By Aditya Kuber
As a brand custodian, you would measure success as a mix of various metrics. While sales growth is critical, a brand’s perception in the market and among customers is just as important. How do you ensure you reach the right audience and one that’s fully engaged and committed to your brand? Yes, digital, but are you able to think beyond video and banner ads?
Enter audio. Podcasts have a key role to play in helping your brand’s perception, recall and offer a strong brand lift.
What’s the market like?
Podcasts offer high engagement time with listeners, a young audience and a broad variety of content that covers a wide range of interests.
According to an ad effectiveness study conducted by Triton Digital, on average, audio content consumers in India listen to podcasts three to four times per week. In metro cities, this rate is even greater, with 70% of respondents listening to podcasts weekly and 30% listening daily.
This captive audience is largely young and understands that the content they get for free is thanks to ads in them. Given that 90% of podcast listeners are in the 18-34 age bracket, the range of products that can use podcasting as a medium is quite broad.
What campaigns work?
“Start with the end in mind,” said Dr Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. So what’s your goal for your brand campaign?
There is a range of standard offerings available with most podcasts:
- Ad positions like pre-roll, midroll and post-roll.
- Host mentions
- Branded segments
The above ad positions are available across most podcasts that accept advertising. The most effective of these usually is the pre-roll and the host-mention followed by the midroll.
How do you buy media?
Buying media for podcasts is no different than buying other digital media. You can buy ads on a CPM basis or sponsor a show for a period of time. This is fairly standard and mimics how you would buy across other digital options. An additional option that is more performance-based is the CPL – Cost per Listen. This ensures that you only pay for what is delivered and heard and lets you maximise the budgets that you allocate. Given an LTR (listen-through rate) of over 95% for ads playing in the first 3-4 minutes of a podcast, this is best used for preroll or host reads.
What does success look like?
Going back to the ad effectiveness study by Triton Digital, 8 out of 10 of those who have heard of a product are interested in finding more about it and considering it; six of the 10 claims to actually buy the product/brand. That’s 80% recall and 60% action for your ads.
Combined with the overall positive reaction to ads in general in podcasts, it’s a no-brainer to advertise on podcasts!
Closing the loop
A constant query about advertising in podcasts is attribution. While this isn’t entirely solved, there are ways to measure it. Redemption codes or specific landing pages are a strong method to measure the impact your ads have. But the strongest route is a brand lift route where you can measure the higher recall over a period of time since podcast listeners are loyal and continue to stay engaged with their favourite shows.
Being committed to podcasts for your brand can pay off in more ways than one. The trust of a podcast host can transfer to the brand they mention on their show. The positive impact this offers is perhaps the greatest success measure for the brand.
The author is the co-founder and CEO of Ideabrew Studios