While audio ads aren’t quite a new invention (the first instance of a recorded audio ad was heard in 1922), the audio industry has witnessed an all-time high of listening and advertising within the last year. Reflected ad spend within the last fiscal year (upwards of $16.8 billion) also suggests that new consumer behaviours have emerged as a result of the pandemic.
After launching its platform in 2020 (right in the thick of the pandemic), Audiomob has created an effective outreach strategy for two rapidly expanding audiences: the audio industry and the mobile gaming market, which now boasts a total of three billion users (and counting) worldwide. With an easy-to-install Unity plugin, Audiomob’s team is helping both mobile game developers and brands increase their revenue non-intrusively by allowing audio ads to be programmatically inserted into gameplay.
While solving the dilemma of disruptive banner-style ads, what other audio ad-related issues is Audiomob helping solve through the audiovisual benefits that are offered by games?
Difficulty with measuring impact
For years, advertisers have noted the difficulty of measuring the impact of audio ads — particularly in regard to their ability to enable conversions and improve site traffic for brands. For one, creating a way for users to seamlessly transition from an audio ad to a corresponding brand’s website or online profile has been a longstanding challenge for both publishers and brands. It has also been hard for advertisers to track impressions and attribute conversions through the audio ad format, making it difficult for brands to measure how many users have expressed interest after listening to an audio ad.
Audiomob’s technology helps solve this problem in two ways: one, with clickable banner ads that can be adjusted and placed outside of the mobile gaming area — and two, with an all-inclusive dashboard that provides real-time data on user activity.
By providing complimentary banner ads (that can be accessed during gameplay without interrupting the player experience), users are given an easy way to access a brand’s website while simultaneously listening to an audio ad. By making these settings easily accessible through a Unity plugin, all that’s needed for game publishers is a simple installation and quick configuration in the settings panel.
The Audiomob advertiser dashboard also provides users with full transparency on how their campaigns are performing - including real-time insights on impressions, spend, clicks and click-through rates.
It’s likely that most of us reading this have knowingly muted our car radio, TV or laptop to avoid hearing or engaging with an intrusive ad.
A lack of visual components in audio ads
The first known instances of audio advertising were largely relegated to early radio broadcasts. Just like how audio ads are received in streaming services or podcasts today, they’ve been long-known to reach listeners in cases where they’re emotionally engaged with a particular medium (in this case, a channel that might be broadcasting music, news or a radio show).
However, as is also the case with radio advertising, a primary concern that has plagued advertisers for years is the lack of a visual component that comes with an audio ad. While some messages can be conveyed effectively through audio, the accompaniment of a visual (whether it be an image or corresponding video) can, in many cases, provide greater levels of context and engagement.
Gaming, which is made engaging by both its audio and visual components, offers the perfect opportunity for audiences to be reached with an audio ad and then also supplemented with a supporting (and interactive) visual. Furthermore, Audiomob provides its mobile gaming partners with clickable banners that add visual components to its audio ads. When an audio ad is played, the banner will appear within a chosen area of the screen.
However, to ensure that the player experience is not disrupted, these banners can be placed anywhere within a mobile game’s playing area (such as at the bottom of the game or in an unaffected corner of the mobile screen). To further ensure that these banners do not interrupt gameplay, they can also be customised to best meet the needs of publishers. Users can adjust the size and placement of each banner ad so that it is viewable, clickable and also non-intrusive.
An inability to detect user activity
It’s likely that most of us reading this have knowingly muted our car radio, TV or laptop to avoid hearing or engaging with an intrusive ad. In the case of audio ads, they’ve always been easily accessible through radio (and in more recent days, podcasts or streaming services) — but have any of these mediums been able to detect whether a user has switched off the volume or turned it down a few notches?
96 percent of brands that link audio with their identity are more likely to be searched by their audiences
Audiomob’s Unity plugin (which is compatible with over 50 percent of all mobile games) is equipped with intelligent audio detection functionalities that allow it to determine if a user has lowered their volume while an audio ad is playing. If a user’s volume is below 30 percent, a prompt is automatically shown to encourage them to unmute and allow the ad to resume playing.
In the case that a user is playing audio from another app (eg. from Spotify, Apple Music or Audible), these smart settings will also trigger the app to pause the audio when an ad is playing and then resume it once it is complete.
Conclusion
A growing use of audio suggests that audio ads are still, on their own, very effective - according to Audiodraft, 96 percent of brands that link audio with their identity are more likely to be searched by their audiences. However, an audio-only approach to advertising still includes its share of potential disadvantages - such as an overall lack of visuals (and thus a lack of a clickable visual), difficulty with tracking metrics and an inability to encourage user behaviour through user-sensitive settings.
Audiomob’s Unity plugin offers a range of successful solutions to these problems, allowing users to easily and seamlessly track activity, click-through rates and overall engagement levels from mobile game players. Backed by a team of experienced game developers, these solutions have been made effective based on an understanding of today’s mobile gaming audiences (which, according to studies, are a demographic of users who are fed up with disruptive advertising - but still very much welcome all types of engagement).
