With 42.36 million monthly listeners, Pandora is one of the most popular music streaming platforms on the internet. That’s a lot of listeners just waiting to hear your message!
Are you ready to learn how to expand your reach and build your brand awareness by advertising on Pandora? Keep reading as Jenna Long, Director of Paid Media, explains the strategies used to help clients capitalize on those captive and engaged listeners through Pandora Ads.
What’s Covered:
- What is Pandora?
- Benefits of Advertising on Pandora
- Ad Formats Available on Pandora
- Setting Up a Pandora Advertising Campaign
- Measuring Campaign Success
- Tips for Pandora Advertising
- Looking at Pandora’s Market Position Now
What is Pandora?
Pandora is a music streaming service that allows people who are online to listen to their favorite songs. Due to licensing requirements, Pandora is only available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Its acquisition by Sirius XM in 2019 positioned the two brands as a powerful audio platform for artists and advertisers.
The service plays music for the user based on his or her preferences in musical artists. For example, if the user likes Def Leppard, the service will conclude that the user is a heavy metal music fan and play that type of music.
The playlist is further enhanced by a feature that allows the user to provide positive or negative feedback about each song that the service selects. The system’s algorithm will take that feedback into account when selecting future songs.
The algorithm comes into play when it comes to Pandora advertising, too. This super-specific targeting can help advertisers reach new audiences through audio, display, video, and rewarded ads that capture attention and build brand awareness and loyalty.
Benefits of Advertising on Pandora
There are many reasons to advertise on Pandora. Some of the most popular benefits include:
- Precise Targeting: With Pandora, you’ll have access to 1 billion data points to narrow your target audience down by things like language settings, content categories, activity, mood, location, and more.
- Market-Leading: Pandora is the #1 streaming service in ad-supported audio via SiriusXM. It is a leader in 202 US markets and has the largest share of daily listening users.
- High User Engagement: Nearly half of Pandora’s listeners (48%) have been with the platform for over a decade. That means they are reliable listeners who like what they hear and are more likely to interact with your ads.
- Measurable ROI: Pandora music advertising integrates with multiple measurement tools and solutions to make tracking things like brand lift, location, conversions, and sales lift easy and understandable.
- Flexible Budgeting: Pandora radio advertising costs vary and are designed to fit every budget, whether you’re an enterprise corporation or a small business.
- Diverse Ad Formats: Whether you want to reach your audience through audio, video, or rich media, Pandora offers an ad format that will fit your needs.
- Access to Multiple Platforms: Pandora is part of the SiriusXM family, which means you have access to SiriusXM, Pandora, SoundCloud, and podcasts.
- Extensive Support Network: One of the highlights of advertising with Pandora is that they offer a variety of tools to help you produce the best possible content, including: Fluency, their in-house cultural practice, Studio Resonate, their in-house creative department, and AQ Academy, their free, self-paced courses designed to help you understand the world of streaming.
Excellent Targeting Abilities for Online Radio
If you’re a savvy marketer and noticed how Pandora customizes its playlist to each user’s taste, then there’s one word that must have popped into your head: “targeted.”
That’s the beautiful thing about advertising with Pandora. It allows you to market your brand to a highly targeted group of people, whether they’re moms who like classical music or fitness enthusiasts who live in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Simply put, Pandora is an excellent option, comparatively speaking when looking at other radio and TV outlets, in delivering ads to a very specific, highly targeted market.
StubHub
Ticket retailer, StubHub, turned to Pandora Ads to create a streamlined ad campaign that highlighted their tickets for music, sports, and comedy events.
They used dynamic and sequential audio ads to reach a more personalized audience. These ads ended up accounting for over 2 million page visits, a 6.6% increase in brand recall, and a lift of 7+% in purchase intent. The campaign produced 1,893 order confirmations with an average spend of $263.99 per order.
Ad Formats Available on Pandora
Think Pandora only offers audio advertising? Think again! Commercials on Pandora come in a number of formats.
Audio Ads
Let’s start with audio Pandora advertising. These pre-produced audio ads run across Pandora and select SiriusXM channels. To make the most of your audio ads, you should keep your messages short and simple. The most successful audio ads:
- Run between 30 and 60 seconds
- Are conversational in tone
- Are recorded as MP3 or 16 bit Wav, at no less than 320kbps and 44.1kHz rate
Magnum Ice Cream
Magnum Ice Cream used Pandora Ads to introduce its new line of ice cream bars to Pandora listeners. The campaign included:
- Immersive 3D audio ads
- Gamified display ads to unlock uninterrupted listening
- Podcast ads
- A live-music event with branded photo ops and products
The campaign resulted in millions of impressions. The live event was attended by thousands of people, and the brand experienced a high lift in sentiment and purchase intent.
