Q & A: Is Podcast Advertising Brand Safe (and Is It Measurable)

Podcasts are a safe environment for your brand messages. Our content team removes any show or episode that fails to meet brand safety baselines, ensuring both our listeners and advertising partners aren’t exposed to damaging content. However, we understand that safety and brand suitability are different.

Brand suitability is driven by your brand, its values, ideals, positioning, etc. We offer a variety of targeting options to ensure your ads play in the right context. But you won’t have to take our word for it. We also offer brand safety and suitability measurement solutions. You can learn about all that and much more in our Audio Ad Measurement Playbook, which walks readers through ad quality measurement, ad effectiveness, and other key topics (like brand safety).

We also went to an expert for answers to questions about brand safety and suitability measurement. Stacey Hultgren, Director, Ad Quality Measurement sat down with us to provide insight and address FAQs.

Podcast Offer a Brand Safe Environment

Question: Is the SiriusXM Media Podcast Network brand safe?

Answer: “Yes! We meticulously review all content before it is onboarded to our SiriusXM Media Podcast Network to ensure that it meets our brand and content safety standards for our platform. This means that all podcast content on our network is safe for ad monetization.”

Brand Suitability Is in Your Control—and Measurable

Question: What about brand suitability? What does that look like?

Answer: “While all of our SiriusXM Media Podcast Network content is brand safe, it does not necessarily mean that all of our content is suitable for every single brand. Brand suitability is very nuanced and varies by each and every advertiser and sometimes even by each and every campaign.

We offer a robust targeting suite to ensure that your brand's ads align with the right podcast content. We have everything from category targeting to transcription-based, episodic, contextual, and brand safety targeting, as well as predictive behavioral audience targeting, which importantly does not include any personally identifiable information.

For brand suitability specifically, we offer multiple category types ranging from crime and violence to adult sexually explicit at two levels of risk avoidance to ensure that your ad is aligned with the best content for your brand. For more on our targeting suite, please talk with your SiriusXM Media account team.”

Ensure Brand Suitability Across Direct and Programmatic Buys

Question: Do you offer brand suitability across all buy types?

Answer: “Yes. Brand suitability targeting is available on both direct I/O and programmatic buys. Now, if you are a Trade Desk buyer, they have developed a pre-bid brand suitability solution in partnership with third-party vendor, Barometer, to ensure that your ads are pre-vetted before ads are inserted into the podcast episode your brand is bidding on.”

Brand Safety and Suitability Is Transparent

Question: How do I ensure that my brand suitability targeting properly aligned my ads with the right content?

Answer: “We believe in transparency, so we offer post-impression episodic brand suitability reporting in partnership with third-party measurement vendor, Barometer. Barometer is able to compare your brand suitability targeting profile and deliver back an episodic report to show how well our SiriusXM media targeting was at aligning your ads appropriately. We are able to provide this reporting mid-campaign to ensure that we can adjust campaigns, if needed, to ensure that we are meeting your brand suitability needs.”

Let’s Build Brand Safe Podcast Campaigns Together

Not only is the SiriusXM Media Network completely brand safe, but we also offer targeting and measurement solutions to ensure your ads play in brand suitable environments. And with our network, you can reach 70M podcast listeners in the US, across some of the biggest shows around.

Let’s talk.

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