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Get the low down from Claritas and SXM Media on what's new in the world of campaign measurement, from advances in podcast and digital audio advertising to CPG and purchase cards.
Claritas helps companies find customers. Through our podcasts we hope to help you better understand consumers, why they buy, and how they prefer to interact with you. We'll explore topics important to today's marketers so we can get you one step closer to your next customer.
Monique 0:10
Hello, and welcome to the marketing insider, a podcast for marketers focused on finding and targeting their ideal customers at scale. I'm your host Monique Ruiz. You may have noticed we took a break from the podcast last month. But we're back with our final episode of 2022. And it's a good one if I don't say so myself, we're diving back into a very popular topic measurement and attribution across channels like digital audio or radio with some call it podcasting and even retail when it comes to debit and credit card purchases. Yes, we've had many episodes about this before, but the speed at which innovations are happening in retail measurement and the adoption rate of new podcast listeners. Plus the return on advertising investment for digital audio means we need to constantly update you on what's new and exciting. So your marketing dollars are working for and not against you. To help me kick off the conversation. I've invited back Omar Jelani, VP of Sales here at Clara toss. Later, we'll be joined by our friends at SX M media. That first Omer Welcome back to the marketing Insider.
Omer 1:17
Thank you, Monique. It's great to be back with you.
Monique 1:19
So you've been on the podcast enough now that our regular listeners know who you are. But for those new folks we've picked up since her last appearance. Can you just quickly remind everyone what your role in areas of expertise here at Clara tasar?
Omer 1:32
Yeah, absolutely. So I focus on business development sales for our optimized team. And the optimized team is really focused on advertising, measurement and attribution. And I guess more specifically, over the past few years, we all experience an exciting growth in the audio ecosystem. So that has really driven lots of our growth on the optimized team where we're helping brands and agencies and publishers more effectively measure the their audio buys and their audio inventory across podcasts streaming and, and we're also dabbling into the terrestrial am FM radio space as well.
Monique 2:14
Very cool. So hopping straight into these questions. I see this a lot. But measurement has historically been slightly overlooked part of marketing, which is partly why we focus on it so much. Since the last time you were on the podcast, we've enhanced our own measurement and attribution process. What's new that you can share? Yeah,
Omer 2:34
I guess the big new thing for us, you know, we've we've always been a pixel based solution. And, you know, as I talk about this, I'm thinking more under the lens of audio, where, you know, we would append our pixel to the various ad servers to be able to capture any kind of dynamically inserted creative, but we recently introduced our prefix URL or otherwise known as RSS prefix, which enables us to capture baked in or embedded ad reads in podcast. You know, it has always been a big part of the podcast ecosystem. But you know, we were always focused on our pixel based solution. So the prefix URL really allows us to capture any kind of podcast advertising inventory, whether it's dynamically inserted, or organically kind of host read baked in, embedded into the podcast. So I guess that's one of the big new things for us on the audio front.
Monique 3:35
Okay. So is there a reason why an advertiser Whitten only use a baked in AD, for example? Or is there a kind of a use case where the dynamically inserted ads are a little bit more effective?
Omer 3:48
Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, over the past few years, we've seen this sort of shift to increasingly advertisers and publishers, really delivering dynamic dynamic ads. And, you know, it allows for for sort of more effective monetization. So I guess, really quickly baked in, when I say baked in or embedded, typically what that implies is that the host, who's you know, whose podcast it is, is organically promoting a brand within the podcast. So it's kind of part of that recording, and it's not inserted on the fly. Now, the nice thing about that is that it's there in perpetuity, that ad will live in that podcast forever. But, you know, from a publisher standpoint, because that's inventory that's kind of taken forever, they can sort of go back into back catalogs and on some popular podcast and insert a different ad. So from from an advertiser standpoint, they obviously liked they liked the baked in because it obviously lives there forever. But as I said, from a publisher standpoint, they want to they want to be able to more effectively my monetize their inventory. So they are typically going more and more to dynamic. But that that brings up the question, you know what the value prop, if you will, baked in ads or organic ad reads tend to be a much higher CPM. Okay. So you're getting that implicit endorsement by an oftentimes a well known host. Whereas dynamic insertion, you know, it opens up, you know, lots of opportunities, one, you know, most compelling of which it's typically much cheaper from a CPM standpoint. The other thing is with dynamic, you can more effectively target a listener, you know, now we're podcasts really understand who their listeners are. And, you know, we work with some podcasts to help them really profile their audiences. So then they can dynamically insert ads to a specific demographic or psychographic profile of listener. So there's, there's kind of pros and cons to both. And that's why we felt like we had to have kind of an all encompassing solution for both baked in as well as dynamic.
