Not All Podcast Ads are Created Equal. Here's Why.

Summary:

• Election years have a huge impact on the advertising space, with political campaigns securing ad inventory early and often.
• Brands looking to launch effective digital and terrestrial audio campaigns can circumvent the challenges of current landscape by planning ahead, considering programmatic buys and cross-platform integrations, and ensuring their messaging is resonant without being risky.

A bustling political season

First things first: did you know there’s a general election being held in the U.S. next month? You did? We believe you.

Consumers of every political stripe have been bombarded with election messaging for months, and the numbers confirm just how committed the machines behind local politicians and major presidential candidates alike are to reaching their base—not to mention undecided voters in battleground locations.

It’s no surprise to learn that the 2024 election year in marketing is the most expensive yet, with political ad spending projected to surpass $12 billion, up more than $2 billion from the last presidential election year. This unprecedented rise in political advertising spend will drastically impact various media platforms, including digital and audio advertising—two of our expertises, and marketplaces with which we’re very familiar.

So, what does this mean for booking inventory and how can advertisers effectively navigate this altered landscape?

The effect on the digital advertising landscape…

If you’ve decided to capitalize on attention to political content, or even if you haven’t, you’ll notice right away that the digital advertising landscape is more crowded. This year, digital advertising spend is projected to have a 28% share of total political ad budgets, or just under $3.5B—roughly ten times more than it was just two presidential election cycles ago.

For listeners, the changes to their ad rotation are obvious: suddenly, the “regular ads” they were used to are preempted by political ad spots—spots that were secured early on in the media buying cycle, when political advertisers bought up large amounts of ad inventory, especially targeting spots at peak listening times. Some political advertisers start placing ads as early as June, with the majority of spend in July through November.

By that time, advertisers have been noticing the effects for months. The spike in political ads leading up to the general election have made ad slots for Streaming and Targeted Podcast ads more scarce. Political campaigns typically book these prime slots well in advance, making it a challenge for other advertisers to secure inventory.

Then there are the advertising platforms that do not run political ads—Wondery, NPR, and Acast, to name a few. Though advertisers won’t be competing with political ad spend there, they will be competing with other advertisers over ever-more-precious inventory.

This crowded marketplace tends to displace other ads, which may see a decrease in ad effectiveness if they are pushed into less desirable spots. Considering political advertisers’ strategic geotargeting of swing counties and battleground states, brands who prioritize their marketing efforts around those specific locations will be particularly affected.

Increased demand also, of course, can affect the price of ad inventory. However, while the relative scarcity of inventory during an election season may drive price increase concerns across the board, Veritone One’s rates with our partners are locked in—just one of the many benefits of working with an agency with our buying power.

For all advertisers, having to compete with the large-scale spending of political campaigns in general may lead to reduced visibility and reach. This will have the biggest effect on smaller advertisers, as they may not have the budget available in time to book in advance, or the budget to navigate higher costs, period.

…and how to counter these conditions

With the above in mind, brands should consider all channel opportunities, including programmatic advertising, which would allow them to optimize ad placements and help target audiences more precisely. Programmatic buying can help brands navigate the competitive landscape by utilizing audience data to shape the most effective buys and leveraging real-time bidding to pounce on an opportunity as it arises.

And don’t forget about cross-platform integration. By combining digital audio advertising with other media channels, like Social, to create multi-platform campaigns, brands can maintain visibility and reach even as audio inventory dips.

What about other audio advertising channels?

In a Katz study from this summer, radio emerged as the most trusted media channel among voters, with 8 in 10 surveyed calling it very trustworthy or trustworthy. In fact, with major U.S. political parties holding disparate opinions of various channels’ trustworthiness, AM/FM radio was “the one media where Katz found a consensus in trust across parties and Independents,” per the company.

Katz’s analysis also revealed what fruitful territory radio listenership offers political campaigns. Around 90% of radio listeners in New Hampshire, Montana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, for example, are registered voters.

This lines up nicely with insight our SVP of Media Strategy, Becky Byrn, received on a call with one of our network partners, where it was revealed that Wisconsin will be one of the states most impacted by political ads. Other markets seeing surges in radio ad spend include battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona.

