Q & A: How to Plan and Measure SiriusXM Campaign Performance

When it comes to influencer campaigns, it’s all about the personality: the voice, tone, and authenticity that beloved talent brings to the table. That’s what delivers credibility and connection for direct-to-consumer brands (and advertisers in general). And if you know anything about SiriusXM, you know that it’s home to some of the biggest and most popular names in the game, across our 72 ad-supported news, sports, comedy, and entertainment talk channels. From absolute legends like Howard Stern, to comedy treasures like Kevin Hart, to sports icons like Mad Dog Russo, to Gen Z favorites like Tinx—and so many more—you can build trust and influence consumers with our unmatched roster of talent.

SiriusXM holds a special place in audio. It’s an in-car mainstay like terrestrial radio with the convenience, quality, and on-demand (and take anywhere) content of digital audio (e.g., streaming audio and podcasts). And because it’s subscription-based, audiences are literally invested in the content and always leaned-in. When you combine that with less commercial time than AM/FM radio (50% less), advertisers get higher and better share of voice (SOV).

To dive deeper into the SiriusXM opportunity for DTC brands, we spoke to our own Marc Richards, Director, DTC Sales. Specifically, we asked him questions around campaign planning and measurement.

SiriusXM is Effective for Reaching Affluent Consumers

Question: What type of advertisers does SiriusXM perform best for?

Answer: The beauty of selling 72 addressable channels across sports talk news, entertainment, and comedy genres is that we have the ability to serve nearly all demographic and content targeting needs based on channel selection. This allows us to both work with and perform well for nearly all types of advertising. But if you had to zero in on our best prospects, those we work best for, it'd be for expensive products seeking affluent customers. As our average household income of $140,783 significantly exceeds rival vehicles such as Bloomberg TV, Fox Business TV, MSNBC, Spotify, and AM/FM.

Achieving the Right Frequency is Key

Question: What type of schedules perform best on SiriusXM radio?

Answer: We recommend advertisers run on a minimum of three channels as listeners tend to channel surf between six to eight of their favorites. Most importantly, for whichever channels they choose, it's essential that they achieve sufficient frequency with a strong call to action on each of them based on both studies, such as the one that LeadsRX did with Westwood One, Cumulus, and the Radio Advertising Bureau in 2020, which revealed that an advertiser needed to run 49 weekly ads on a particular station just to reach two-thirds of their audience three times. And in our experience, we recommend that clients run between 30 to 50 weekly spots on each channel that they're on. I'd also add that for advertisers whose budgets can afford it, we've seen that the best performing campaigns layer in live reads to offer credibility to the product, while the more salesy brand spot drives response.

SiriusXM Campaign Performance is Measurable

Question: How are you able to measure performance on SiriusXM?

Answer: In addition to the many clients who use promo codes to measure performance, we also leverage partnerships with LeadsRX, ArtsAI, #250, and Veritonic. Of these, LeadsRX is the simplest and used solely to prove website lift. We use ArtsAI for clients who also need to analyze specific conversion event results in addition to website lift. Veritonic provides a more in-depth customer study for advertisers seeking specific listener insights, second-by-second creative analysis, and brand lift measurement. Lastly, we can offer #250, the mobile direct response company that facilitates easy direct connections between listeners and advertisers.

Ready to start planning your SiriusXM campaign? Still have questions? Either way, we’re here. Let’s talk.

Learn More About Audio for DTC Campaigns