The Digital Audio Guide to Measuring Ad Effectiveness

Audio is a powerful medium for reaching your consumers, moving them along the path to purchase, and influencing buying decisions—and we can prove it. Our mission is to help you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns by your definitions of success.

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What You Can Measure with Digital Audio

Did your campaign do what it was supposed to do? That’s what ad effectiveness will tell you. The goal is to measure the success of your ads based on your campaign goals. From brand awareness to purchase, we offer cross-funnel solutions to track the impact of your campaigns.

Work with Reputable Vendors to Measure Audio Campaigns

We measure the effectiveness of your campaigns with a little help from reputable partners. We offer a full suite of measurement solutions to only help you define campaign impact and determine if your advertising objectives were met.

Here’s a breakdown of what we measure along with some tips to make your digital audio campaigns more effective.

How to Measure Upper-Funnel Objectives with Audio

Creative Testing

Is your ad creative hitting the right note with consumers? Creative testing involves A/B testing ad creative to see which ad resonates best with your target audience. You can test messaging, voices, sound effects, and more to optimize your creative approach.

Creative tips:

Take an audience-first approach to ensure your messages are genuine and relatable
Develop scripts that focus on how your brand and products intersect with the lives of our target audience
Consider your target audience when selecting voice actors and other sound elements
Align ad creative with your campaign goals

Brand Lift Study

How does your target audience feel about my brand after hearing my ads? Brand lift studies measure campaign effectiveness through the lens of consumer perception. These studies provide insight into how consumers feel about your brand, measuring metrics like ad recall, brand awareness, and brand consideration.

Creative messaging tips:

Feature prominent brand messaging, including the logo and taglines in visual ads as well as early and frequent brand mention in audio spots
Avoid featuring sub-brands as this can cause misattribution

Targeting tips:

Closely align targeting strategy with the overall campaign KPIs
Campaigns with the KPI of growing brand awareness should avoid targeting current/heavy purchases of your product(s)

Frequency tips:

Tight frequency caps are not recommended for brand lift campaign
Higher frequency levels typically generate higher lifts in brand metrics
Aim for a regular frequency of 1x per week

Media tips:

All digital platforms: All platforms and products can be measured with our preferred vendors
Engagement products: Engagement based products are impactful, but best when paired with standard media to increase chances of statistically stable sample
Media mix: A strong mix of ad products can help drive metrics across the funnel
Programmatic: Brand studies are available for campaigns running programmatically

How to Measure Mid-Funnel Objectives with Audio

Location analytics

Did my campaign increase foot traffic to by store locations? Location analytics tells you how well digital advertising (like streaming audio or podcasts ads) drove real-world action by measuring traffic to physical locations.

Creative tips:

Drive the audience to a physical store location(s)
Avoid promoting website visits or online ordering and shipping in your ads

Targeting tips:

Closely align targeting strategy with the campaign's key audience
Avoid narrow geo-targets or targeting single locations

Frequency tip:

Higher frequencies can help drive foot traffic

Media tips:

All digital platforms: All platforms can be measured with Foursquare
Messaging: Ensure creative has store- traffic driving messaging
Engagement products: Engagement- based products are impactful, but best when paired with standard media to increase chances of statistically stable sample
Programmatic: Both direct IO and programmatic are measurable

How to Measure Lower-Funnel Objectives with Audio

Sales lift

Did my campaign increase sales? Sales lift studies measure the impact of your campaign on product/service sales. Studies compare control and exposed audience actions to quantify campaign effectiveness.

Creative tips:

Incorporate frequent brand mentions
Feature prominent brand logo and actual product to help drive consideration
Traffic drivers should contain prominent brand messaging
Avoid mentions of sub-brands or parent brands to avoid brand confusion
Media that contains prominent artist or content messaging is not a good fit

Targeting tips:

Consider campaign KPIs when targeting new vs. current buyers
If the goal is increasing household penetration, target new buyers
If the goal is growing purchase amount, target current purchasers and/or target prospective buyers at scale

Frequency tip:

Higher frequencies help drive actual behavior (i.e., increase in sales)

Media tips:

All digital platforms: All platforms can be measured with NCS (other vendors may have some limitations by product or platform)*
Media mix: A mix of high-impact products along with standard media may be most effective

*NCS only measures the CPG vertical. However, we can measure sales for other verticals in tandem with foot traffic (i.e., the vendor measures both together).

Attribution study

What actions did my target audience take after hearing my ads? Attribution tells you what happened after an audience was exposed to your campaign. What this means and what’s being measured depends heavily on your campaign goals and desired outcomes (e.g., website traffic, downloads, form fills, and purchases).

More Effective and Measurable Audio Campaigns with Us

We are your digital audio powerhouse, reaching 160M monthly listeners across our networks and platforms. For audiences, that means unforgettable, highly accessible, multimedia entertainment they can’t get enough of—which gives you the unparalleled access you need to reach your campaign goals.

Ready to get started? Let’s talk.