In line with the buying habits of proactive digital political campaigns, Katz cites Nielsen in recommending political campaigns buy radio ad space “early and often” for maximum impact.

And sure enough—by early September, Byrn confirmed that ad inventory on news and talk shows was essentially sold out.

How can brands best navigate an election cycle?

The only way for a brand to grapple with the ad buying power of a political campaign? Be as strategic with yours.

Whenever possible, brands should have their buyers lock in inventory in advance in order to secure ad presence during peak times and avoid the headache and disappointment of last-minute rush buys, inflated prices, or worse: complete sell-out. Additionally, brands should consider implementing a flexible budgeting strategy that allows for a dynamic allocation of funds based on inventory availability and potential cost increases.

From a content and messaging perspective, brands should consider the current state of their audience and proceed with neutral content that resonates with listeners without alienating those with potentially different political views. In lieu of taking an explicit political stance, brands can lean into broader themes, like community, to keep the ad relevant and timely while maintaining brand safety.

And of course, our greatest tip is to work with an experienced agency like Veritone One, who can offer you informed strategy from the jump, and help you pivot when an opportunity arises, in order to help you meet your advertising goals.

It may be too late to implement these strategies for the 2024 election—but it’s never too early to start thinking about the next one. Politicians and their advisors certainly are. And for better or worse, the American consumer, resilient as ever, is already anticipating the next one, too.

Insights by Dakotah Quayle and Becky Byrn, as told to Rubi Mora

Summary:

• Programmatic buying consists of a publisher listing ad inventory on a Supply Side Platform and advertisers buying this inventory through their own Demand Side Platform.
• Programmatic buys can take place in a biddable environment as well as via Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) deals.
• Veritone One can help you put together the perfect mix of programmatic and direct IO buys to meet your campaign goals.

Common misconceptions around programmatic

After attending this year’s Podcast Movement event in Los Angeles, our team noticed something curious: it seems “programmatic” is the word on everyone’s lips these days, which we expected, but it also seems that, for most attendees, the word has taken on a new meaning. I most commonly heard the term “programmatic” to describe any ad spot that is not a host-read endorsed podcast read—which is not the case.

There are two main categories on which Veritone One focuses when buying podcast inventory: Host-Endorsed and Targeted Podcast. For a targeted podcast buy, we utilize targeted ad solutions across the entire podcast network, leveraging first- and third-party data to reach our target consumer, no matter where they are consuming podcasts.

Both of these can be bought programmatically or via a direct insertion order (IO). We’ll dive into the strategy behind each of these methods further down.

First things first, however. For media buyers—and especially for anyone who may be new to advertising on digital channels—it can be quite confusing to hear industry leaders use a term as simple as “programmatic” in disparate ways. So, let’s take a moment to define the term.

So, what exactly is programmatic buying?

What do we mean when we say “programmatic”? Simply put, it is the use of advertising technology to buy and sell digital ad inventory. Seems simple enough; yet, it’s a bit more complex than this.

The first thing to note here is that programmatic buying does not involve the signing of Insertion Orders or contracts, and in most cases, it does not require direct contact with the publisher.

Instead, the publisher (in most cases, the network on which the podcast in question runs) makes their ad spot inventory available via their Supply Side Platform (SSP). This allows for an ad exchange where media buyers and advertisers can bid on that inventory via their seat in a Demand Side Platform (DSP).

For our purposes, “programmatic” refers not only to the technology behind each ad buy, but to the type of marketplace it creates for buying and selling digital ad inventory.

The difference between programmatic buying and direct IOs

Buying media programmatically has its advantages, but there are certain limitations to keep in mind. That’s why the digital team at Veritone One buys a mix of direct IO and programmatic podcast inventory, depending on the needs and goals of our clients.

For a direct buy, we utilize first- and third-party data to target listeners within a certain network. Once we’ve agreed on target audiences, CPM goals, and impressions, we sign a direct IO.

