Fact or Fiction: How to Decipher the Biggest (and Most Confusing) Media Claims

Bold claims are everywhere: #1 network, most innovative, biggest audience…the list goes on. But what do those statements actually mean? And how can you tell what will have real advertising impact (and what just good marketing)?

Our latest webinar broke down exactly that.

We brought together our leading research and marketing experts for a virtual roundtable to demystify the most common (and confusing) industry claims. Casey Fandacone, Manager, Sales Marketing; Melissa Paris, Vice President, Sales Research & Analytics; Dave Newton, Senior Director, Measurement & Reporting; and Justin Higa, Manager, Ad Product Marketing offered up invaluable insights, questions to ask, and proof points to help marketers cut through the noise and make smarter, more informed media buys.

Ready to get to the bottom of the buzzwords?

Looking for some quick hits, instead? We've got those, too. Check out the top moments and key callouts from our conversation below.

What Percentage of the Audience Is Ad-Supported?

“When we talk about audio, it's really important to understand what percentage of your audience is ad-supported. What's really unique about audio is the landscape—people use a mix of apps and platforms to get their audio. So if we went around and asked everyone where they get their music or their podcasts from, we would see very different results from each of us. And each of those have very unique subscription models. Some are giving listeners the ability to pay a premium to not get ads. Others are focusing heavily on that ad-supported experience, where people receive free audio content. That's very different from other media platforms like TV or AM/FM, where it's all supported by advertisements. So it's really important to ask your audio partners what's their percentage of addressability within their overall audience.” - Casey Fandacone

Addressability Insights Are Crucial

“For addressability, it's important to know that most reporting services don't have a whole lot of addressability insights. They don't know if somebody is just a listener or a paid subscriber. So what we end up doing for Pandora is, in our public financials, you'll see how many active accounts we have on any given month, as well as how many of those are paid subscribers. And that comes in at about roughly 87% ad-supported, and it's been that way for a couple of years now. We get similar data from SoundCloud. They're a great partner, and they come in at about 90% ad-supported. And when you're talking about SiriusXM, that brand is technically all ad-supported, depending on what someone is listening to as they navigate from their favorite music content to their favorite talk or sports content throughout the day.” - Dave Newton

Where Will Your Podcast Ads Show Up?

“We know that people get podcasts from a lot of different places. But it's important for you, as an advertiser, to really understand where your ads are showing up within that huge ecosystem. So for some shows, people may choose to listen on a certain platform, or a show may only be available on certain platforms or in certain formats. So it's really important to understand that. Also, some podcasts have a video presence. So, will your ads be showing up in that video? It's really important to get a full scope of where a podcast is living and if your ads show up in those same places." - Casey Fandacone

Walled Garden vs. Open Ecosystem

“There are some shows and networks out there in the market that do focus on exclusivity, meaning they're only available on a single platform. They might be behind a paywall and taking more of that wall-down approach. But we really pride ourselves on having an open ecosystem approach. So all the shows that we represent within the SiriusXM Podcast Network are available across platforms. So listeners or viewers, as the case may be, can enjoy their favorite shows wherever they get their podcasts, whether that's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, our own platforms like Pandora—wherever people are seeking the content, they're gonna find it from us. But what's really key here is that, regardless of where they are getting that content or consuming the podcast, they're still gonna be seeing and hearing those same ads that brands are placing through their podcast campaign with SiriusXM Media.” - Melissa Paris

The Importance of Innovation Around Measurement

“In regards to some of the strides we're making in the measurement space. Overall, we work with several measurement partners just to ensure our media is showing effectiveness across driving ROI or driving lift with brand metrics or incrementality. And that's across streaming audio, podcasts, and our broadcast satellite.

But specifically with one way that we're driving innovation is by improving the quality of data that goes into media mix models, or MMMs. And that's with our partnership with Innovid. Audio is very frequently underrepresented in MMMs. And our partnership within Innovid allows us to pass back more granular levels of data to more accurately showcase the impact of audio ads within a larger investment strategy. So within a bid, we're integrated at the ad-server level. And that means that we can bring the same level of measurement that brands are using for video and display over to audio. And that just creates a more seamless path to understanding audio's effectiveness in an overall media strategy through the lens of MMM results.” - Justin Higa

Now that you know how to cut through the noise and determine what’s real and what’s marketing fluff, all that’s left is working with a proven media partner to bring your plans to life. That’s where we come in—let’s chat.

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