Monique 6:08
Yeah, that makes total sense. I might have missed it if you mentioned this. But at a high level is the measurement process similar for the two options that are baked in versus the dynamic ads,
Omer 6:19
it's similar but not the same. So what is dynamic is sort of more in tune to kind of what we're used to, from a digital marketing standpoint, where our pixel is inserted, are appended to the ad creative within the ad server. So these are companies like ads with rt 19. Triton megaphone, there's a host of companies that are dynamic ad servers. And just like, you know, in any kind of digital environment, when that ad creative fires are pixel fires with it piggybacked to that creative fire, with with baked in embedded, because that has been sort of inserted into the overall recording of that podcast, we can't insert a pixel, you know, in the middle of a podcast when that ad reads, so this prefix URL or RSS prefix, it's basically a URL that is appended to the podcasts, RSS feed. So when I, as a listener, go to Apple or Spotify, or wherever I download my podcast, when I click to download a podcast, our prefix will fire prior to that podcast actually being downloaded on the user's device, which then allows us to capture that implied ad exposure, we're still getting the same identifiers, things like IP address, user agent, obviously, date and time of download. But it's just done in a different technical delivery, if you will.
Monique 7:49
It is cool to hear the behind the scenes of how these things actually work. So thank you for explaining that course. Let's talk about another measurement capability that we've been doing some work around, which I mentioned in the in the introduction. Can you just kind of quickly talk to us about what's going on with Purchase Card measurement here at Clara toss?
Omer 8:09
Yeah, absolutely. So when you think of Purchase Card measurement, typically we're thinking of traditionally brick and mortar retailers, companies like Dick's Sporting Goods or Macy's, those big brick and mortar retailers. Also food delivery, drive, ridership programs, things that you the customer is typically charging on their credit or debit cards. Right. Now traditionally, we would measure foot traffic or visitation measurement would be kind of a proxy for measuring the effectiveness of various advertising. And we still do that but excitingly, you know, through this partnership with affinity solutions, who has access to a ton of debit and credit card transactions at a household level, we can start to now measure the effectiveness of the lift of credit card or debit card transactions for a retailer and attribute it to an audio by be it podcast or streaming audio. The way we're doing that is all of the exposure capture is all the same, nothing changes there, whether it's our pixels or through our RSS prefix, we're capturing the exposure and everything we do on the attribution front is connecting it to a household in the United States. So we're doing that the same way as we would for any other campaign. However, on the back end, what we're doing is once we've matched to a household, we are then translating that household ID typically through a an ID translator like a live ramp or there's some others, where affinity Solutions has all of their data also linked to a live ramp where they can then capture the exposure data from Claire toss through a ID translator, and then do the actual attribution, measure the lift in credit debit card transactions over a certain period of time. Now I will qualify this Monique is that this is kind of a beta launch for us. So it's relatively new. So I can't get into the weeds as much as I would like to. But we're really excited about it. And again, we think it opens up many doors and ultimately continues to present Claire toss as kind of an all encompassing measurement solution where it's not just a digital visit or online visit, you know, it can be foot traffic, it can be offline, we've done things in the CPG space, I think we've talked about in the, to measure CPG sales lift. So, you know, we're continually evolving our measurement solutions to really fit the market demand and needs of the marketers.
