It's Not Too Late to Win New-to-Brand Holiday Buyers with Audio

The first leaves of autumn are beginning to fall, and you know what that means: The holiday countdown is on. And though many wish lists have yet to be written, your media plan is built and ready to deploy. Your ads may already be running (like for the recently passed Amazon Prime Day and Walmart Deals sales events).

Starting over with your holiday strategy probably isn’t an option—but optimizing it is. As you watch performance, shift dollars, and look for new ways to reach new shoppers, the answer to efficiently reaching and influencing consumers is easy: add digital audio.

For commerce marketers especially, audio can help close gaps. It extends campaigns beyond commerce media to reach new and different audiences while adding frequency, reaches consumers throughout their day when screens are out of sight, and measurably drives incremental ROAS.

And new innovation is making audio even more effective.

Commerce media is moving beyond the point of purchase

Commerce media excels at reaching consumers close to the transaction with lower-funnel tactics like sponsored search, onsite display, and video. But in a fragmented media landscape, it’s increasingly important to look beyond immediate ROAS. To really evaluate the power of your media plan, you need to measure incremental sales, new-to-brand customers, household penetration, and more. 

The commerce media opportunity is bigger than clicks: Connecting lower-funnel tactics with media that creates demand in the first place. And that’s where digital audio like streaming music and podcasts come in.

Someone might hear about a product while listening to music, research it later, see an ad while shopping, and ultimately make a purchase. Each interaction plays a role. And for buyers who may never see the ad, they’ve been primed to seek your brand out after hearing audio ads in intimate, personal environments.

Audio brings commerce into more moments

Retail media’s most powerful asset is its first-party shopper data. Pair that data with audio, and advertisers can take their commerce audiences offsite—reaching them beyond retailer websites and apps and across more of their daily routines. That matters during the holidays, when consumers aren’t always actively shopping but are almost always moving toward their next purchase. They’re commuting, working, cooking, exercising, hosting, and checking off everything else on their lists.

Audio can meet them in those screenless moments, adding incremental touch points while search, display, social, video, and CTV are limited to a screen-only environment. It also gives brands more room to tell a story, explain a product, introduce something new, or give shoppers another reason to choose them.

In a recent case study, a leading CPG brand wanted to reach new shoppers and drive growth through its Amazon DSP campaign. By adding Pandora audio and display ads to the mix, the brand extended its reach beyond Amazon’s owned and operated properties—driving 75% incremental reach and boosting detail page view rates by 471%. 1

Now, Alexa ads make action even easier

That connection between listening and commerce is getting more direct.

At Amazon Ads unBoxed, Amazon announced an expansion of its Interactive Audio Ads beyond Amazon Music to open-internet streaming audio supply delivered through Alexa-enabled devices—including SiriusXM Media inventory. With Interactive Audio Ads, listeners can respond to an ad using simple Alexa voice commands like “add to cart,” “remind me,” or “send more info.”

This innovation makes audio advertising an even more powerful tool for commerce marketers. Here's what Interactive Audio Ads deliver on Amazon Ads Agent)

• 2.4x higher interaction rate vs. audio ads without interactivity 2

• 19x the purchase rate when listeners interact (click-through attribution) 2

• +2.4 higher add-to-cart rate 2

Your holiday plan isn’t finished without SiriusXM Media

We get it; you’re not rebuilding your holiday campaign strategy in October. But you don’t have to. Now’s the time to look at what’s working, identify where your campaign could use incremental reach or another way to influence shoppers, and shift investment accordingly.

Add nine in 10 Americans ages 13 and up to your media plan with us. 3 We have the leading platforms (think Pandora, SoundCloud, and YouTube), exclusive partnerships (like NBCUniversal, The Unwell Network, and SmartLess Media), and top talent (you may have heard of Conan O’Brien, Trevor Noah, and Hoda Kotb) to connect you with your target consumers.

As the most competitive shopping weeks approach, think beyond where consumers make purchases. Think about all the moments that lead them there—and how audio is there at every turn. Let’s talk.

More insights on holiday audio campaigns