Attribution, in the realm of podcast advertising, is the linchpin for tracking and evaluating the efficacy of your advertisements. It empowers you to discern which specific ads drive conversions, enabling you to fine-tune your campaigns for optimal return on investment (ROI). Here’s how you can skillfully employ attribution to elevate your podcast advertising strategy:

• Illuminating Listener Behavior: Attribution provides a comprehensive lens through which you can observe listener behavior intricately. It unveils crucial insights, including when listeners encounter your ad, the duration of their engagement, and post-ad interactions. This wealth of data paints a vivid portrait of your audience’s preferences, enabling you to tailor your ads for maximum resonance.
• Conversions in Focus: A fundamental advantage of attribution is its precision in monitoring conversions. By deploying unique promo codes or dedicated landing pages, you can meticulously track the number of listeners converting after hearing your ad. This invaluable data helps identify the most effective podcasts or ad formats, enabling you to allocate your budget judiciously.
• Real-Time Campaign Optimization: Attribution data isn’t static; it fuels real-time campaign optimization. Armed with a deep understanding of which ads trigger conversions, you can adapt your strategy to emphasize the most effective tactics. This agile approach can yield elevated conversion rates and a superior ROI.
• Validating ROI: Ultimately, attribution serves as the irrefutable proof of your podcast advertising ROI. By showcasing the conversions your ads drive, you can demonstrate the tangible value of podcast advertising to potential clients and stakeholders.

Nevertheless, it’s imperative to acknowledge that podcast attribution presents its share of challenges. Due to the medium’s unique nature, tracking can be less precise compared to other digital advertising avenues. Listeners might skip ads, employ diverse devices for listening, or take action well after hearing an ad – all variables that introduce complexity into attribution.

In spite of these challenges, attribution in podcast advertising remains a treasure trove of insights to optimize campaigns and affirm the medium’s value. By comprehending and harnessing attribution, you can maximize the potential of your podcast advertising endeavors, delivering results that resonate with potential customers.

In summary, when combined with effective attribution, podcast advertising becomes a potent asset in your marketing arsenal. It empowers you to reach an engaged audience, measure campaign effectiveness, and refine your strategy for peak ROI. So, if you’re looking to educate potential clients about the merits of podcast advertising, commence by unlocking the potential of attribution.

Exploring Attribution Tools for Podcast Advertising Excellence

A plethora of tools and programs cater to attribution in podcast advertising. Here are a few distinguished options:

• Podsights: This widely acclaimed podcast attribution platform delves deep into understanding the impact of podcast ads. It employs a blend of direct response tracking and lift analysis to offer insights into listener interactions with ads.
• Chartable: Chartable extends podcast attribution services that monitor listener behavior across various platforms. It employs unique device identifiers to track when listeners download a podcast post-ad exposure.
• Claritas: A marketing firm, Claritas, presents a podcast attribution solution powered by device graphing and identity resolution. It meticulously tracks the effectiveness of podcast ads.
• Barometric: Barometric offers a comprehensive ad tracking and attribution solution applicable to podcast advertising. It utilizes IP address matching and device ID matching to trace listener behavior.

Other notable players in this arena include Podscribe and ArtsAi.
These attribution tools furnish invaluable insights into listener behavior, enabling advertisers to pinpoint which ads yield results and where their advertising efforts should be concentrated. If you’re keen to delve deeper into launching a podcasting campaign, reach out to us at [email protected]. At Media Partners Worldwide, we’ve been at the forefront of direct response audio for over 26 years – your trusted ally in navigating the evolving landscape of media and marketing.

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The Rise of Podcasts: A Sonic Renaissance

Podcasts have transcended from niche entertainment to mainstream media, captivating audiences with their diverse content and accessible nature. From true crime to self-improvement, comedy to business insights, podcasts cater to virtually every interest, creating an engaged and loyal listenership.

