Guide

Audio marketing and advertising explained

Audio marketing is a type of marketing that uses music, podcasts, and other sounds to promote your brand. Audio advertising differs from other forms marketing in that it can be very experiential and engaging.

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Audio marketing helps brands extend campaign messaging beyond the screen. Audio marketing includes a broad spectrum of content, including jingles, scores, and branded content. It also includes audio ads. Audio advertising can be an important part of content marketing, and by integrating ads into audio experiences such as ad-supported music streaming or podcasts, advertisers can help customers discover products and services that are relevant to them.

Why is audio marketing important?

There’s a growing amount of options for advertising within audio marketing. In addition to more traditional audio done through radio, streaming audio has grown 64% since 2014, according to the Q1 2021 edition of Edison Research’s Share of Ear study.1 This allows for digital marketing to reach customers where they are, on social media, apps, audiobooks, audio versions of blog posts, or podcasts. For example, eMarketer found that 60% of US adults ages to 18 to 34 are monthly podcast listeners.2

Person listening to music on their headphones

Benefits of digital audio advertising

There’s a variety of benefits to integrating audio advertising into a digital content strategy. With at least one smart speaker in 41% of US households, audio ads can help brands can meet audiences where they are when listening to ad-supported premium content throughout different points in their day.3 And by reaching audiences in different contexts, such as during screenless moments with tech or within interactive content, audio ads can help effectively engage audiences in new ways.

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1. Audio advertising has a wide reach

The wonderful thing about audio ads is that they can run in a variety of ad-supported locations, including music and news streams. Amazon audio ads are programmatic, so your brand’s clip can be featured in a variety of places. This can help brands share their campaign messaging far and wide to connect with more customers.

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2. Audio consumers are paying attention

In a recent study, 38% of Amazon Alexa users on connected devices said they paid the most attention to ads while consuming content on a smart device.4 Also, 29% of Amazon Connected Audio Consumers made a purchase on a daily basis, compared to 18% of the general population.5 Hearing relevant ads when listening to ad-supported music or news streams could help consumers find the products they need on a daily basis.

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3. Screenless moments are increasing at home

Smart speaker ownership is growing rapidly, with a 50% year-over-year growth of smart speakers in 2021, according to a 2021 Edison Infinite Dial report.6 In fact, that same report found there are an average of 2.3 smart speakers in each home in the US.7 That’s a lot of smart speakers.

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4, Audio advertising can be interactive

Additionally, customers could have the opportunity to interact directly with audio advertising. Smart speakers can allow customers to make hands-free purchases, for example, or podcasts can have clickable companion banner ads in apps. By reaching audiences in different contexts, audio ads can help to effectively engage audiences in new ways.

Creating an audio advertising strategy

There are several factors to be aware of when creating audio for your content marketing strategy. Customers use a variety of channels, so brands should be aware of what would work best for their audio ad campaigns to share the messaging in the right places at the right time, to be the most relevant to those listeners. Finally, measuring the results of the audio campaigns will help determine success.

1. Decide on a channel

Need help narrowing down your focus? To start, consider that the leading interaction on smart speakers is music streaming.8 You could add a companion banner for an ad in a playlist, for example—there are lots of options for audio advertising within music alone.

2. Know your audiences

Think about the ideal audience for the ads in your content marketing strategy. Consider what customers are looking for and what topics may be most interesting to them. There’s a broad spectrum of audio content, including jingles, scores, and branded content, that could help brands determine the messaging and creative for their audio ads.

3. Consider the results

Audio is primarily a brand-building tool for advertisers. That said, there are certain performance analytics metrics that could be useful. Measurements of reach, frequency, and audio completion rate are a good place to start, as are brand reach and lift for considering how audio can improve brand presence.

Create engaging audio ads with Amazon production services

Did you know? With a qualifying Amazon Ads audio campaign, we provide creative services for the end-to-end production process, from the initial idea to the ready-to-run audio ad. Get in touch to learn more.

Audio advertising customer examples

Audio ads can help brands reach new audiences. Based on a recent Amazon Ads and Ipsos survey, we found several examples of Amazon Connected Audio Consumers who could be reached by these ads.

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A younger and more affluent audience

Amazon Connected Audio Consumers are typically younger adults, most commonly ages 35 to 44.9 That skews slightly younger than the general population, potentially allowing brands to share their ads with new generations of users.

The Amazon audio ads audience is also slightly more affluent than the general population and have a higher spending power—29% of them reported making a purchase online purchase every day.10

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Customers who are music lovers

Remember, music streaming is the primary interaction on smart speakers.11 And the category of music can make a difference too: Country music is the most-played genre in the US on Amazon Music’s ad-supported tier.12 Those listeners over-index compared to the general US population in purchasing groceries online or on an app, and they have a higher interest in smart home devices.13 Also, country music is followed by pop music, where listeners are more likely to stream TV and movies online; and rock music, where listeners are more likely to go online or use apps for banking and investment purposes.14-15

Conclusion

Amazon audio ads are a great place to get started with audio content marketing. To begin, brands can get in touch with an Amazon Ads account executive and start to use audio to expand their reach. Brands can then add their audio ads to the ad-supported tier of Amazon Music. That also includes mobile and desktop, as well.

1 Edison Research, 2021, US
2 eMarketer, April 2021, US
3 MRI Simmons Cord Evolution Study, April 2021, US
4-5 Connected Consumer Study, 2021, USA
6-7 Edison Infinite Dial Report, 2021, USA
8, 11 MRI Simmons Cord Evolution Study, July 2021, USA
9 MRI Simmons, Spring 2021, USA
10 Amazon Ads and Ipsos, 2021, US
12 Average total plays Amazon Music ad-supported tier, USA, Jul-Sep 2021
13 Global Web Index: Country Music Listeners (17M Listeners) US Gen Pop (202M)
14 Global Web Index: Pop Music Listeners (17M Listeners) US Gen Pop (202M)
15 Global Web Index: Rock Music Listeners (17M Listeners) US Gen Pop (202M)