Monique 10:41
Yeah, definitely, since I've kind of chewed your ear long enough. And it is the end of the year, when everyone is looking for answers on what the future will hold. I'll end with this final question for you. So what's the next innovation, we're kind of keeping our eyes on,
Omer 10:57
what I would say is kind of some of the things that we're looking at to help marketers and publishers going forward is MTA which stands for multi touch attribution. And that allows for a brand or a partner to measure various channels. In concert in a unified approach, I might be a listener that downloads a podcast, and I might be exposed to a podcast ad. And a couple of days later, I might be exposed to a streaming streaming audio ad for that same brand. And even a few days later, I might be exposed on my laptop to a display ad or a search ad for that same brand. So it's really trying to insert audio into that sort of omni channel approach, where we can then start to look at the relative effectiveness of each touchpoint in that in that consumer journey to purchase. And many brands already do conduct MTA. But I would say that audio is kind of the one big channel that has traditionally not been included in MTA solution. So we will be introducing our MTA solution in q1 of this coming year, so only a few weeks away. So that's pretty exciting. The other thing that I would say is that, as you know, Claire cause is closed loop marketing solution. And we have tons of audience insights on US households. So what I would like to see net more of next year is our partners to really leverage the true breadth and scope of our solutions where not only can we measure the effectiveness of a specific media campaign, but we can enable Audience Insights for that campaign, for example, which audience groups demographics psychographics, were kind of the highest indexing exposed groups. And more importantly, which groups were the highest indexing converting groups, where then that allows them to kind of hone in on a specific consumer that's driving performance, and then help them kind of find more listeners or more consumers that fit that profile, ultimately giving them sort of a more effective, more efficient means to drive advertising. And I think we can play a big role in that as well. And then the final, the final thing that I'll say just really quickly is we're seeing big growth in the connected TV OTT space. So with with connected TV, advanced TV, we're where we were with podcasts like three or four years ago, where brands are really starting to kind of gravitate towards connected TV, advanced TV buys. But there's still limited measurement capabilities truly kind of with strong defensible methodologies. So I think that's another area where we're really excited about I'm gonna see see some growth next year.
Monique 13:47
Very cool. And part of the reason why we have this podcast is to expose our listeners to what we can do what's being done in the industry and what's working, what's not working. So hopefully, you'll pick up some tips from us and start to incorporate those ideas into your marketing strategies or start budgeting out for adding some new data some new tech into your your mix. Well, Omar, always a pleasure having you here on the marketing Insider. Thank you for joining me.
Omer 14:15
Thanks so much, Monique. It was a pleasure. Happy holidays.
Monique 14:18
Yeah, you as well. So we're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break and when I return I'll be joined by SX M media.
Monique 14:35
We're back from our commercial break and I'm now joined by Paul Reese. Mendell, Senior Director of Marketing and insights at SX M media. Paul, welcome to the marketing Insider.
Paul 14:45
Oh, thanks for having me, Monique.
Monique 14:47
Of course so we've not had you or SX M media on the podcast despite collaborating quite a few other places. So can we start our conversation by having you introduce yourself and letting our listeners know Now, a little bit more about you and who SX N is?
Paul 15:04
Sure I've been heading up ad effectiveness really specifically for podcasted s XM. I've been in the industry a very long time, really since before we had ad effectiveness that was scalable for podcasting. I worked for a company called mid roll, we changed our name to Stitcher. And we've been acquired by Sirius XM, and Pandora, back in October of 2020. So that's how I came on board now working with a much larger sales research and ad effectiveness team. So you know, I helped coordinate, you know, every day making studies happen on different podcast campaigns, measuring with Claritas, in many cases for attribution, and attribution lift. And then also, you know, I work a lot on trying to leverage those insights. Right, so not just deliver results to clients, which of course, we always want to do to live a really great results. But to look under the hood and see what's working, what's not, why is it working? And what are the trends? What do we see happening with podcasts, ads, in particular, and increasingly, across audio ads in general?
