Introduction
This article is a complete guide to audio advertising in 2022!
You will learn about:
- The fundamentals of audio advertising
- The benefits of audio advertising
- How to make an awesome audio ad that will bring you more sales
- How and where you can launch it
So, if you want to learn about audio advertising and implement it into your business, you’re at the right place.
Ready? Let’s jump right in!
Fundamentals
In this chapter, you will learn the fundamentals of audio advertising.
If you’re new to audio advertising you will enjoy this section and, if you’re a bit more advanced, it never hurts to go through the fundamentals again.
In later chapters, we will go deeper into benefits, ways and places to launch voice ads but, for now, let’s cover the basics.
What is audio advertising?
Audio advertising refers to the delivery of ads in an audio format. The method of promoting any business or project in audio formats is audio advertising.
Audio ads are inserted in audio content (music, podcast) and can be broadcasted on many devices (voice assistants, voice bots, phones, radios…)
What are the different types of audio ads and channels?
There are different types of audio advertisements.
“Normal” Audio ads: These are generally audio messages that you can encounter at any time while listening to content. These are your typical radio ads.
Ad sequencing: This is when you have several ads coming in chronological order to create a story. It creates more brand awareness and can increase the interest of the user who will like to know the end of the story. This can be a trick to make voice ads more impactful.
Skippable ads: These are the same ones that you have on youtube where it says “skip the ad”. In these ones, you have to catch the attention of the user in a couple of seconds.
And a new type of audio ad is growing these days…
The new generation of audio ads
I’ll end the suspense here!
The new types of audio ads that should have a massive impact in the coming years are conversational ads.
Based on conversational AI, brands can have interactive ads that are a conversation between the brand and the user. This enables the user to express their real needs and the brand to gather some voice data.
If you want to know more about voice data or conversational AI, check out our post on the topic.
Audio ads in numbers
There are a lot of impressive numbers around the topic but just for you I gathered the best numbers here:
According to Emarketer, the overall spending on audio ads was 16.80 billion dollars in 2021.
According to Statista, by 2025, digital audio advertising will reach as many people as radio advertising (215.4 million vs. 221.9 million). In 2021 the radio was still dominant with 217 million against 169 million, but the tables are turning.
This should lead to an increase from 5.59 to 7.89 billion dollars in spending on digital audio advertising from 2021 to 2025 according to Emarketer.
If companies are willing to spend this much on digital audio advertising, it’s because it is working and with conversational audio ads coming up, this number will only increase!
Let’s now see why audio ads are working so well!
Benefits
In this chapter, I will give the main benefits of audio advertising.
Some of them might sound obvious but I am pretty sure you don’t know all of them yet!
So, if you’re thinking of diving into audio advertising, after this chapter, you will be convinced!
High-Targeted Audience and Higher Reach
The good thing with audio content is that it’s easy to target customers.
Usually people who listen to the same podcast would l be interested in the same products too.
It’s more difficult to target with the radio and the music in general but there will still be some similarities between radio channel audiences and similar people who tend to listen to the same kind of music.
You can not only target per podcast or or music but also by localisation which can be very interesting if you are a local store such as a coffee shop or a bar.
This works by setting up a radius around a specific localisation and all people within that perimeter could potentially face the ad.
Also stats have shown that audio advertising usually has higher reach: In 2021, according to Statista, after listening to an audio ad, 53% of people searched for more information about the product and 29% made a purchase.
Engage Your Listeners to Take Action + deep
When people listen to audio content (especially podcasts), they are usually more engaged than when scrolling through visual content on platforms like TikTok or YouTube.
Indeed, think about it: when you listen to something, you have to really focus on what the person says because there are no visuals to back their words. Your brain naturally engages through yout imagination of such visuals.
People’s attention usually switches quicker in visual advertisements compared to audio.
A call to action is often stronger by voice as you talk to your customers and you have all their attention.
That’s because, when you hear something, it triggers your imagination which is way stronger than seeing visuals.
Think about how scary it is to hear some noises in the dark rather than in broad daylight. Our imagination is powerful!
In a nutshell, audio surpasses visual advertising by allowing you to connect at a deeper level with prospects.
Cost-Effective and easy to track
First of all, radio ads are more expensive than digital audio ads. It is also easier to track the number of people listening to your ads, following your calls to action, and even buying your products.
Digital audio ads provide way more data which makes it easier to track the success of an advertising campaign.
When it comes to conversational ads, the data is even more complete as you get accurate data on how many people replied and what they replied. This data is really precious as your customer talks directly to you.
Digital audio ads are also cheaper than video advertising!
Creating an audio ad can cost you less than $1,000. For video ads if you want something of a good quality it rarely goes below $2,000.
You won’t gert lost running voice ads. Just like visual ad campaigns, you can see track the time people listen to the ad or click through rate, but also what customers replied when you run conversational ads.
With Vocads’ platform, you will have access to lot’s of data from your campaign, If you want to know more about the data you could get from audio ads, follow the link here.
