The 5-Point Inspection for Your Auto Podcast Strategy | Webinar Recap

What do Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nielsen, and Claritas all have in common? They all recently came together to talk podcast ad strategy for the automotive industry. In our hour-long webinar, "5-Point Inspection for your Auto Podcast Strategy," we covered the five key ways automotive brands can fine-tune their podcast strategy from a variety of perspectives. In case you missed it (or want a refresher), here’s our TLDR.

1. Audience

"When you talk about building a relationship, there's nothing like a podcast and the loyalty that the listeners bring to it.” - Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of StarTalk Radio

• The podcast audience is, in a nutshell, massive. We’re talking 177M listeners, with 109M people tuning in each month—and a 60% increase in listenership compared to last year.

• As podcast audiences continue to grow, so do your marketing tools and resources. For instance, with tools like Nielsen Scarborough, we’ve found that nearly 68% are more likely to buy an EV or hybrid vehicle. And 87% of SXM Media podcast listeners say they’ve taken action on a product after hearing an ad.

• Audience insights are the cornerstone of every successful podcast campaign, and there are partners in the space (ahem, SXM Media) who can help you understand deeper insights about podcast audiences, making your campaigns far more relevant and more effective.

2. Shows

• You may be wondering how you can tell whether shows are safe for your brand. With partners like SXM Media, brand safety and brand suitability are a non-issue. Our brand safety floor satisfies all GARM and IAB guidelines, so none of our content contains anything illegal, explicit, or extremely harmful. We also offer solutions that allow you to exclude shows or even episodes covering topics that might not align with your brand, such as news, politics or religion.

• Still feel like your opportunities for brand and show alignment are limited? Think again. With a whopping 2M podcasts just waiting for your partnership, your options for ad placements and messaging distribution are endless.

• Point blank, the content is why the audiences are showing up. And the beauty of the podcast space is that no content is too niche for automotive marketers. As long as it generates the passion and excitement of loyal listeners, whether it’s gamers or crime junkies, you can rest assured your message will get in the ears of people looking to buy vehicles.

3. Ad Creative

“Not having podcast creative should never be a barrier against you running a podcast campaign.” - Dennis Jackson, Head of Podcasts, Automotive, SXM Media

• Host-read ads (aka the OG of podcast advertising) are your one-stop-shop to easy, effective, and impactful brand messaging in the podcast universe. We already know this type of advertising is loved by many for its ability to use a trusted voice in a brand’s message.

• But your options for quality results don’t stop there. Signal Hill conducted a study demonstrating that 15- and 60-second announcer-read ads that are woven into a show can be just as effective for brand recall as host-read ones.

• Think that not already having a podcast ad creative is a barrier to getting in on the game? Think again. SXM Media has creative consultants at the ready to help you craft the perfect auto ad and deliver bespoke creative audio services at no extra charge.

4. Targeting

• Bye bye general consumer groups. Hello ultra-specific audience targeting. From transcription to contextual targeting, your brand strategy is about to get more granular than ever—so you can get right in the ears of the most unique, desired automotive buyers. 

• With resources like affinity targeting from Nielsen Scarborough and predictive audience targeting (which looks at consumer behaviors and targets them based on podcast content) from comScore, you have countless choices and tools at your disposal.

5. Measurement

“It's pretty simple for us to just focus on the audio category, whether that's podcast, streaming, or in concert with each other. We have the ability to have one unified, holistic view of an audio campaign.” - Omer Jilani, VP of Sales, Claritas

• Brands today have resources available to them like never before. Take, for example, the ability to measure podcasts throughout the entire funnel, all the way from the very top (awareness metrics) down to the bottom (listeners’ online activities directly resulting from podcast ads).

• In addition to answering brand metric questions, the right partners (i.e., Nielsen) have the capability to hone in on key custom questions, such as those pertaining to a client's KPI and listeners’ content engagement.

As leaders in the podcast space, SXM Media’s mission is to help educate marketers of simple ways to navigate, create, execute, and evaluate podcast campaigns. This latest automotive webinar is just a sample of the resources and results we can provide. 

Interested in learning more? Let’s chat.