Why Podcast Advertising Matters

1. Engaged Audience: Podcast listeners are highly engaged, often listening during commutes, workouts, or downtime. This captive audience presents a unique opportunity for advertisers to reach people in moments when they are actively consuming content.
2. Intimacy and Trust: Host-read ads in podcasts create a sense of intimacy and authenticity. Listeners trust the hosts and consider their recommendations, making podcast ads more credible and impactful.
3. Less Ad Fatigue: Unlike other forms of advertising, podcast ads are less intrusive. Listeners are more receptive to ads within their chosen content, resulting in lower ad fatigue.

Strategies for Effective Podcast Advertising

1. Know Your Audience: Understand the demographic and interests of the podcast’s audience. Target podcasts that align with your brand’s values and resonate with your target market.
2. Create Engaging Content: Craft compelling ad scripts that blend seamlessly with the podcast’s style. Host-read ads, with a touch of personalization, enhance engagement.
3. Call to Action: Include a clear call to action in your ad. Whether it’s visiting a website, using a discount code, or subscribing to your newsletter, guide listeners on the next steps.

Types of Podcast Ads

1. Pre-Roll Ads: Played at the beginning of an episode, pre-roll ads capture listeners’ attention while their focus is high.
2. Mid-Roll Ads: Placed in the middle of an episode, mid-roll ads maintain momentum while keeping listeners engaged.
3. Endorsements: Host endorsements carry authenticity and trust. They share personal experiences with the product or service.

Measuring Podcast Ad Success

1. Tracking Unique URLs: Providing a unique URL in the ad enables tracking of conversions originating from the podcast.
2. Promo Codes: Exclusive promo codes for podcast listeners allow precise tracking of conversions.
3. Surveys and Feedback: Encourage listeners to provide feedback through surveys to gauge ad effectiveness.

The Future of Podcast Advertising

As the audio landscape continues to evolve, podcast advertising is poised for exponential growth. Advertisers are exploring dynamic ad insertion, which tailors ads based on listener preferences. As podcasts become more interactive, expect opportunities for more engaging ad formats.

In conclusion, podcast advertising offers a compelling and effective way for brands to connect with an engaged audience. By understanding the unique dynamics of podcast content and tailoring ads to suit the platform, advertisers can tap into the audio revolution and make a lasting impact in the world of digital marketing.

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The results highlight the effects of “tech-fatigue”. This refers to consumers scaling back phone usage. This means less opportunities to reach your audience.

1. Digital Detox 

The digital detox trend, coupled with data privacy and malware fears has made the mobile advertiser’s life difficult. 64% of participants in the study reduced their daily phone usage from 5 hours to 4 hours in the span of 14 months. That is a 20% drop in phone usage.

2. Broadcast Radio is Unaffected by Digital Detox 

The listening rates for AM/FM radio have remained constant over the past 5 years. 90% of listeners have listened to the radio at the same consumption level, if not more.

3. Broadcast Radio Gets More Time Than Social Media

This one may be a bit hard to believe, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The average daily time spent per adult (18+) in the U.S. on radio is 102 minutes and 51 minutes on social media. Radio gets twice as much engagement time than social media.

The moral of the story is to prevent your campaign from being hurt by trends such as tech fatigue. Having radio in your marketing mix ensures reach, scale, and reliability.

Call us today for great deals on radio spots! 562-439-3900

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Now that advertisement length is known to not drive a significant impact on the performance of the spot, attention can be turned to finding other ways to optimize audio advertisement performance. Three best practices were identified.

1. Less messages leads to better recall!

Millward Brown, a global leader in brand strategy consulting, advertising development and optimization, media effectiveness, and brand equity research, reports that more messages in an ad leads to a lower likelihood of a single message being recalled. Powerful numbers are provided to prove this point. The first message of an ad with four total messages only has a 43% recall rate compared to an ad with a single message.

This makes sense once you think about it. Cramming a bunch of messages into an ad makes it harder to remember anything that was in the ad. A 15 second ad with one message will likely perform far better than a 30 second ad with three messages.

Instead of taking a 30 or 60 second ad as an opportunity to say everything you can about the brand, take that time to communicate one central idea in an entertaining & memorable way. Think about Snickers’ advertisements. “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” One central idea that is communicated in a consistently entertaining & attention grabbing way. Time is not wasted talking about taste, size, packaging, price, or the myriad of messages they could communicate. Instead, the message is just to eat a Snickers when you’re hungry. Now that’s memorable.