For a programmatic buy, we utilize our preferred Demand Side Platform to create inventory packages with relevant targeting and genre specifications. We also determine campaign deliverables based on the type of programmatic buy we execute.

Different types of programmatic buys

Some programmatic buys occur in a biddable environment, meaning that the buyer (advertiser) adjusts their bids based on presumed impressions. The same ad spot inventory can fetch different bid amounts depending on the current market; as we get closer to this year’s general election, for example, we can expect an increase in Cost Per Mille (CPM) for political content. The more demand there is for that inventory, the more buyers are willing to bid on it.

Because the volume of impressions is not guaranteed at the outset, you always run the risk of underdelivery with this method. With strategic bidding, however—something the media buying experts at Veritone One are well versed in—there is the potential for the buy to deliver impressions at a cheaper CPM than it would through a Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) deal.

A Programmatic Guaranteed deal is just that—a buy in which CPM and impression volume are guaranteed. The buyer and the network would agree on a CPM and impression load for the campaign to deliver in full. As an advertiser in this scenario, you will likely end up paying more in CPMs than you would in a biddable environment, but the benefit is that you can guarantee yourself the impressions—and save yourself the uncertainty.

Once the programmatic buy’s terms have been outlined,  we use the DSP to traffic the ad units and monitor Cost Per Mille (CPM) bids and delivery on our end.

Veritone One can help you put together the perfect buy.

As you can see, depending on your campaign goals, you may benefit from either a direct or programmatic buy, which is why at Veritone One, we pride ourselves on being experts at both.

For a broader target, a direct buy allows you to reserve your impression volume, often at a lower rate. But when you want to target more niche markets, a programmatic buy allows you to get granular with targeting and with more scale opportunity.

At the end of the day, as Podcast continues to prove itself a viable and effective marketing channel, the ways we buy and engage audiences within the ecosystem are evolving. The first step in ensuring the perfect buy for your brand? Making sure we’re all speaking the same language when we talk about it.

Edited by Rubi Mora

Summary:

• Google is in the process of turning off cookies for Chrome users, a lion’s share of the browsing market.
• This could affect the number of conversions advertisers can report on, necessitating change to their measurement and attribution models.
• Veritone One is ahead of the game here, using tracking methodologies that are unaffected by this change and continually updating our approach to deliver accuracy and campaign optimization.

A World Without Cookies?

First things first: internet cookies may be much-maligned (no one really likes navigating those permission banners when they visit a new site, do they?) but they can be very useful for a consumer.

For example, cookies save the items in your shopping cart when you leave a website—as well as your login info when you come back to it. But they’re also a useful tool for advertisers, allowing them to target and re-target users based on their web history and interests. As such, they’ve served as an integral part of the ecommerce experience.

Until now.

As we entered 2024, Google phased out cookies for 1% of Google Chrome users, which amounts to approximately 30M users. This will limit cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default.

By this time next year, Google plans to officially phase out cookies for 100% of Chrome users. And that’s significant: Google currently holds 66% of the browsing market share.

Now, you might ask yourself, why would Google do that?

Google is shifting to a proprietary algorithm, one that better tracks users and is a lot more secure and private than cookies, which traditionally track users across the web and may leave them vulnerable to privacy breaches.

This is good news for Google and advertisers that advertise on Google. It’s a challenge, however, for those that use other marketing platforms that still rely on cookies and older methods to target users.

That’s because this change in cookie policy will impact audience targeting and how advertisers track and record data and attribution models (such as First-Click and Multi-Touch). While clients should not see a dip in sales, advertisers can expect fewer reported conversions—which may have the unintended effect of making campaigns seem less effective.

As advertisers, we know this isn’t ideal. But there are ways to approach this and stay ahead of the game, and Veritone One is here to help. By acknowledging the changing landscape of digital advertising—and adapting to a few of the strategies below—advertisers can continue to leverage efficient targeting tactics and combat a cookieless future.

Targeting Through First-Party Data

One way to circumvent cookie depreciation? Invest in your first-party data, or CRM.

Collection of users’ first-party data is not affected by Google’s emerging cookie policy. Additionally, first-party data has always been considered inherently more privacy-compliant than third-party data.