Monique 16:17
Nice. So very similar to what Omar does. And we, you know, we just had him on the podcast. So we had him on to help us understand a few of the advances that have happened in the industry in the past year or so including kind of what's happening, what's new with measurement and optimization solutions for advertisers. But I'm going to focus our conversations specifically on podcasting. Whereas Omer and I talked a little podcasting, we talked a little bit of streaming audio, so podcasting with you. And let's start with the homepage of your website, which says you connect listeners in meaningful ways across satellite radio, streaming radio, and podcasting. But what are some examples of those meaningful ways advertisers look to you to help them connect with podcast listening
Paul 17:04
audiences. Contents, of course, the biggest part of the puzzle, having a really large array of fantastic podcasters fantastic programming, that's also quite diverse. Right? So that it's, it's across many different audiences. And now, you know, cutting across not just an English language, but especially a lot in Spanish language as well. That that's always going to be upfront. And first, and so we've got well over 400 exclusive programs in podcasting that we represent. So that's the ability to, to directly connect brands, to these podcasts and their audiences. And then we also have a much larger, broader network of nearly 5000, non exclusive podcasts so well, which you don't buy directly. But what you can do is buy via audience and other targeting methodologies. And so what that allows us to do is to is to give you both that sort of bespoke sort of podcast experience, using often using host read ads, right where the host is representing your brand to they're really engaged listeners, or other sorts of creative like an announcer read advertisement, which we can do for more scale. So it really allows us to kind of not have a one size fits all solution for brands they could really come in. And we could really say, okay, we can, we can help kind of push the message in this particular way with a host, we could really lean in there, we can also really help you reach the kind of scale that you need the reach that you need, by bringing in other audiences throughout podcasting, either, you know, by demography, or by using psychographics.
Monique 18:51
Yeah, you kind of already jumped ahead and answered my next question. But let me ask it anyways, because you might have some other ones that you could bring up. But the channels that you guys operate in are not new, but there still are a lot of advertisers that have yet to take advantage of them, especially advertising on podcasts. So what are some of the main benefits in addition to what you just said, to incorporating podcasting into your marketing mix versus some of those more traditional formats like TV or like email advertising,
Paul 19:21
podcast listeners are leaned in, they're engaged, they are paying attention. And so they really respond to advertisements differently, that audiences respond in other channels. We see them time and time and again, especially through you know, performance metrics through what we see in attribution, and in lift and an interesting thing we're also seeing about podcasts is that the podcasts themselves are often delivery incremental audience. And what I mean by that is that podcast listeners tell us and we're we survey them that even when they're hearing the ads from a fairly large, prominent national brand with a very large omni channel presence, that in the last 30 days, they actually only encountered an ad for that brand on podcast, right? They're very, very focused on that podcast listening and experience such that that's where they remembering the brain from not not necessarily from television, radio, digital email, and these other places. Right, right. And so that's kind of amazing, right? And it is because we have that kind of engagement. And when you think about a podcast, ad creative, it's spoken, it's spoken within a spoken word medium, right. And that means that the ad flows, right, it's not a disruption to what the listener is, is tuned into, it's a continuation of that. It requires a different approach as well, you don't need to do the same intention getting devices you might need to do in another medium where you are interrupting the flow. But it means that that listeners Hang on, right? They don't necessarily tune out, because they hear that they're much more likely to beat to have that kind of engagement,
Monique 21:16
kind of speaking of the success that advertisers might see through this channel. We recently teamed up to measure the effectiveness of podcast advertising for one of the largest Furniture and Mattress retailers in the country. Can you give us a little bit about this success story and explain how you work with partners like us here at Clara toss to help brands or retailers achieve their goals and then measure how successful they were in the end.
