But be sure it’s impartial and part of a cross-channel measurement strategy

With the news of Podsights and Chartable being purchased by Spotify, we thought we’d take a few moments to discuss the bustling podcast industry and the importance attribution and measurement play when it comes to advertising performance on the medium.

Full transparency here: Podcast attribution is something LeadsRx offers, but what is unique is that it can (and should) be part of a multi-touch attribution approach. We have a helpful document that talks about our omni-channel approach to podcast ad measurement. Here’s an excerpt:

“Analyzing the success or failure of advertisements within a podcast stream can be a challenge, especially with point solutions that isolate this medium without consideration for other advertising channels involved. The LeadsRx approach differentiates itself by providing an off-the-shelf omni-channel solution for evaluating the performance of podcast advertising in conjunction with all other marketing channels – digital ads, broadcast commercials, and even direct mail. By looking holistically at all channels together, including your podcast ads, you get an impartial view of the customer journey and insights into how well your podcast ads are performing in a true multi-touch attribution environment.”

Read the blog link above to see just how podcast attribution works; and go download that PDF.

With Podsights now under the Spotify umbrella, advertisers may wonder how transparent and impartial measurement of their ad effectiveness will be. What’s good for the goose… Or as one industry insider so eloquently put it in a recent Digiday article:

“From an ad perspective, it’s kind of unprecedented because I can’t think of a time where a company owns an independent measurement firm that’s supposed to be evaluating [that company’s] performance,” said Jacob Schwartz, associate media director of national audio investment for Mediahub.

Regardless, if marketers are advertising using podcasts, streaming services, radio, TV, digital ads, OTT – or even collecting business cards at the slowly returning, in-person trade show circuit – measurement through attribution and customer journey analytics is key to increasing marketing performance on all channels.

It’s not surprising that the podcast industry continues to explode – Spotify content controversies aside; any publicity is good publicity, right? – and we are proud that we called out this continuing proliferation of podcasting in our 2021 trends blog. Here’s a snippet from the No. 4 trend on our 9-trends list (it includes a lot of talk about Spotify, which at that time had just purchased Megaphone):

“Old-style static podcast ads that sat inside podcast programming on a loop are being replaced by dynamic advertising that can be updated and switched out based on listener habits. But to have the right listeners hearing the right ads at the right time takes mindful and unbiased use of listener data. Hosting services could tell advertisers where their audience was listening, from which device, and on what app. It’s not enough.”

We know we are not the only podcast attribution game in town, but we are the only one that has it as part of our suite of channels we measure under our MTA offering. In December 2020, we listed “13 Podcast Attribution Companies for Tracking Advertising Performance,” of which we, Chartable, and Podsights are included. Check out the list. If for some reason you ONLY advertise via podcasts, one of these tools may be right for you.

Interesting enough, we have our very own podcast, the Attribution Marketing Podcast, in which we talk about all things marketing, attribution, customer journey analytics, and we’ve had guests talk specifically about the podcast industry and podcast attribution. Here are a few related episodes:

• Bryan Barletta of SoundsProfitable.com (a great source for podcast industry news), discusses how the podcast adverting industry works – and how you can make it work for you.
• Daryl Battaglia, SVP, Market Development & Strategy at Triton Digital, talks about how the burgeoning podcast industry presents an interesting opportunity for not only typical direct response, DTC businesses who have been taking advantage of the exposure for some time, but traditional brands and multimedia advertisers and the traditional mega agencies that represent them are looking to reach these audio platform audiences as well.
• Scott Brinker, editor and chief marketing technologist of ChiefMartec.com, breaks down how the MarTech landscape has evolved and what marketers need to be doing to stay ahead of the curve with their technology.

More M&A will occur within the podcast and ancillary industries in the coming months and years ahead, no doubt. Speaking of Triton Digital (see above), it was acquired by iHeartMedia in 2020. We are happy to have worked with both of these companies.

Per the news: “iHeartMedia, the biggest U.S. radio broadcaster, now has digital audio measurement capabilities, as well as a new content delivery system that dynamically inserts ads into digital audio streams and podcasts – where Triton Digital hangs its hat.”

Podcasting can’t be ignored. More content means more advertising opportunities. Sophistication in measurement of ad performance will continue, and LeadsRx plans to be right there helping our agency and enterprise customers increase their return on ad spend and customer lifetime value, while reducing customer acquisition costs.