Innovative agency leverages audio adtech, increases CTR 200%+

The situation: A destination marketing service wanted to increase traffic to their website and ultimately increase the number of visiting tourists to the Southwest region of the United States

With digital audio listenership booming, the team knew they wanted to target people who are listening to audio on smart speakers, podcasts, and online. Traditionally, audio campaigns are proven to be extremely effective as far as engagement and recall, however, it can be challenging to get a listener to convert given the nature of how audio is consumed, ie: when people are exercising, cooking, driving, etc.

The brand worked with digital marketing agency, Winstar Interactive Media, to help them develop audio ads and track conversions on their website. Winstar tapped into AdsWizz audio-centric demand-side platform, AudioMatic, and its newly developed attribution technology, which offers a solution to allow agencies to track conversions in real-time.

The Solution: Winstar determined that audio advertisements paired with display ad retargeting would be a cost efficient and effective way to reach their goals. Going with an “audio first, display second” methodology not only increases reach, but reinforces conversion.

AudioMatic’s technology enables programmatic buying with robust targeting, forecasting, and reporting across all audio types, including podcast, streaming, on-demand, and simulcast streams. AdsWizz technology is used by the largest audio publishers to monetize their audio inventory, including Pandora, iHeart, TuneIn, NPR, Univision, Cumulus, Cox Media, Entercom, and dozens more. These publishers have Software Development Kits (SDKs) downloaded on tens of millions of mobile devices that use their technology. AudioMatic is uniquely able to connect to these SDKs to create entirely new and innovative audio experiences. For this campaign:

Targeting

The destination marketing service planned to target one DMA at a time, starting with a one-month campaign in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago was selected for the first campaign for a few reasons:

When Chicago was faced with cold weather, the Southwest region was nice and warm, and non-stop flights were available between the two locations. The audience demographics for that region matched their targeting parameters – people who had a household income (HHI) of $250K+ and were interested in destination travel. In addition to the audience segments specific content/genre categories were blocked, such as Religious & Spiritual, Political & Government, News, and Controversial. The amount of audio ad availability in Chicago was significant and could provide enough reach for their desired outcome.

Ad formats

Audio ads for this campaign were delivered via podcasts and streaming stations - iHeart Radio, TuneIn, Katz, CBS Radio, COX Media. Display ads were retargeted through integrations with Beeswax – and could be seen across desktop and in-app displays.

Creative versioning

The campaign consisted of three different creatives, all utilizing weather segments that were triggered by specific temperatures. So, if it snowed, a listener would be delivered a personalized ad referencing the current snow condition. For example, “Hey Chicago, tell Old Man Winter to take a hike” or “Chase away the chilly winter blues and escape to Scottsdale.” The creative that ran during a blizzard mentioned that “while the rest of the city deals with Snowmageddon, you’ll bask in 72-degree weather.”

The team had two ads targeting Chicago regardless of temperature since it was running in January-March and was always cold. Then they had another ad triggered to run if temperatures were less than -20F up to 30F, or if there was a blizzard. This weather targeting functionality is built into the AudioMatic platform.

Attribution technology

In our findings, lack of proper measurement has been quoted by many agencies as being the main reason they don’t invest more in digital audio. And while tracking results for audio delivery can be done to some extent through partners, previously there has been no clear cut solution for measuring attribution of audio delivery. Since this campaign was utilizing audio (first) and display (second) ads, Winstar needed a way to show the effectiveness of the audio ad, a non-click conversion. In a non-click conversion, the user is exposed to an audio and/or banner ad that they didn’t interact with at the time of exposure, but the user was later seen on the website. For this campaign, the window of exposure for an audio ad is 7 days, for a display ad it's 4 days.

Since this campaign was utilizing audio (first) and display (second) ads, Winstar needed a way to show the effectiveness of the audio ad, a non-click conversion. In a non-click conversion, the user is exposed to an audio and/or banner ad that they didn’t interact with at the time of exposure, but the user was later seen on the website. For this campaign, the window of exposure for an audio ad is 7 days, for a display ad it's 4 days.

In late 2019, the AdsWizz Research and Insights Lab developed a beta version of their attribution pixel. The goal of the tech was to provide advertisers with an attribution pixel:

- Designed specifically for “audio-first” campaigns that can track audio-centric metrics, such as listen through rates (LTR) and second screen retargeting conversions.

- Seamlessly integrates third-party measurement providers into the AdsWizz platform for unified measurement and reporting.

- Stems from a central audio platform to verify unique users, resolve device fragmentation, and control ad exposure frequency.

- Delivers fast paced reporting (refreshed every 4 hours and 24 hours) for quicker campaign optimization.

For this campaign, AdsWizz’s attribution pixel was placed within the audio ad, companion ad, and across the brand's website. The granularity of tracking showed what specifically interested the listener by which web pages they visited. Experience Scottsdale saw a majority of websites visits to the events, activities, dining and golf pages.

The Results:

By incorporating the attribution pixel into the campaign, Winstar was able to show a 215% increase in CTR for podcast ads, and a 253% increase in CTR for digital audio ads.

Audio content is predominantly consumed in a mobile environment, and because of that it’s hard to define true click-throughs, instead of someone accidently hitting the ad. With AdsWizz's tech, Winstar was able to efficiently track the effectiveness of audio ads and shed light on non-click conversions that would have otherwise been attributed elsewhere.