2. Prioritize brand building, not sales activation 

The Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, Les Binet, and Peter Field, a Marketing Consultant, studied the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) database of case studies to prove this point. They explain that sales activation campaigns focus on customers who are likely to buy in the very near future which is accomplished by leveraging existing brand equity to drive sales.

They make the analogy that sales campaigns are like carbs; they produce a sugar rush-like  short term sales boost followed by a crash. Sales campaigns are easy to measure because results tend to be immediate and direct.

Similarly, branding campaigns are compared to protein; a sustainable and long lasting source of energy. Brand building is more difficult and requires greater investment, however, it is critical. This involves the process of creating mental associations and beliefs that ultimately leads to the preference of one brand compared to the next. To build a brand, mass media like television and radio are necessary. This is because the objective is to communicate to everyone in the category, not just people in the market right now.

The difference compared to sales campaigns is that brand building sales effects grow and compound, becoming a main driver of long term growth. The ideal mix of sales and branding campaigns should be 60% branding and 40% sales. This makes sense because that means more brand equity is being built than being spent on sales activation.

3. Focus Creative on Emotional Claims Instead of Rational

This may sound backwards, but let’s stop and think about it. Becoming top of mind for consumers is an issue of reach. Creating brand likability and understanding is the product of good advertising. Does this sound like a feat that is accomplished through dumping facts or telling a captivating story that touches the heart?

The Binet & Field analysis reveals that emotional branding performs more strongly across all metrics, including: awareness, commitment, trust, differentiation, fame, and image. Emotional advertising and storytelling creates bonds and associations more efficiently than throwing a bunch of facts about the brand or product at the audience. Naturally, these efficiencies translate to an increase in the bottom line. Creating emotional bonds with the target market yields higher long-term sales, share, pricing power, and loyalty.

To sum up, it’s not the spot length that matters. Focus on the number of messages, branding and sales mix, and emotional claims in your audio creative.

Give us a call 562-439-3900 so that we can create high quality audio creative for you and get you great deals on media placement!

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2) Podcasts Provide a Word of Mouth Platform
When a listener’s favorite host reads the commercial, it’s just like a friend telling them to try your product. Listeners trust the host and value their opinion. Also, many podcasters will provide added value and include your product on their website or mention you in their trusted blogs.

3) Time 
Podcasters typically are not restricted by time and when segments need to start and end. They can be as long or short as it takes. Because of this, you can get improved and nontime restricted content.

4) Podcast Listeners don’t Skip your Ads
Podcast followers are less likely to skip your ad because they are loyal and attentive to the show. Ads are typically read in the beginning, middle and sometimes end of the show. Listeners want to hear the show and often the ads are integrated in such a way that they sound like they are part of the content.

5) The “Untouchables” are Listening
Those 18-34 cord cutters and ad blockers are listening to podcasts now more than ever. The research shows that they actually listen to the ad, too.

6) You can Better Measure your ROI
The most popular way to track success are through unique checkout codes, vanity URL’s offered in the ad or a drop-down menu with a selection of sources from which they “heard the ad”. While not flawless, they offer a few easy ways to gauge how your podcasts are performing on each specific show.

7) Your Commercial is Evergreen
Most podcasts embed your commercial in their podcasts and it will be heard anytime a listener downloads the specific show you were in. Some loyal listeners listen each week to their show, but many download and save the show to listen in the future. Listeners continue to hear your commercial weeks, months and even years after your paid run. That can mean free impressions and increased results long after your schedule has ended.

8) Over 80% of Listeners can Recall your Brand
Midroll did a recall study and found that listeners:
* 80% could recall at least one advertiser in each episode
* 67% could recall a specific offer or promo
* 51% were more likely to buy the featured brand in the show

9) You can Easily Test Different Offers
Because hosts record their shows typically on a weekly basis, you can change your offer as needed each week. It’s a great platform to test new offerings and new promotions without “production” costs, if the hosts are reading your commercial in the show.

