4 Reasons Streaming Audio Ads Are Better than Radio Ads

Jul 25, 2024

Terrestrial radio ads have been a hallmark of the advertising business since, well since the beginning of radio. While radio ads are still viable for some companies, streaming audio gives advertisers more ways to craft the right message and find the right audience.

It also gives them a better audience because streaming audio is also more personalized and convenient. Digital audio listeners are spending 61% more time with options like streaming audio than non-digital audio listeners (with analog options like traditional radio).

Listeners no longer have to wait for their favorite show or hope the radio plays the song they want next. And with those personalized choices come personalized advertising opportunities.

Here are the top four advantages streaming audio ads offer compared to traditional radio.

1. Streaming Audio Is More Personal

In a 2023 listener survey, respondents said digital audio (which includes streaming audio) is four times more authentic than AM/FM radio, a trait younger generations report valuing from their media. And more than 60% of Pandora listeners say they enjoy hearing ads that are relevant to what they’re listening to.

A more specific survey of podcast listeners found that podcasts garner three times more active attention to advertisements than mass media. Listeners were even twice as likely to actively listen to a podcast ad compared to social media ads.

Case in point? Personalization drives ROI.

Increased Personalization Leads to Increased Engagement

Many advertisers have been waiting for streaming audio to mature before investing their ad budgets. Well, the platform has come of age.

Pandora’s internal metrics show 44% of its listeners have been tuning into the platform for more than a decade and about half of all subscribers are considered loyal listeners (listening 10 or more days in the past 28 days).

2. Your Ads Get More SOV than Radio Ads

Radio ads have longer ad breaks, which makes you one voice in a crowd. Streaming audio, on the other hand, offers much shorter ad breaks (often one ad per break). Traditional radio tends to contain 50% more commercially sponsored time than streaming audio. Plus, streaming offers incentive-based formats and relevant targeting (so you can deliver the right message to the right person at the right time). The benefits go beyond literal share of voice. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there, it doesn’t matter if it makes a sound. No one heard it.

Is Anyone Out There?

More than 50% of SiriusXM, SiriusXM Podcast Network, Pandora, and Soundcloud listeners reporting streaming audio is replacing their AM/FM radio time.

Listeners are tired of AM/FM content and intrusive advertising. They’re tuning it out. Streaming audio, on the other hand, gives advertisers the opportunity to serve highly specific ads to listeners based on their mood, listening area, activity, genre, and many other non-demographic data. Listeners appreciate hearing ads relevant to their lives and delivered in a way that acknowledges their preferences.

It’s why digital audio ads have a 49% stronger impact on memory than AM/FM radio ads. As for reach, streaming audio is no longer a niche audience. SiriusXM Media alone reaches a quarter of US adults.

3. You Can Incorporate Visual Media

SiriusXM offers something most audio advertisers can’t: video. Because streaming audio usually comes from a phone, computer, or tablet, advertisers can serve visual content, even on an audio medium. Video is something radio just can’t do.

We know what you’re thinking, “What if they’re not looking at their phone?” Our platforms only serve ads to users actively using their phones. For example, a video ad will only play when a user is interacting with the platform, like when a Pandora listener thumbs a song they like.

App interaction while listening happens more than you might think. Listeners thumb 63 million songs and add 7.1 million music stations on Pandora each week. Every tap is an opportunity to use SiriusXM Media’s suite of multimedia advertising tools.

And since streaming audio audiences are there for the sound, they are less likely to mute your video ads. On other platforms, 75% of people who watch ads on mobile mute the audio.

The SiriusXM Streaming Network has a mute rate of less than 1%. And most of those videos are watched to the end, with an 87% completion rate on Pandora and an 89% completion rate on SoundCloud. That means most of the viewers are watching your ads, sound on, through to the end. Advertisers can even incentivize completion by offering ad-free listening or other rewards.

4. Streaming Audio Gives You More Advertising Options

Traditional AM/FM radio ads offer advertisers few options for placement, media type, and targeting specificity—all to a general, mass audience. This is where streaming audio pulls ahead of the pack.

Dynamic Audio Ads

Advertisers can create hyper-personalized ads through dynamic audio, which uses location, weather, and genre to create hundreds (even millions) of ad variations depending on each delivery. SiriusXM Media’s internal creative team, Studio Resonate, partners with A Million Ads to stitch individual elements into a seamless ad based on each listener’s unique characteristics.

Create ads that differ in content depending on whether the listener is experiencing clear or cloudy skies. Serve different messages to all hip-hop fans or top 40 radio fans. Dynamic customization combined with sequential audio engages customers based on exposure to previous messages, driving them further down the purchase funnel.

Display Ads

Not all visual ads have to be standard 15- or 30-second videos. The SiriusXM Streaming Platform offers interstitial video and display ads, interactive carousels, and ads that appear in place of album artwork. You can even reskin the streaming app to feature your brand colors and design elements.

Rewarded Ads

Use sponsored listening to give listeners from one to four hours of ad-free listening when they interact with your display or video ad. Video Plus ads upgrade listeners to premium features (like Pandora’s on-demand listening). Or sponsor a happy hour during select times of day.