Using Google’s Ad Manager to Incorporate Audio Ads Into Your UA Strategy

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek sees an $18 billion potential for Spotify to move radio ads online. And Google shares its bullishness — using its mobile developer tools to open the door to make the lucrative audio ad market accessible to every app publisher and developer with its expanded audio features for programmatic audio ads and audio inventory in Ad Manager.

These new features, which made headlines in early August, will make it easier for publishers to monetize podcasts and other streaming audio across devices, while also allowing ad buyers an easier way to get into the audio advertising gme.. With the playing field leveled, mobile app developers must integrate audio ads into their Autumn 2020 marketing strategy to diversify their offerings.

The new features build on familiar tools to expand the value of Google Marketplace audio ads. Mobile Marketing Magazine reported that the new features are now available in Ad Manager and Display and Video 360 (DV360). These new ad features include dynamic ad insertion, programmatic monetization, and audio ad forecasting tools.

Google’s vision for audio ads

Carol Walport, the Product Manager for Google Ad Manager, assured Google Ad Manager users in a blog post that the Ad Manager team would continue to explore and enhance podcast monetization solutions. Walport wrote that ad solutions are only the beginning of Google’s strategy to simplify and increase podcast monetization options.

Walport foresees the new features as reducing the gaps that audio advertising has had in merging with online advertising. In the past, “audio advertising required publishers to directly sell audio ads or to retrofit their ads into a digital audio ad format.” Now, Google will also allow advertisers to engage in partnerships with industry leading music and podcast content providers, like Pandora, Soundcloud, and Spotify.

Why you should integrate audio ads into your mobile marketing strategy

Hubspot found that “as of 2020, Google’s search algorithms are trying to transcend text to images, voice/ podcasts, and videos.” Meanwhile, by April 2020, 30 million podcast episodes existed. Along with the wealth of podcast content available, 75% of Americans over the age of 12, which is approximately 212 million people, were actively consuming podcast content. The Hubspot survey finds that 100 million Americans are now reached via podcast content every month.

Because a majority of streaming service consumers listen to audio content on their mobile devices, audio ads are integral to an effective mobile marketing scheme. Going forward, audio ads will be just as integral to a well-rounded user acquisition campaign as any other channel (just think about all those Best Fiends ads you hear on your favorite podcast).