finance and accounting. She enjoys coaching and volunteering for Girls on the Run, attending concerts and music festivals, running half marathons, and hiking.
Audio advertising all started with the radio. Back when marketers first started to use radio advertising, it was the only other option to deploy mass-market advertisements outside of print media (newspaper ads, catalog ads, etc.). But since then, digital audio advertising has become so much more than radio advertising, encompassing other types of audio formats and through various online streaming platforms, like music streaming services and podcasts.
During the pandemic, more consumers turned to out-of-home (OOH) media, like connected TV (CTV) streaming and podcasts. eMarketer even reported that US advertisers would spend $1.33 billion on podcast ads in 2021, which shows a 38.7% year-over-year (YoY) increase. Additionally, they highlighted that the US digital audio services ad spending will reach $7.89 billion in 2025 (up from $4.82 billion in 2020). G2 created the Digital Audio Advertising category in September 2020 to help buyers find software options to help automate the selling and insertion of ads into digital content, and we also expect this category to grow as OOH media consumption continues to expand.
Digital audio ads are very mobile and highly measurable
While digital audio ads may be one of the more recent strategies in marketers’ digital out-of-home (DOOH) marketing mix, there are many benefits to digital audio advertising. The first benefit is that digital audio can easily be consumed on mobile devices. It’s no surprise that mobile advertising spending has been increasing over the past few years, especially since COVID-19 began and more consumers are spending a lot more time at home. 65% of podcast consumers listen to podcasts through their mobile devices, and digital audio ads have been seen as a ‘less intrusive’ way for marketers to reach their target audience.
Two other benefits include that digital ads are highly measurable and immensely relevant. Digital advertisers can have complete control over where their audio ads run and what listeners they reach based on demographics, device usage, location, listening habits, and interests. Advertisers can easily reach consumers with digital audio ads and use messaging that best fits what they are already listening to.
Advertisers can measure metrics like digital audio ad impressions, frequency, reach, and completion rate, or the percentage of ads the listeners played until the end. Finally, since audio ads can be targeted on a granular level (by podcast, episode, genre, etc.), they can provide contextual capabilities and brand safety to businesses. For example, Spotify’s brand safety guidelines highlight that the technology gives advertisers “100% share of voice during screenless moments, rather than sitting alongside other content.” With data privacy regulations on the rise, resulting in one-to-one marketing becoming much more arduous, the ability for digital audio advertising to easily segment audiences for targeting is crucial.
Below are some quotes from G2 reviews about the benefits users have seen from digital audio advertising software, which uses algorithmic buying technology to automate the process of selling and inserting ads.
Technological advancements will enable digital audio ads to become much more interactive, which will lead to additional opportunities for advertisers.
Some examples of recent audio advertising interactivity include:
- Spotify recently introduced CTA cards, which are visual, clickable companions to audio ads on the platform.
- Amazon’s smart speaker, Alexa, can enable listeners to tell the voice assistant to add the product being advertised to their cart, ask for more information about it, or just say “remind me” to get a follow-up notice about the product.
- Voice advertising startup Instreamatic can insert interactive voice ads into an audio stream. For example, when an Instreamatic advert says, “Hello! Need help sleeping?” the microphone on the device it’s playing on opens, and the listener can respond however they like. If they say “Yes,” then the brand’s voice (perhaps it’s a mattress brand) will respond with “Then we will sing you a lullaby.” If the user doesn’t respond, the ad experience is over, and the content resumes playing.
As more consumers engage with audio content, whether that be through podcasts, music streaming, and the like, we can expect to see audio ads continue to become more interactive in nature.