Paul 21:40
Ultimately, it was very, very successful. We saw definitive lifts, right? We saw incrementality, in terms of listeners going and engaging with the brand on their website, as well as ultimately incremental lifts in purchases, right, that there are real sales. So there's real role as that can be attached to this campaign. You know, and I think one of the creators are good, the brand spends a lot of time the on those creatives. And they were good. And that's, that's an element of podcasts, as I always want people to remember. It's not that I think of advertising that any advertiser doesn't pay attention to creators, right, of course, it's an incredible part of it. But sometimes, there's a tendency to think once you sort of have a creative strategy that you can just sort of use targeting then to optimize. But what we've learned time and again, again, by looking at the ads and measuring them with attribution, and lift and Brand Lift studies and other other sorts of methodologies is that there are ways to tweak and optimize the ads. But it's in many cases, that simple things, make it clear who the brand is, by telling listeners a few times who the brand is making sure there's a very clear call to action. What do you want listeners to do? Because what we've learned is sounds very obvious. If you tell listeners something, they tend to remember, if you tell them maybe twice, they remember it more than once and he doesn't mean you need to sort of beat them over the head with messaging, right? There's really artful and organic ways to make sure that these messages are clear. And and coming across multiple times in an ad. It doesn't have to be boring. In fact, it can be very, very engaging. But we know we know that this works. And there's another factor in it right that brands that decide to get into podcasting. Here's a great, immediate kind of halo effect. Listeners notice, like, oh, wow, that brand design podcasts. Yeah. Wow. They're supporting my favorite show. You've heard it right. You've had that experience. Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, so if it's like a sort of a more well known national brand, it may make listeners go, Oh, wow. They pay a little more attention. And they think, wow, that's really cool. I'm really excited that that this brand has chosen to support my favorite show. In some cases, you know, maybe, even though it may be a well known brand, maybe listeners haven't heard it before. So there's a little bit that novelty, right. And they're like, Oh, what's this? This is kind of cool. Wow. All right. So I'm hearing about I'm hearing about these these first home furnishings here. Okay, I kind of hadn't, maybe I hadn't considered this brand, right. Yep, exactly. I used to always go here. Well, maybe now I'll check them out. Right? Oh, I can do it online. Or, you know, and there's all these different things that information can get in front of listeners, right. And that kind of, I think there really is this bump when when a new brand comes into the medium. And in some cases, you know, there's still a lot of verticals that aren't really well represented in podcasts. I mean, what an opportunity there because you get ahead of you get ahead of the game, right you can, it can really be a true first mover advantage. Vantage for a lot of brands and a lot of verticals.
Monique 25:02
So the campaign that we're kind of referencing specifically, we do have it up on our website, so I'll make sure to link it in the description box. But basically, the campaign saw helped them see a lift in purchase conversions, homepage visits, store location searches, so it really was super successful. So check out the description box, you can grab that link and check out the written case study. But let's go ahead and move on. So this episode of our podcast is coming after one we did around Hispanic Heritage Month and you already talked about making podcasts available in Spanish. But how does SX M's network cater to diverse audiences,
Paul 25:41
we try to bring in that content. So you know, for instance, we're working with two very large Spanish language podcasts networks, Pitaya, and robear. You know, so that is really allowed us to greatly expand how well we can connect brands to Spanish speaking Hispanic and Latin X audiences, right. But we're always, always looking to grow that diversity. For instance, SX M reaches the largest share of women podcast listeners in the US. And that's according that's according to Edison Research. We're also co sponsors of Edison researches women's podcast report. So trying to learn much more about women's listening habits, you know, how women engage with podcasts and engage with the brand's podcasts. So always looking to push the boundary and make sure that we are onboarding diverse creators who therefore resonate with diverse audiences.
Monique 26:40
That's great to hear and glad that you guys are championing that cause I mentioned that we've had some collaborations, one of those was teaming up on a few webinars recently from I can measure that to the five point inspection for your auto podcast strategy and others over the years. But what kind of response? Have you heard from webinar attendees about the type of content you're putting out there to help them improve their marketing strategies?
