Maximize Streaming Audio Sponsorship Now More Than Ever

If you have been thinking about adding streaming audio pre-rolls to your mix of digital sponsorship offerings, now is the time to jump in and  jump in all the way.  If you have just been offering a “baked in” single or dual streaming audio sponsorship and are only selling it to one or two sponsors,  it’s time to change to dynamic pre-roll insertion and sell to multiple sponsors.  

Stations can more than make up the monthly service cost for dynamically inserted streaming audio pre-rolls through added sponsorship sales and increased digital revenue.  Borrell Associates recently released “The 2021 Mindset of Streaming Audio Advertisers,” including their survey of 2,262 local advertisers and agencies conducted in Q2 and Q3 2020.  The results showed that almost half of local agencies were buying streaming audio, while only 11% of local advertisers were doing the same. This may indicate that streaming audio is currently bought by more sophisticated marketers, but is starting to gain traction on direct buys, too.  With smart speakers now in over 87.7 million U.S. households (up over 32% year over year) and the ubiquitous use of smart phones, it just makes sense to capture the most sponsorship revenue you can with streaming audio.

The Borrell Associates study mentioned above goes on to show that half of streaming audio sponsorship buyers are in arts & entertainment, retail, civic organizations, and health care.  Most of these are strong public media sponsorship categories. And indicators suggest that streaming audio buyers have bigger budgets. Most of the streaming audio services, such as Stream Guys, Adswizz, and Triton, now offer easy-to-use services for dynamically entering streaming audio pre-rolls. You can use the IAB-suggested industry standard frequency cap of 30 minutes so that streaming listeners won’t hear the pre-roll too often, maintaining a good listener experience while also maximizing the number of deliverable impressions.

Here are three ways to maximize your approach:

1. Offer dynamically inserted streaming audio pre-rolls. It’s more interesting to listeners to hear different pre-rolls and you can make more digital sponsorship revenue.  “Baked in” pre-rolls can tire listeners.
2. Selling Share of Voice? (SOV) Revisit your streaming audio session impressions to see if you can offer more shares. You may be able to support three sponsors per week instead of two.  Streaming audio is gaining traction every month. Selling Cost per Thousand (CPM)?  See if your sales team is adding streaming audio pre-rolls to all their proposals. The touchpoint to smart speaker listeners is very compelling.
3. Already selling out your streaming audio pre-rolls? (Fantastic!) Check your frequency cap to see if it makes sense to adjust it for more delivery, or you might want to consider adding a mid-roll if it makes sense in your market.

Maximize your streaming audio sponsorship revenue and watch the numbers grow!