Want the Secret to Better Radio Spots? It's Streaming Audio.

We’re not here to say radio advertising is dead; that would be incorrect and disingenuous, but radio sports aren’t the same marketing-mix leader they have been for the past century.

The radio audience used to be everyone, but splintering media audiences have made it harder to take a megaphone approach. Even if you make better radio ads, they can still be delivered to an inexact and dubiously measured audience. But that doesn’t mean marketers are out of luck.

Streaming audio makes it easier than ever to connect with your best audience, whether they be the broad audience of a national news broadcast or something more specific, like friends listening to sad music on the back porch while it rains (seriously, streaming audio gets specific).

More than half of Pandora, Soundcloud, SiriusXM, and SiriusXM Podcast Network listeners report that these streaming audio platforms are replacing time they traditionally spend with radio.

However, the difference is much bigger than audience size. Streaming audio also offers your audience a better targeted and more compelling listening experience, increasing the likelihood they receive the message.

Radio Spots vs. Streaming Audio Spots

Radio advertising simply can’t offer what streaming audio can. The biggest differentiating factors between radio and streaming audio are:

Better targeting
Growing audience
Dynamic content
Real reporting
Modern brand presentation

We’re not just talking about bullet points and advertising jargon here. Streaming audio ads have a 49% higher memory impact than radio spots.

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Radio Spots Offer Limited Targeting

Since radio is broadcast to a mass audience, stations can only guarantee one audience—the station audience. Sure, larger radio station networks can place ads across shows, time slots, and stations. Still, only so much audience segmentation is possible with a one-way signal and finite terrestrial bandwidth.

Streaming Audio Offers Better Audience Targeting

Because streaming audio happens on internet-connected devices, users can passively transmit information back to advertisers, like location, interests, weather, device type, mood, and musical preference, even when they’re not actively giving feedback.

Streaming audio audiences are also searching for much more specific content, so they self-select, in a sense. Suppose you want to find upbeat and happy-go-lucky listeners. In that case, you have a better chance of reaching them by advertising on a summer-fun playlist than political news or rainy-day instrumentals.

Radio Spots Are One-Size-Fits-All

An ad made for everyone is an ad made for no one, or at least an ad that resonates with no one in particular. Because radio is a mass medium, it reaches a mass audience based mostly on demographics or broad genre music preferences like “the hits” or “today’s hottest country, rock, and R&B.”

Customizable Ads Mean Better Ad Experiences

With some streaming audio providers, like SiriusXM Media, advertisers can create dynamic ads that change based on any number of user data points, like changing the background audio based on the weather or using different calls to action based on geography.

SiriusXM Media’s in-house creative team, Studio Resonate, creates script components that can be stitched together to create hundreds of variations based on audience specifications. That level of customization allows your brand to tell more personalized stories on a larger scale.

Measuring Radio Spot Performance Isn’t an Exact Science

Broadcasting groups have certainly gotten good at tracking the return on radio ads, but the medium simply isn’t built for effective performance tracking. Radio towers do not give listeners the ability to click on an ad link or rate a song. That’s not to speak poorly of radio, but rather to say it was invented before C-suites asked every employee about their ROI.

More Measurement Options with Streaming Audio

Knowing how your past and present ads perform is crucial to the performance of all your present and future campaigns. That’s why SiriusXM Media works with listeners to create the best advertising experience based on their interests. For instance, the data collected by Pandora was nearly 4x more accurate than average publisher data.

Radio Spots Can Be Jarring and Repetitive

Ads on streaming audio owe a great deal of their success to the ability to simply serve an ad the listener wants to hear or finds helpful. Through better targeting, dynamic content, and various ad types, advertisers can ensure that they aren’t shouting on the sidewalk.

Streaming Audio Ads Fit the Laid-Back Listening Environment

Whether it’s a curated playlist from your favorite artist or a podcast from one of your favorite online personalities, streaming audio is simply more laid-back and intimate than traditional radio ads.

In a 2024 study by Sounds Profitable, The Ad Bargain, SiriusXM Podcast Network listeners were exceptionally receptive to ads, with seven out of 10 respondents reporting that podcast advertising is the best way to reach them.

The same study showed that 61% of podcast listeners will go out of their way to support brands advertising on their favorite podcasts. And ad receptivity doesn’t just apply to podcasts. Pandora ads drive a 5% lift in awareness, and nearly half of SoundCloud listeners remember advertised products when shopping.

Thinking about streaming audio? We can help.

SiriusXM Media is North America's largest digital audio advertising network, with more than 150 million listeners. If you’re ready for better audience targeting, more creative options, and incredible visibility into ad performance, let’s talk.