How Is Success Measured for Programmatic Audio? The Key Ways

Programmatic digital audio is on the rise—with a growth trajectory of 30% this year. However, there’s still plenty of room to grow, and making the investment is critical. 

It’s time to take the leap. Despite some common misconceptions, programmatic audio offers impressive benefits to advertisers—especially when it comes to performance tracking and measurement capabilities. Let’s explore how you can leverage the power of programmatic audio to measure the success of your next campaign.

What is programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the automated process of selling, buying, and placing digital ad space. Thanks to modern adtech, bidding for the ad space takes place in real time. For audio environments, this means brands can bid on inventory across streaming audio and podcasts to reach the right listener—no matter your preferred demographics, interests, and listening habits. 

Our programmatic solutions give you access to audio, video, and display ad inventory across the SiriusXM Streaming Network and SiriusXM Podcast Network. This approach offers streamlined performance management and ease of execution, giving you nimble control over budgets, targeting, and optimization.

Programmatic advertising comes with many benefits needed in today’s ad environment:

• Greater ad efficiency 

• Precise targeting

• Real-time optimization

• Full transparency

How to measure success in programmatic advertising

How often do you check whether your campaign achieved what it was supposed to? The better question might be: Do you know how to assess its success? Ideally, you want to measure the success of every campaign to know what works and optimize future ad spend. That’s what ad effectiveness is all about—measuring the success of your ads against specific campaign objectives.

From awareness to conversion, audio advertising moves consumers down the path to purchase, and it’s all measurable. Programmatic offers measurement solutions that can help you define your campaign impact and determine whether your advertising objectives were met. 

Here’s how you can track performance at every stage.

Upper-funnel objectives: Creative testing 

Creative testing is a core tool for every brand, and A/B testing is one of the most common forms. It involves testing different versions of the ad creative to see which options perform best with your listeners. Thanks to our data partner Veritonic, you can conduct creative testing on different components: voices, sound effects, humor, CTA, or context. For example, you can test different messaging to see if your straight-to-the-point creative resonates better with Gen Z or millennials (or neither). 

Upper-funnel objectives: Brand lift 

A brand lift study measures whether your campaign impacts your brand’s awareness, perception, or purchase intent among listeners. And, if so, by how much? Typically, a brand lift study is run by surveying two groups: those who were exposed to your messaging and those who weren’t. Brand lifts provide insights into how consumers feel about your campaign, going far beyond surface-level metrics like clicks or impressions.  

Mid-funnel objectives: Location analytics 

If your goal is to drive listeners to a physical store, location analytics is the mid-funnel metric you need. These studies use mobile location data to measure whether your digital ads drove real-world store visits. For example, if you’re running a campaign highlighting a new promotion on purchases, a location analytics study can show you how successful it was in driving foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store. 

Mid-funnel objectives: Attribution studies 

Attribution studies are all about what happens post ad exposure—think website visits, product purchases, or app downloads. For example, if you’re running a podcast campaign, you might conduct an attribution study to assess whether pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ad placements drive the best results. 

Lower-funnel objectives: Sales lift 

For some brands, the ultimate measurement of success may be the “ding” of a register. To measure lower-funnel objectives like how ads impacted sales, brands use sales lift studies. Often, sales lifts compare baseline sales data (before the campaign) to sales data during and after the campaign runs. To distinguish the campaign’s impact from other factors, these studies usually compare control and exposed audience actions—similar to the structure of a brand lift study.

Lower-funnel objectives: Multi-touch attribution (MTA) 

The consumer’s journey is rarely straightforward. If you run omnichannel campaigns, simpler metrics like conversion rates are not enough to accurately measure success across all channels. For example, a listener could hear your host-read ad while commuting, then see your brand’s video ad while streaming music the next day, and finally interact with your ad through their smart speaker. How did these ads play together to result in the purchase?

That’s where MTA comes into play. This method evaluates every exposure a consumer had to your brand to provide brands with a holistic view of how their efforts contributed to the desired action.

Full-funnel objectives: Media mix modeling (MMM)

MMM has been around for decades, used to estimate the impact of different marketing channels on overall business goals. Historically, MMMs would fall short by often grouping all audio together, without the ability to divide performance by channel (podcast vs. streaming audio) or provider. 

Fortunately, that’s starting to change. We’re partnering with the IAB and The Trade Desk to improve MMM for digital audio and provide a more accurate picture of its impact. For now, you can use MMM in audio to estimate ROI and understand the overall position of digital audio in your media mix.

What makes programmatic at SiriusXM Media different? 

Not all programmatic audio inventory is created equal. We offer distinct advantages that allow advertisers to buy with confidence and measure with precision.

Priority access to inventory when programmatic audio is added 

We run the programmatic auction for clients before serving direct IO campaigns. This programmatic-first perspective allows our clients to have first bids on their preferred audiences in a premium and scalable auction experience.

IAB podcast measurement certified 

To ensure our commitment to industry-leading standards and client confidence, we’re certified by the IAB Tech Lab for podcast measurement. We meet the highest industry standards when it comes to ad delivery, brand safety, and reporting. For our clients, this means your ad will play in the right environment that meets your guidelines. 

Redefining the future of measurement

We work with the most reputable data partners and rely on a best-in-class digital audio adtech stack (including AdsWizz and Simplecast) to refine how audio is measured and deliver accurate insights on your campaign’s performance. By combining first-party data and privacy-forward targeting, we are creating a safer, more effective environment for programmatic execution and success.

Programmatic placements—the winning ingredient for a pet food brand

Nothing speaks louder than results. So, let’s see the power of programmatic in action. A pet food brand approached us to drive lifts in aided brand awareness, brand favorability, product awareness, and consideration. 

Together, we developed a straightforward approach: serve programmatic, cross-platform audio ads to cat and dog owners and competitive dog food buyers. Working across platforms, the campaign targeted both streaming audio and podcast listeners 18+. 

A drumroll for how the campaign paid off:

• +26 pt lift in product consideration among adults 18-35 

• +23 pt lift in product awareness 

• +23 pt lift brand favorability

• +13 pt lift in aided brand awareness 

As you can see, cross-platform programmatic placements can deliver impressive results. 

Get started with SiriusXM Media 

Programmatic campaign activation with us is powerful. From planning to measurement, we’ve got you covered every step of the way. 

Ready to see how programmatic audio can drive results? Let’s chat.

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