First-party data also allows for strong hyper-personalization: brands can tailor their own data based on users’ individual preferences and behavior, and from there build custom audiences to target and retarget.

Plus, brands can collaborate with advertising and measurement partners by sharing that personal data, allowing partners to onboard and build a lookalike or retargeting audience. This can both expand reach and increase customer lifetime value for the brand.

Second- and Third-Party Data

From a vendor perspective, as well, the depreciation of cookies should be no cause for concern, as vendors can continue to provide brands with second- and third-party data to further identify consumers’ demographics and priorities. Second-party data would consist of the vendor’s site-owned information, such as a user’s age, gender, and geographical location, provided by said user when they set up an account on that site. Third-party data, meanwhile, is anonymized data from partners like Experian that vendors can use to match with email addresses or device IDs.

Neither of these sources of information rely on cookies; as such, we don’t anticipate any reduction of fidelity on vendors’ recruitment processes.

Consider Contextual Targeting

While cookie-based targeting uses the historical behavior of individual users, advertisers can easily target ads based on the actual site, audio, or video content that a user is currently consuming, placing relevant ads that align with the content consumed. Your ultimate goal with this approach is to serve an ad that complements a consumer’s current “interest,” regardless of who the user is or their past browsing history.

What about reporting?

From a reporting perspective, the end of third-party tracking cookies can certainly disrupt an advertiser’s strategy—but it’s not the end-all be-all of how advertisers can demonstrate successful campaigns. On the question of pixel tracking, consider the approaches below.

Claritas

Claritas has never been fully dependent on cookies as a measurement solution; as such, they are very well prepared to navigate this change.

Instead, Claritas uses their proprietary Identity Graph, encompassing a comprehensive product suite, to connect with consumers beyond the cookie. This includes a combination of data from the US Census, American Community Survey, and First Part Financial Track Survey, as well as third-party data for financial-related data points. It allows them to identify an audience with data points rooted in who users are and what their household looks like, including their IP address, postal data, segmentation and demographic information, financial and product consumption history, and more.

On top of this, Claritas is rolling out an AI-Driven In-Campaign Targeting Enhancement Beta in the service of driving more conversions. This feature is based on over ten-thousand highly predictive demographic and behavioral indicators, allowing advertisers to hone in on the best-performing audiences week over week. So far, results are promising: in an initial testing phase of over 350 campaigns, advertisers saw an average of over 15% increase in performance with the same volume of impressions.

Podscribe

Podscribe, too, has long transitioned away from the use of third-party cookies. Their web tag instead sets a first-party cookie, which will remain unaffected by Google’s policy.

When possible, Podscribe also requests that brands include first-party data with conversion events, such as hashed emails, which tend to have a better match rate to household IP addresses in the Tapad Device graph and allow Podscribe to match cross-IP conversions with better accuracy. They also rely on mobile ad IDs (IDFA, GAID) for in-app events.

These first-party data points not only improve the accuracy of their tracking methodology—they also future-proof that methodology pretty handily.

Brand Lift Studies

Great news here! Brand study vendors don’t rely on cookies for recruitment, so brand lift studies do not appear to be impacted at all. We don’t anticipate any reduction in the fidelity of brand study recruitment processes arising from the depreciation of cookies.

Brands have a direct integration with partners like Nielsen and Kantar, which allows them to use ad-log data in lieu of cookies and tags. Instead, first-party data comes from logged-in data and device data. For third-party audience data, they leverage device IDs to reach audiences through our data partners.

Since these partners are already set up in a cookieless environment, Google’s cookie ruling does not affect them.

And don’t worry—Veritone One is on it.

The best news? Veritone One is already implementing these solutions to stay ahead!

In a landscape where change is the only certainty, Veritone One again emerges as a beacon of innovation. Our winning combination of awareness and preparedness have left us with no concern that the depreciation of cookies should impact our business. By proactively adapting our strategies to meet the technological landscape of today and beyond, we can continue to outpace the dynamic shifts in the advertising world and scale positively for our clients.

Edited by Rubi Mora