Rebecca Zedeck

While traditional radio ads may be declining, there’s no doubt we’re still tuning in to listen–it’s just moved online and on our phones. With millions of people listening to music platforms like Spotify and Pandora, and even more joining through podcasts. From 2019 to 2020, the amount of people who have listened to a podcast jumped 51%, which is a massive growth. And Pandora alone has over 118 million subscribers. 

Here’s a rundown of a few of platforms that have the best ROI for advertisers:

1. Spotify

This is a music platform everyone knows, and their advertising game is set up pretty well for most companies to utilize. You can target by age and demographic, as well as music preferences or podcast themes. While it may have a lot of the pluses for targeting the audience you’re looking for, it does cost more to advertise here.

2. Pandora

For about the same cost and targeting abilities as Spotify, Pandora is another popular platform for businesses to advertise on. One thing it does focus on is small to medium businesses, which is something to consider for your brand.

3. National Public Media

Less music, more news might be a good way to describe this platform. Instead of one user, like Spotify or Pandora, this platform enables your ads to reach audiences that listen to multiple channels. Ads are placed, according to targets, on podcasts and radio shows.

4. Placement Services

Not one specific site, but if the larger platforms aren’t within scope or need there are other options that partner to place your ad on specific podcasts or shows that meet the audience criteria you are looking for. Some of these options, like MidRoll, help find places to partner with. While others like AudioGo work more like a self-service platform so that you have more control of what goes on. The benefit to working with services like this has a lot to do with budget, business size and ability to control needs.

This is just a sample of the platforms available. Within each platform can come other useful advertising options or partnerships as well. For example, Spotify audio ads can be paired with graphic banners or videos that play at the same time. Other platforms may offer banner placement in separate contexts, like on a podcast website. 

The options and variables can feel numerous and overwhelming, but that is where good strategy and organization come into play. Start with a strategy of who you’re talking to, where you can find them, and what you have to communicate–this gets the ball rolling for which platforms will work best to meet your goals. 

After you narrow down potential platforms you can weigh the pros and cons of each one. Does it target exactly how you need for your business objectives? Would advertising within this platform give you the ROI you’re expecting? Which platforms best meet your needs and budget concerns?

LinkedIn has become one of the most trusted social platforms used today. It is an indispensable channel for business to business communication, customer prospecting, and lead generation. Ad placement has risen significantly over the past few years, and LinkedIn is continually implementing new tools and strategies for better reach.

We recently attended a LinkedIn Marketing Lab to learn more about the newest updates LinkedIn rolled out the last quarter of 2019, and is planning to roll out through the first half of 2020.

Stronger Targeting 

In the past, LinkedIn targeting was a more direct process. For example, if a profile had Sales Manager as their title, they would be included in your Sales Manager audience. LinkedIn’s new, smarter capabilities can now crawl all areas of a profile to analyze if that user fits within the intended target audience.

This is beneficial because a job description can be just as telling as a title, especially if a user has a less direct job title listed (you know who you are, Assistant to the Regional Manager).

In addition to gleaning more from a profile, LinkedIn has better ways to track and focus geotargeting. This update works with multiple touch points. The first part is allowing people on LinkedIn to more narrowly describe where they are located. From another touchpoint, LinkedIn now searches a users location from profile information as well as IP address.

In addition, when creating ads it’s now possible to target by continent, country, city and designated market area. This type of hyper targeting can help businesses for both B2B marketing and prospective employee searches.

Blended targeting

One of the updates we’re most excited for is the new capabilities surrounding the AND-OR targeting features. Being able to target a group by the title of “Data Scientist” OR the skill level “sales analytics” can increase the reach of the audience you are looking for.

In contrast, adding another qualifier to that same group, like “AND people with 10+ years experience” can narrow the focus to make sure you aren’t targeting people who wouldn’t be interested in your services.

Essentially this new range of options gives us the ability to expand your audience in a focused way to share your message to a stronger subset of people. Along with this benefit, it also allows for more flexibility to test audience types and discover the best target for your ads.

The best news is, we are already working with these new changes in current marketing efforts, and continue to track and analyze the data gained from these new tools for segmentation. Because one thing we love here is seeing results go up. Another thing that makes us happy? The next round of LinkedIn updates we’ve been teased are coming in the next few months!

Stay tuned for more…