SXM Media Launches Audio Ad Tech That Identifies Listeners

SXM Media, the combined advertising sales organization that includes SiriusXM, Pandora and Stitcher, on Monday announced the launch of AudioID, an identity solution that aims to recognize individual listeners across platforms and reduce the fragmentation challenges that have hampered digital audio. Powered by AdsWizz, a digital audio advertising platform under the SXM Media umbrella, AudioID stitches together a variety of different data to create an audio identity of listeners within the SXM Media universe. To create these anonymized personas, AudioID uses information such as the profiles consumers create, device IDs, high-quality IP addresses and other signals. As a result, the technology can identify listeners whether they are consuming audio on mobile, their browser, through a smart speaker or in the car, said Chris Record, svp and head of ad product, technology and operations, at SXM Media and AdsWizz. 7 Publishers on What's in Store for 2022 “For more than a decade, our in-house data platform has helped buyers plan, manage and measure effective digital audio ad campaigns and bring solutions like advanced targeting and measurement to the table,” said Scott Walker, svp and head of ad platform strategy at SXM Media and AdsWizz. “The advent of AudioID allows us to take many of these capabilities and scale them beyond our walls, providing more reach, increased transparency and deeper audience insights, all in a privacy-first and listener-centric way.” SXM Media has 55 million podcast listeners monthly across its 5,000 available shows, and its total audience across all touchpoints reaches 150 million people, according to the company. The release of AudioID comes on the heels of its September announcement that marketers could now use one access point to purchase programmatic ads across its entire inventory, including podcasts from NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC. The world of audio ad technology has evolved at a rapid clip over the last two years, as the ballooning number of regular podcast listeners––now 104 million, according to MediaRadar––has prompted significant investment in the space. In 2021, advertisers spent $590 million on the top 500 podcasts. Spotify, a key driver of this uptick, recently introduced clickable ads into its app, providing marketers with a new touchpoint in the hopes of improving conversions and measurability. With the release of AudioID, SXM Media hopes to entice further ad spending in its network and continue the evolution of its podcasting arm. Stitching together listener information Traditionally, audio identifiers have focused on device-based solutions, which provided a certain level of information about a listener based on devices, for example, their mobile usage versus their car usage. This fragmented environment makes it difficult to create an accurate profile of a consumer across the various ways they consume audio, making ad frequency and reporting difficult. AudioID's anonymized IDs will marry with the years of first-party data it has collected across the millions of known Pandora, SiriusXM and Stitcher listeners. Going forward, the product will continue to weigh more heavily what users listen to rather than their personal information, Record said. AudioID will be opt-in for SXM Media partners, meaning that it will remain an optional solution for external parties. Publishers’ data will be segregated, and identity data signals that inform AudioID will carry flags that specify for what purposes and properties each data point can be used. Later this year, any audio publisher or podcaster in the U.S. that opts into the SXM Media and AdsWizz network will be able to use AudioID, Walker said. Longer-term, the company is pushing for industry-wide adoption of the framework, bringing consistency of measurement to the fractured ecosystem. Getting listener buy-in Despite all of the data points that it will incorporate, AudioID will still struggle to accurately identify listeners across all the platforms they use to consume audio, said Gretchen Smith, vp of media and creative at Ad Results Media. “It’s probabilistic,” Smith told Adweek. “They’re making very educated guesses, but it’s never going to be a perfect science.” Still, much of audio advertising still relies on identifying methods that would be considered rudimentary compared to their digital counterparts, such as user surveys, Nielsen ratings and demographic cohorts, Smith said. Any advance that offers a more precise picture of a listenership is a step forward. The technology makes SXM Media more appealing for marketers, said Mathew Passy, founder of The Podcast Consultant, but the network still needs to expand its podcast base to meaningfully move the needle. Listeners are not going to switch to SXM Media because of its latest ad tech innovation, Pasy told Adweek, and marketers will ultimately go to where the scale is. “Spotify and Apple, depending on the data you look at, account for between 70% and 90% of overall podcast consumption,” Passy said. “This could work well, but they’ll need adoption from other parts of the ecosystem.” Correction: SXM Media has 55 million podcast listeners, not 44 million as Adweek originally wrote. Marketing Leaders Are Amplifying Results by Tapping Into Audio

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