If you need help producing a professional audio ad, Pandora’s in-house creative agency, Studio Resonate, can help you create one your listeners will love!
Display Ads
There are two types of displays ads on Pandora: display banners and web skins. Display banners run across all platforms, whereas web skins integrate your brand, messaging, and colors throughout the app with special skins.
Dove
The popular beauty brand, Dove, used Pandora’s display ads in their #KeepHerConfident campaign. The campaign involved:
- Audio ads of interviews with female athletes
- 3D audio ads and a custom podcast episode with tennis-great Venus Williams
- Interactive shopping components with retailers like CVS and Walgreens
It had 103 million audio impressions and received a 98% positive sentiment. The bonus podcast episode received over 240 positive comments.
You can work with the Pandora team or another media agency to create rich media ads that capture attention. By using animated interstitials and carousels, you can create an interactive experience that makes your brand stand out from your competitors.
Video Ads
Video ads are another option for your Pandora Ads. Video ads are offered with a 100% SOV. Pandora was one of the first advertising platforms to offer auto-play video, providing a viewability rate of between 80 to 90%.
Successful video ads run between 15 and 30 seconds and are site-served. Mobile and tablet devices support vertical-shot video content.
Universal Technical Institute
Technical school, Universal Technical Institute, used Pandora ads to increase enrollment in their transportation industry technician training program.
Over the course of 2 years, their campaign relied on mobile audio, mobile video, and mobile display ads specifically targeted to high school grads in specific geographic locations. They tracked three types of conversions: click-through, hear-through, and view-through rates.
The successful campaign ended up increasing their leads by over 365% and decreasing the cost per lead by 72%.
Rewarded Ads
Another option for advertising on Pandora are Rewarded Ads. When listeners listen to your entire ad, they are rewarded with four hours of uninterrupted listening. Because of this reward, listeners are more likely to listen to your ad the entire way through.
These ads are available as video or interactive display ads. The most successful ones:
- Have a clear opening message
- Run between 10-60 seconds of audio or 2:30 for video ads
- Abide by the technical specifications for video and carousels
- Use a clear CTA of 11 characters or less from this list: Buy Now, Download, Get Started, Get Tickets, Go, Learn More, More, Order Now, Shop Now, Vote Now, Watch, Watch More, Watch Now
Reaching Your Target Market
Because Pandora has been personalizing the listening experience of its users for a decade, the company knows a thing or two about analytics. That works to your advantage when you’re interested in reaching a very specific market.
The software uses one billion daily data points. Those are pieces of information that are available to you as an advertiser to take your marketing message to exactly the right people.
The service also has 300 audience segments, giving you the opportunity to tailor-fit your ad copy in a way that’s relevant to various demographics. For example, you might want a different ad copy for women living in than you do for men . Pandora gives you that flexibility.
As Pandora says: with its advertising, you get “more of who you want.”
Setting Up a Pandora Advertising Campaign
You can get started with Pandora advertising by setting up an account with AudioGo, Pandora’s online ad manager. This dashboard lets you control everything from your budgets to your ad targeting. It’s also where you upload campaign assets, schedule your ads, and monitor performance.
They offer two different types of dashboards – one for brands and one for agencies that manage multiple brands. Regardless of which dashboard you need, setting up a campaign starts by following these steps:
- Set up your advertising account through a SiriusXM Media Sales Representative. You can also work with a specialized digital marketing agency who already has an existing relationship with Pandora and Sirius XM to bypass this process.
- Define your campaign objectives. Do you want to raise brand awareness, focus on lead generation, or drive sales? Your objective will determine your strategy.
- Identify your target audience using Pandora’s extensive demographic and targeting data.
- Decide which type of ad you want to run. You can choose between audio, video, display, or sponsored content.
- Create compelling ad content that is clear, concise, and consistent with your branding. Always be sure to mention your brand name early and include a clear call-to-action so your listeners know what to do next.
- Set your budget and decide on your bidding strategy. SiriusXM offers multiple types of bidding strategies, including Direct IO and Programmatic, to keep Pandora advertising costs within your budget.
- Install tracking pixels and establish which key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to focus on.
- Once your ad is live, be sure to monitor and analyze your KPIs to ensure you’re getting the results you want.
