What You Need to Know About Holiday Consumer Trends & Audio

Holiday spending continues to increase year over year, meaning the 2024 holiday shopping window is wide open (and it’s only September!). The holidays account for a huge amount of consumer spending, and audio drives that shopping experience. If you’re looking to influence purchasing decisions this shopping season, audio advertising  is a must for brands and businesses of every size to invest. 

Here are some holiday consumer trends to help you capitalize on your Q3 marketing efforts and Q4 earnings.

Six Holiday Consumer Trends You Need to Know

Based on external market research, internal data, and a couple of decades of audio-advertising experience, here are the holiday consumer trends we expect to see going into this holiday season.

• Exponential spending increases

• Seasonal listenership spikes

• Co-listening amongst family and friends

• Earlier holiday shopping windows

• Streaming audio as a shopping companion

• Audio as an escape from visual media

The Most Important Trend: Holiday Spending Is Higher Than Ever Before

Two-thirds of respondents to our 2024 SiriusXM Holiday Soundboard survey reported spending the same or more on holiday shopping last year than the year before. Those responses were in line with the 3.8% year-over-year growth in 2023 holiday spending (totaling $968 billion nationwide).

Audio Drives the Holiday Experience

Last year, more than one-third of Pandora listening in December took place on holiday stations. But that listening didn’t replace non-holiday behaviors. The platform saw a seasonal listenership spike of more than 15 million hours between October and December. 

A large portion of that listening happened on connected devices like smart speakers at holiday events or amongst family and friends, a trend called co-listening. Nearly 60% of parents say holiday music is great for entertaining family and friends. This means for every ad play, co-listening provides exponential reach.

Comparing 2023 Pandora internal data and eMarketer’s 2024 holiday consumer trends, research shows holiday shopping windows begin as early as September.

Guess what many of those shoppers are doing while making their lists and making their rounds?  You guessed it: Listening to music and podcasts via streaming audio apps. Nearly 90% of adults say they listen to audio as a shopping companion during the holiday season.  

Increasingly, we’re seeing a trend of younger listeners reporting that they use streaming audio to escape from the ever-present visual stimulation of social media. As holiday advertising becomes more visually aggressive in the coming months, streaming is an opportunity to put down your megaphone and have a personal conversation with an overwhelmed audience.

How You Can Capitalize on Increased Holiday Spending with Digital Audio

Advertisers who connect with consumers early and offer deals and interactive incentives will be better poised to capture a piece of the massive amounts of holiday spending expected in 2024.

Opt for Connected Campaigns for Maximum Exposure

With us, advertisers can follow audiences across shows, media, and even platforms. Connect with your audience on connected car devices to deliver tailored messages between podcast episodes on their mobile device. Then, follow up later when they’re listening at home with friends. 

We’ve got multiple ad types, placements, and targeting solutions for endless advertising combinations:

• Audio ads are the most obvious route for streaming audio, typically available as podcast-host read, presenter read, or pre-produced. These ads on the SiriusXM Media Streaming Network have seen a 3% boost in brand favorability and a 3% increase in purchase intent.

• Display ads seem more counterintuitive for audio advertising, but our  mobile apps can serve video and static display ads when listeners interact with their screen. These formats can even offer click-through options for seamless shopping experiences. 

• Reward ads give listeners a perk for interacting with your advertisement, like ad-free listening or upgraded premium features.

Get Hyper-Personal with Targeting

Serve the exact right message to the exact right audience based on listener shared data and our matched audiences and privacy-forward targeting solutions. 

Using the same Music Genome Project data that powers Pandora, brands can connect with listeners based on their current mood and genre preferences.

Geographic data is often shared by listeners using mobile and connected devices, allowing advertisers to narrow their focus (or automatically and dynamically adjust messages) based on the listener's physical location. Our advertisers can even use weather as a segmentation data point when listeners share their location.

Make It Easy to Act with Shoppable Solutions

Nearly one-third of Pandora listeners reported adding items to their holiday shopping list after seeing or hearing a holiday ad. Deal hunters even seek out holiday ads to help plan their shopping strategies. 

Thanks to the many ad types offered through the SiriusXM Media suite of tools, brands can even connect their ads to their online stores and customers’ online shopping carts. With a seamless integrated shopping experience, your customers don’t have to leave the house.

Entry Points for Every Type of Plan

We can expect to see consumer spending increase each month from now until the end of the year. If you’re wondering, “Am I too late?,” you’re not alone. But you don’t need months of planning or massive marketing support teams to take advantage of these holiday consumer trends. With scalable solutions, brands of all sizes can build a trusted reputation through connected audio campaigns.

With AudioGo, our self-serve platform, you can quickly and easily create your campaign, upload or create your ad, and just press “Go.” Advertisers with budgets of all sizes can leverage this powerful online campaign management tool, so you can get in on the holiday season and connect with listeners across streaming, radio, and podcasts with ease.

Get in Front of Holiday Consumer Trends Today with SiriusXM Media

If you’re going to advertise this holiday season, now is as good a time as any to start—especially since some of your customers have already started making their lists. You’ll want to get in front of them (or in their ear) before they check those lists twice. 

Are you ready to be the hero of your brand’s holiday season sales? Let’s talk.