If you are ready to include podcasts in your plan this year, here’s what you should consider:
* You should plan on testing with at least $10k a month.
* Be prepared to pay cpm’s of $15 to $20 per commercial.
* You need to be open to testing different podcasts that reach your target audience.
* We suggest giving each show a minimum of 4 weeks.
* Be ready to send out your product to the host so they can try it and get familiar with it before they read your spot.
* Some hosts will be more effective at endorsing your product than others.
Bottom line, podcasts are working and brands like Audible and Blue Apron are just a few of the advertisers who have jumped on board and are realizing the great potential of podcasts. Isn’t it time that you got into the mix?
Our seasoned team at Media Partners Worldwide can help you get started.
Reach out to us at 800-579-3031 or email me at [email protected].

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• 57% of Americans use online radio each month
• Podcast listening is growing on a monthly basis (17% to 21%) and weekly (10% last year to 13% this year). Weekly podcast listeners listen to an average of five podcasts per week
• In-home ownership of a radio receiver has dropped. 79% have a radio at home. Eight years ago it was 96% = nearly every home in America. Among 18-34-year-olds, radio ownership in the home is down from 94% to 68%
• Pandora remains the best-known online audio brand with 82% awareness. Apple Music which invested heavily to relaunch a year ago is second (67%). iHeartRadio, the largest broadcaster in the country is close to Apple (65%). Spotify has strong brand presence (52%)
• Music streaming among the 12-24 demo finds that 43% listened to Pandora within the past month and 30% listened to Spotify
• Spotify gained as the “Audio Brand Used Most Often,” up from 10% to 14%. Pandora leads everyone with 48%
• Broadcast radio is tied for the lead among all audio sources for keeping up-to-date with new music – ahead of YouTube. However, among 12-24s, broadcast radio falls to third (58%), behind YouTube (86%) and friends/family (74%)
• Smartphone ownership continues to grow, reaching 76%, up five percentage points since last year. Among 12-24-year-olds, smartphone ownership rose to 93%. Even seniors are getting “smart” with more than half now using a smartphone – up 45 to 51%
• On demand video-subscriptions are at 51% of the country. The largest is Netflix. 43% of all survey respondents subscribe to Netflix
• Facebook remains the most-used social media platform (64%). Among 12-24s Snapchat (72%) and Instagram (66%) lead the social media pack

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streaming is going wide

• Brands:Pandora is the best-known brand in the Internet audio business, followed by YouTube. Pandora, iTunes Radio, and Spotify all enjoyed substantial listening growth from last year’s survey. YouTube is used for music by 63% of the total population, and 90% of the 12-24 cohort.
• Discovery:The Infinite Dial tracks music-discovery methods. The top resource in this year’s data is the Friends/Family response (70%), followed closely by AM/FM Radio (69%). YouTube is next at 61%.
• Podcasting:The podcasting segment of today’s presentation showed overall listening at 33% of the population, or approximately 89-million people. Podcast listeners are characterized by the data as voracious, listening to an average six shows per week, and 15% listening to 11 or more shows each week. Interestingly, the podcast audience skews affluent (52% of listeners are in $100k+ households), a data point that all ad-repping networks will probably include in their sales decks.
• Smartphone ownership:Jason Calacanis told last year’s RAIN Summit West audience: “Mobile is the only thing that matters.” Edison tells us that 71% of 12+ Americans own a smartphone.
• Cars listening:In the car, as other studies have shown, AM/FM is the most-used audio source (81%). CD players and MP3 players fare well in this survey, and online radio comes in at 21% — higher than the 17% listenership to satellite radio. In-car online radio listening is the fastest-growing audio source by far, leaping 50% between last year’s survey and this one (from 14% to 21%).

• Online audio is now a fully mainstream activity for people under 55.
• AM/FM Radio continues to dominate in-car, but is losing its music discovery leadership.
• Pandora remains the dominant online audio brand, though Spotify has grown, especially on the young end.
• YouTube as a music channel is as mainstream as all of online audio put together.
• Online radio in the car is growing—more than doubled in two years.
• The Smartphone continues to drive online audio, and most users don’t care about data consumption.
• Podcasting is increasingly mainstream, and carving out a segment of highly attractive advertising targets.

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