Local Advertising
You don’t have to be a national brand to take advantage of Pandora Ads. Whether you own a mom-and-pop sandwich shop in rural West Virginia or a bookstore in Wilmington, North Carolina, Pandora has an option for you.
The platform lets you target your local market without wasting ad spend on national targets. It’s a great way to let local listeners know about your specials, what you’re offering, and, most importantly, that you actually exist.
The fact of the matter is that local Pandora advertising might be one of the most overlooked advertising mediums of this era. Local advertising is always a great way to build brand name recognition within a given community and marketing with Pandora is no exception to that rule. With so much inventory and limited adoption, ads can be pretty inexpensive as well.
Remember, you can also combine local advertising with other targeting characteristics and reach a very specific local audience.
Mobile Marketing
As a digital marketer, you already know about the importance of mobile marketing. People who ignore it are destined to lose market share and almost all their mobile traffic.
Pandora is yet another way that you can market to a mobile audience. If you’re interested in gaining an advantage over peers in your industry, look to Pandora radio advertising to reach people that competitors are leaving behind.
Measuring Campaign Success
Of course, the best marketing campaigns are those based on strong data and analytics. Pandora ads are no different. While every campaign’s objectives are different, some of the most popular KPIs include:
- Impressions: How many people were exposed to your ad
- Click-through rates: How many people clicked on your ad
- Conversion: How many people converted after being exposed to your ad
- Cost per acquisition: How much each acquisition cost you
- Engagement rate: How many people engaged with your ad
- Frequency: How often your ad ran
You can track all of these things within your Pandora AudioGo platform. You can also use tools like Google Analytics to set up UTM parameters or Qualtrics to monitor brand awareness before and after campaigns.
If you are having listeners call a certain number, tracking it through a tool like CallRail or Invoca will help you keep track of who is calling from your Pandora ads.
Tips for Pandora Advertising
As with any other advertising platform, there are best practices when it comes to advertising on Pandora. Most of them are based on tried-and-true practices that you’re already using.
- Direct users to a landing page specifically for your Pandora ad. Monitoring who is using that specific URL will help you attribute those sales to your Pandora ad.
- Take advantage of Pandora’s data mining to hyper-target. There’s no reason for you to leave anything to chance when the service gives you so much info about its listeners.
- Promote Pandora radio coupons or sales codes that are specific only to your Pandora ads. This way, when a consumer uses the coupon or code, you’ll know they came from your ad.
- Always have a Pandora radio contact phone number that is different from your existing business number. Just like the codes, it will help you track who is calling from your Pandora ad.
- Be sure to stick within the ad specs provided by Pandora and SiriusXM.
- Choose the type of ad that will resonate with your specific audience the best.
- Create content that is quick and to the point.
- Always be sure to mention your brand within the first few seconds of your ad.
- Give a clear CTA so your listeners know what to do next.
- Monitor your results and don’t be afraid to switch up your creative assets if they aren’t performing like you want.
- Always use A/B testing strategies on your creative assets to make sure that your ads are hitting with the right people at the right time.
- Make sure you cap the frequency of your ads, specifically if you’re targeting a smaller audience. This will help reduce the likelihood of ad fatigue.
- If you aren’t sure how to make Pandora Ads work for you, work with a professional advertising agency who can show you documented success stories of how they’ve made the platform work for their previous clients.
Looking at Pandora’s Market Position Now
Advertisers have been moving their marketing dollars away from traditional TV and radio spots for a while now, and that will probably only continue to happen as more people turn to streaming services. While the online music service has been around for some time, it has continued to grow.
Although Pandora has been seeing a decrease in monthly users in the past few years, the ones that have remained are steady and loyal – exactly the kind of customers most brands want. If you want to target 25 to 34 year olds in the United States, Pandora is where you’ll find them.
Pandora’s connection with SiriusXM also makes it a very valuable way to connect with listeners in a variety of spaces – on their desktops, their mobile devices, and in their cars. Plus, you can repurpose the creative assets you develop for Pandora on other streaming platforms, like Spotify and Amazon Music, to make sure you hit every audience.
Finding Success on Pandora with Ignite Visibility
Whether you’re looking to increase brand lift for your ecommerce brand or schedule more appointments for your home services franchise, Ignite Visibility has you covered.
Our expert team can help you:
- Create compelling Pandora ad content
- Monitor and analyze your campaign’s success
- Expand your reach using your specific campaign objectives and
- Pandora’s outstanding targeting abilities
- Create a comprehensive marketing campaign that spans across streaming services and connects with other areas of content marketing
- And more!
Are you ready to dive into the world of streaming ads?