90% of media buyers placing ads in streaming services, according to a new IAB report
A new report from the IAB shows 90% of media buyers are now placing ads in streaming services, with 75% embracing podcasts, up from 63% in 2018.
The Audio Advertising State of the Nation Report for 2020 shows extensive growth in podcast advertising over its four-year history.
The report found brand awareness is the main driver for the audio market’s growth, particularly for podcast advertising with 48% of agencies using podcasts primarily for branding, an increase from 35% in 2018.
Creative was identified as one of audio advertising’s greatest strengths and also its greatest challenges. The ease and speed of audio creative development has proven to be a great attraction for agencies, however only 17% of media agencies are consistently tailoring their creative to suit different audio environments.
Although brand awareness is the number one objective of audio advertising, only one third of the buy-side are tracking these metrics, and only 25% are tracking sales.
IAB Australia CEO Gai Le Roy said research is a focus for the industry to facilitate more evolution.
“It’s clear the market has evolved from experimentation into a more strategically driven brand-building approach to digital audio advertising, reflecting the growing consumer consumption of audio formats, particularly podcasting,” said Le Roy.
“We take very seriously our responsibility as the industry body to invest in research that provides the industry with objective market-wide data and we’ll continue to push hard to secure valuable insights for marketers and agencies alike.”
According to the report, nearly two-thirds of media agencies are regularly using streaming digital audio advertising. Call-to-action spots are the most popular format of streaming audio and have increased in usage strongly year on year.
Recorded radio spots are the most popular format, while the use of native audio and branded podcasts have experienced growth with potential for further growth over the next year.
Advantages of data and targeting continue to drive the adoption of programmatic trading in the audio advertising space and in a challenging ad market, price has increased as an influence.
The tools used to measure streaming and podcasts are becoming more sophisticated, thanks to bigger spends from advertisers, with reach, frequency and completion the most common metrics used, but the focus still sits in streaming audio above podcasts, the IAB said.
18 media and tech companies support the Audio Advertising State of the Nation Report, as well as Commercial Radio Australia (CRA). Fieldwork was conducted by independent research company Hoop Group in December 2019 with more than 250 respondents.
Richard Palmer, co-chair of the IAB Audio Council and director of market development at Triton Digital said: “The benefits of digital audio advertising are now widely understood and the market is clearly embracing the branding potential different formats offer.
“Over the next 12 months we anticipate the industry will come to understand the need to move from repurposing existing ads and instead look to produce creative campaigns tailored to suit the environment in which it appears.”
topics
Audio streaming
Commercial Radio Australia
CRA
Gai Le Roy
IAB
IAB Australia
podcast
Richard Palmer
The Audio Advertising State of the Nation Report
Triton
