Learn About Digital Audio Advertising
This Key Marketing Strategy Keeps Your Business Top-of-Mind with Important Demographics
There was once a time when the classic radio ad was the superior choice for advertising to a wide variety of demographics. Whether you were in your car or a store or listening to the radio at home or in the office, radio ads could find their way into your life.
Digital technology has become more prevalent in our daily routine, and radio advertising 2.0 – digital audio advertising – has proven to be even more potent than its predecessor. While before, it may have seemed like radio and radio advertisements could find you anywhere you went, modern audio entertainment – and opportunities to advertise – are literally right in our pockets.
Smartphones allow us to select between over 3 million podcasts, 70 million songs, and about a half-million audiobooks. Not only does this widen the number of opportunities to place ads, but this fact also allows marketers to connect with a robust number of targetable niche demographics. Therefore, today’s most strategic digital marketing companies view audio advertising as an utterly essential part of any marketing campaign, alongside the many opportunities for digital advertising.
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Why Digital Audio Advertising Matters 
The following statistics and insights will entice any business looking to expand its reach into the digital audio market.
Two Big Statistics
- By 2024, Statista projects that there will be 100 million podcast listeners in the United States alone – about a third of the country.
- Music streaming services and podcasts grew the most in terms of time spent consuming media compared to social media, games, and general internet usage, according to Hootsuite’s Digital Trends Report for 2022.
Two Big Insights
- What you choose to listen to – especially with the privacy of earbuds – is highly personal. Targeted and retargeted audio ads connect with listeners already having an intimate experience with the content they’ve selected – and the same will be true when they engage with ads in that space.
- Audio ads don’t necessarily require the user to engage with their screen. Audio ads connect with consumers during “passive viewing” opportunities, including exercising, driving, or relaxing. Audio ads capitalize on consumer behavior at times when other ad types can’t reach them.
The Conclusion: More and more people are engaging with spaces that are ripe for audio advertising – and their numbers are growing. More importantly, while audiences engage, they are listening intently and at times when they don’t necessarily have access to competing forms of advertising. This all spells good news for digital audio ads.
What Opportunities Exist for Digital Audio Advertising
Digital audio advertising is often called programmatic audio advertising to categorize this tactic with other important digital marketing strategies, including display and video advertising. Audio ads can also be targeted, measured, analyzed, updated, and retargeted to ensure they’re leading to conversions.
Digital audio allows you to position your ad on any of the following audio platforms:
- Music-streaming platforms;
- Podcasts;
- Digital radio.
Typically, audio ad placement options abide by the following characteristics:
- Audio ads are interspersed between songs on streaming platforms. They last anywhere from 15 seconds to one full minute. Audio ads provide ample opportunity to share your message, your brand, and how you want customers to engage in this significant amount of content time.
- Podcast ads are either read by the host or an actor. They last about 30 seconds to one minute. Especially effective when they’re aligned with the podcast’s themes or subject, these ads give you instant credibility because of their alignment with the host and podcast subject.
You can position your audio ads anywhere your audiences listen to their favorite audio. While the sheer volume of video advertising has the potential to fatigue consumers, audio ads provide a refreshing new space to connect.
Now that digital marketing teams can activate these campaigns with the same ease – and advertising features – as other digital strategies, audio ads are an obvious choice for businesses that want to find a new path for putting their products and services on consumers’ radars.
How to Activate a Digital Audio Advertising Campaign
If you want to tap the significant benefits of a digital marketing campaign that includes digital audio advertising, look no further than an award-winning ad agency near you. You won’t have to navigate the individual audio platforms yourself, and you won’t have to find your talent to create your ad.
Look for a digital marketing agency that can help guide you through research, strategy, design, implementation, and real-time analyses to help you maintain a successful campaign and reach your business goals.
The future of advertising is multimedia, true, but that doesn’t just mean images and videos. Audio entertainment has more reach than ever – and so should your business. Find out how a digital marketing agency can get you into the right audio advertising spaces. Your business deserves to capitalize on these prime opportunities before your competitors do.