Reach people anytime.
With audio ads you can reach people in a lot more situations than with video ads.
You can reach people while they jog, cook, workout, chill.
You might think “yes but I want the full attention of the listener”. Well even if the listener is doing something else, if your ad is good, you will catch their attention!
It’s another reason why conversational ads are powerful, the ad will wait for the listener to reply which will trigger their attention.
No one replies to something they didn’t understand, right?
Easier to create than you think
Audio ads are easier to create than you think!
You can contact voices.com. They provide you the opportunity to create good audio ads in over 100 languages by offering voice actors to hire.
Another option is to use Spotify Ad Studio, Spotify’s in-house studio. They take care of almost everything for you!
Check this video to learn more!
Finally, you can have conversational voice ads on your website.
Yes it’s possible thanks to Vocads’ technology!
Create a voice campaign on your website and add an audio message at any point to offer a new product or discount to your customer by voice!
If you want to learn more, follow the link here.
How to make an audio ad?
Now that you know the benefits let’s look at how you can make an audio ad that will make you stand out!
Here, you will understand everything by putting yourself in your customers shoes!
Then I’ll take you through different tips to make it as good as possible!
Let’s dive in!
Write your script
First you should start by writing your script!
You want to have all the words from your ads written down. Even before hiring the right voice actors (we’ll be discussing that later), you can try saying your script with the right rhythm and intensity in front of different people to see if it’s good.
You should not leave anything to chance!
Voice actors
Audio advertising is all about the sounds, so make sure you hire a voice actor with a voice that your prospects will feel comfortable with!
You can even try different ones to be sure you have the perfect fit for your ads!
You can find voice actors on voices.com website or respeecher for voice cloning!
What makes a good audio ad?
Keep your ad as simple as possible with a clear CTA
If the listener had one thing to remember from your ad what would it be?
Your message has to be super clear, simple and well organized.
You don’t have much time, and your listener doesn’t either.
Start with the key information and then develop it, even if your repeat things it doesn’t matter as people tend to remember things better when they hear them several times!
Your call to action should arrive like the obvious next step to take for the customer (ex: go to this page, reply to the ad, go to the store…)
Avoid loud background music
Having loud background music is terrible for the listeners.
Not only will it provide a bad experience to the listener and you won’t be able to spread your message, but they will then be less receptive to your ads in general as they had a bad experience before.
So yes, it’s important to have music in your audio ad but it’s better for it to be not loud enough than too loud!
Speak slow and use a conversational tone
It’s better to say less but that the listeners understand!
Keep your tone conversational: your ad will sound more friendly and it will make people more likely to reply to conversational ads as they feel they are be part of the conversation!
They will have more time to think about their reply and to process what you said. This will contrast nicely with audio or video ads where people speak like they are running a sprint.
Be friendly
The more friendly your ad sounds, the more people will be willing to interact with it.
People listen to so many ads where they are confronted with a pushy call to action. Don’t do this, it will damage your brand image.
Stay consistent!
Think about what your listenters will be listening to before hearing your ad, you want them to stay in the same mood so they doesn’t have an unpleasant shock!
Your voice ad strategy is not independent from your overall voice strategy. Think about getting the best from the benefits of audio advertising while still staying coherent with your other advertising channels.
Use serial ads
This is not something you HAVE to do but it can be a good idea to get in the head of the customer if you have the budget.
It will create a real story around your brand. Which will increase the likelihood of your brand getting in the head of the customer.
You don’t need to create a series of 8 ads but even just 2 or 3 that follow a story will make you stand out.
Use visual concept
Using very visuals concepts and descriptions will trigger your listener’s imagination which is a very very powerful tool.
This can lead to a higher engagement rate and will increase the chances that people remember your content.
Where and how to launch your audio ad?
There are different places where you can launch your audio ads.
- Music apps such as Amazon Music, Deezer, Spotify, SoundCloud or Youtube Music.
- Podcast apps such as Stitcher or Pandora.
- Website: with Vocads’ technology you can now have interactive audio ads on your website. This is a new way to make revenues for any business by integrating voice ads on your website.
- Let’s not forget about the good old traditional radio ads.
How to launch it?
To launch your ad you need to connect to a platform that allows audio ads.
Then, depending on the platform, you will be able to target where you want your ads to be placed (podcast, music…).
You will be able to decide if your ad should be played at the start, in the middle or at the end of the content.
Finally, depending on the platform, you will have different target options to make sure the people that listen to your content are the ones you wanted from the start.
If you want to target a specific podcast, reach out directly to the creator as it’s the best way to ensure your audio ads get listened to. You will not be able to see the same metrics but it can be efficient!
Conclusion
Overall voice ads are very promising especially conversational ads which will enable brands to engage with customers on a new level.
You can use Vocads to create your conversational ads on your website.
I hope you enjoyed this article on audio advertising and that you will launch you next audio ads as soon as possible.
You now have all the steps and tips to create the best audio ads ever.
Now I want to hear from YOU!