Paul 27:07
Well, that first webinar you mentioned, was our most well attended webinar period. So I think we're really seeing a hunger in the marketplace to better understand podcasts, and really to better understand how to measure that performance. But I understand that, that people need facts, they need data, I can give you a great anecdotal case of why podcasts are great. But it's critical for us to back this up with the performance and with other sorts of data audience analytics, right understanding who's in the audience, and how do they respond? It's one big package, because that's what best equips brands and buyers to make these decisions of how to invest in in where to invest. What I've learned is within agencies and within brands, often there's one or two champions for podcasts, and they need to build a case, right, they need to get their teams on board, often they need to get higher ups on board. And it's really important than to make sure we're serving out the kind of information that helps them to do that.
Monique 28:11
One final question for you, Paul, before we wrap things up, because we aren't running short on time, but what's on the forecast to trend in 2023 when it comes to podcasting? And is there anything on its way out as yesterday's news?
Paul 28:25
Content, it's going to be content, that's what brings in new audiences, right. So the way that podcasting grows as a medium, it is because one person, one listener at a time, finds a host finds a show, that brings them into the medium. And sometimes there are audiences that aren't yet in podcast, because there may be isn't quite the show to serve them. Right. And so it really is about the constant development of content. And not just repeating what has worked already. But taking some chances and looking towards, you know, bringing in either personalities, perhaps who have been successful, maybe in social media successful in other media, helping to show their listeners the power of podcasts. And it's not as simple as just find a big celebrity and bring them the podcast, because, you know, they have to have a talent for it. They have to be good at it. And of course, you know, that is the job of producers. That is the job of podcast networks. So I think that's going to continue to be a really important trend going into the next year. You know, I think we're going to see a growth in technologies that simply just make it easier to buy podcasts. We're definitely seeing a lot of growth in programmatic, which really helps a lot of brands and buyers to buy podcasts on you know, the basis that they want to in a way that in some cases is more convenient for them. And we're going to see continued growth in targeting I think that that's going to be very important, even as a lot of those identifiers that we get start to become more deprecated. Right, with much more, either privacy regulation, or, you know, companies like Google and Apple becoming much more privacy centric. I think these are all trends we're going to see and a trend I hope we see. And I know that we're going to push very much at SSM. It's really Furthermore, taking all the insights that we're that we're gaining campaign after Campaign Measurement after measurement, and turning those into usable insights, turning it into really a playbook, right. So that, that buyers today can take advantage of the accrued knowledge now, of the last five to seven years of podcast advertising, right and really be ahead of the game in a lot of ways than those first, pioneering brands. They kind of had to make it up as they went along. Right before they we had a really robust third party measurement like we like we have today. And certainly a place I know that SSM is going to is going to invest. And I see that industry trend as well. I think it's absolutely necessary for for the space to grow.
Monique 31:17
Excellent. Well, Paul, it's been a short but sweet conversation and it has been a pleasure. Tell us where can our listeners go to connect with you connect with SX, Sam? And is there anything upcoming for you guys that you want to go ahead and plug in these last couple of minutes.
Paul 31:33
So you could certainly learn more about s XM media by going to SX M, the three letters S XM media.com. If you want to connect with me, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn, just get my last name right R I S M A N D L and you know, coming up, we're gonna have a really great presence at CES. We're really I think diversity is really going to be in diversity of content and audiences is really going to be top of mind. So I know that LeVar Burton, who is the host of our podcasts LeVar Burton reads, he'll be there at CES, along with our own SVP of marketing and ad innovation. Lizzy Wilhelm and our global head of revenue partnerships, Kelly Hurley will be there. So for those who are going to see yes, definitely check us out there.
Monique 32:25
Perfect. We'll make sure to add some of those links in our description box of listeners. Please check that out if you haven't already. And, Paul, thank you again for joining me on the marketing Insider. Thank you. Alright, and with that, that does it for our final episode of our 2022 Season of The Marketing insider at Clara toss podcast. I want to again give a big thank you to our guests, Omar Jelani and Paul Reese Mandel. And thank you to those of you listening at home or on the go. Whether this is the first time you've stumbled upon our small but mighty podcast, or if you've been here from the very beginning. We appreciate the support and hope to bring you even more new and exciting topics and episodes in our 2023 season. Happy holidays everyone. See you next year.