In a recent blog post, we talked all about making the best audio ad script. Now, we’d like to discuss what comes next: how to make the best audio ad campaign.
So please be sure to listen up. Because the tips and tricks we're about to share are just as easy as they are necessary for your success using AudioGO.
Set a Goal. ‘Reach’ vs ‘Awareness’ Campaigns
If your goal is to reach as many unique listeners as possible, then you’re going to want to choose a broad audience for your ad. This is a ‘Reach Campaign,’ and your impressions will go as far as your budget allows. Typically, each listener will hear your ad 1 or 2 times, but you’ll reach more people this way.
An ‘Awareness Campaign,’ on the other hand, is meant for a narrow, specific audience to hear your ad more frequently within a short period of time, increasing the chances that they remember your brand. This lends to a sort of stickiness that encourages listeners to take action. To achieve this, use our Audience Guide in the campaign set up page, and continue refining your target or increasing your budget until the ‘Estimated Ads Played’ is roughly 3-4x your ‘Estimated Unique Listeners.’ This will ensure your ad gets heard 3-4 times.
But whatever your goal may be, it’s always best to keep your targeting not too narrow and not too broad. Again, let our Audience Guide show you the way. The best ad campaigns find the right balance in budget and market size. Yours should too.
Include 3 Display Banners, and the Right Call-to-Action
Beyond just making your ads audible, our platform was designed to even make them clickable to your website with the use of display banners. We can host up to 3 per campaign in the following formats for listeners on their desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.
We strongly recommend using one in each size - 300 x 250 (wide), 500 x 500 (square), 300 x 600 (tall). The best ad campaigns also include custom tracking URLs for added visibility on Google Analytics or their respective CRMs.
When using display banners, let’s also not forget to include a call-to-action like ‘tap your screen’ in the audio portion of your ad as well. Direct call-to-actions like these typically see click-through-rates 3x greater than those without one.
Additionally, a clear call to action - like ‘call now’ with your phone number (which may be repeated more than once), or emphasizing your website URL, or highlighting your restaurant or retail name - is critical for any interested listener to act on your ad accordingly.
Budget
You can get started for as little as $250 on AudioGO, which works out to 13,888 ad plays.
$250 may be okay for a small campaign on a short schedule, but it may not guarantee the results you were looking for. So when considering how much to dedicate to your audio campaign, please be realistic about what it can accomplish.
Music Genre Targeting
Pick music - and/or spoken word content, which includes news and podcasts - that matches your brand, your message, and your audience. Ads that are personalized to your listeners’ preferences are especially effective at driving up engagements. But if your product or service is universal, you don’t need to pick a music genre. It’s really up to you.
Age is another important thing to think about here. So to help, we pulled this chart to show what genres are most popular among various age groups.
Keep in mind your listeners will also be hearing your ad during scheduled breaks. So if you do choose to go with a background track for your ad, try to make it sound similar to the music genre you’re targeting. Don't kill the vibe.
Geo-Targeting
Let’s just quickly review what they are first.
Zip code: our most granular option of them all. With this you can narrow your listeners down to the very neighborhood.
DMA: Designated Market Area, also known as a media market, is really just industry-speak for an area that gets the same radio stations.
MSA: Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a city and its surrounding suburbs.
Cities: for anyone streaming within a specified City's limit.
Counties: this, and either of the above four options are fine choices for awareness campaigns.
States: is an option best reserved for wide-ranging reach campaigns.
We like to tell folks to start narrow, and then gradually open things up until they find the right fit. The Audience Guide was purposefully designed for this. Use it.
And, again, the best ad campaigns always have some element of personalization to it. So the next time you find yourself targeting the San Francisco DMA, it might be smart to include a reference to the city.
Language Targeting
Currently, we offer English-language and Spanish-Language targeting. And if you don’t select one or the other, your ad campaign will simply run over both.
Just make sure your ad is in Spanish if you do decide to target Spanish-language listeners. It can be a bad experience to hear a Spanish-language ad interrupt your normal English-language programming. Not to mention, it could be a wasted impression for you.
By the way, if you don’t have a Spanish-language ad, we can always take care of that for you.
Viewing Results
And once live, you can see how your ad is performing in real time by visiting your new-and-continuously-improving AudioGO dashboard.
There you’ll find a bunch of useful features, like a daily breakdown of key performance metrics and visual insights into your target audience. These reports are there to help you optimize your campaign if needed, because like most other ad tech platforms, AudioGO also allows you to make edits to your campaign at any time along the way.
Getting Heard
So now that you know what it takes to make the best audio ad campaign, all that's left for your business or organization is to get heard by clicking the link below.
