Imagine your company’s target consumers settling into their shared workspace for the day with a latte in their hand and a podcast in their ears. Picture your brand’s ideal audience commuting to the office and singing along to their favorite digital radio channel while sitting in traffic. Consider the millions of consumers who come home after a long day and listen to digital content on their phones or tablets as they wash dishes, go for a run, or get ready for bed.

With a plethora of digital media services available to today’s consumer, people are consuming digital audio media at higher rates than ever before—which gives your brand a prime opportunity to introduce itself via digital audio advertising.

What is audio advertising?

Digital audio advertising is the programmatic sale and insertion of audio ads into digital audio content. Audio advertising allows brands to inject targeted ads into podcasts, music, or digital radio shows that their target audiences already enjoy. Audio ads are most frequently used in digital radio, podcasts, and music streaming services across multiple devices, including smart phones, smart speakers, and desktop computers. These audio ads typically run for 15, 30 or 60 seconds and are placed before, during or after a streaming session. The four primary types of digital audio advertising, along with the audio channels they appear on, are:

On the surface, digital audio ads may seem like traditional, terrestrial radio advertising, but they have one significant difference: traditional radio limits your potential audience to the people who listen to that particular station, but digital audio platforms offer a much larger audience.

Consider the streaming platform Spotify, which leads the industry with 489 million monthly active listeners in 2023. Running digital audio ads on Spotify means that millions of consumers will be exposed to your brand while they listen to their favorite podcasts or stream music.

• Podcast audiences grew by 42% in 2020

• A projected 117.8 million Americans listened to podcasts in 2022

• 55% of listeners say they’ve bought a product after hearing about it on a podcast

• About one third of internet users listen to podcasts

• Over half of Americans aged 12-34 listen to podcasts

• In 2021, advertisers spent $1.33 billion on podcast ads

• Marketers predict that podcast ad spend will surpass $2 billion in 2023

• The cost to convert a new customer is 38% lower when advertisers diversify their audio campaigns, versus a single-channel audio buy

• Spotify alone has 406 million monthly active listeners across the globe. 236 million have an ad-supported account

• More than 80% of Spotify listeners have taken action after hearing a podcast ad
  What are the benefits of digital audio advertising?

Similar to programmatic video advertising, digital audio ads excel because they are highly customizable in content, placement and budget. Audio advertisements can run on multiple digital channels to engage audiences across platforms, which isn’t just smart advertising, it’s also budget friendly: when advertisers diversify their audio campaigns rather than rely on single-channel audio buys, the cost to convert a new customer is actually 38% lower.

Many brands use a sequence of audio ads to tell brand stories that build audience connections, increase brand awareness and lead consumers to take action. Audio ads can help alleviate the “screen fatigue” that often accompanies video and social media advertising. Keep in mind that digital audio advertisements can also outperform video ads because, while tv and video ads are often mindlessly playing in the background, consumers listening to audio content are often more focused on what they’re hearing.

In addition to these benefits, audio advertising also offers:

• Targeted, relevant audience reach

• Easy reach of young, tech-savvy, and niche audiences

• Increased ROI

• Multi-channel capabilities

• In-depth data tracking to maximize campaign efforts

• Increased brand recognition and recall

• Cost-effective and scalable ad spend options

With the right tools and resources, audio advertising can grab listeners’ attention, build interest in products and steer consumers toward purchases, all within seconds. But if you’ve never ventured into the audio advertising landscape, it may feel daunting to decide if this marketing tool is right for your brand.

Should my brand consider using digital audio advertising?

Audio advertising is ideal for many businesses. Small businesses that want to target a niche community, along with new brands that need to keep their ad budget tight and convert it to profit quickly, might find audio ads to be an ideal fit. Because the quality, frequency and length of audio ads is scalable, these businesses can build an audio ad campaign that’s compatible with their demographic and budget. Businesses that don’t have large in-house marketing teams or access to a media agency may love the fact that they don’t need flashy recording equipment or a massive budget to create effective audio ads. Streaming services like Spotify even offer self-serve ad managers that make audio ads quick, affordable and easy. Bigger businesses that want to expand into new global markets can leverage audio ads because they are easy to translate into markets overseas.

As brands search for new and creative ways to reach highly engaged audiences, digital audio advertisements continue to give impressive results. (amp) is a media agency that knows how to harness the power of audio advertising to help our clients leverage podcasts and streaming services, reach new audiences and increase engagement. If you’re interested in partnering with a media agency that can create effective audio advertising content for your brand, (amp) is here to support you.