Report: Where Audio Ads Can Reach Potential Voters

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Edison Research

It's an election year and campaigns are once again tasked with refining their messages and connecting with their voter targets. This week Edison Research's Insight looks at its Share of Ear dataset to see how to efficiently reach members of different voting groups with audio ads. The firm says it's important to emphasize that campaigns at all levels should be putting more of their money into audio. Fully 84% of the voting-age public is reached by ad-supported audio daily.

But when the company looks at how listening time is allotted, there are some differences. As the chart below illustrates, Republicans listen to more AM/FM Radio than other groups, with an index of 109 (or 9% more listening than average). The ad-supported spoken-word channels on SiriusXM are a particularly efficient place to find Republicans, with an index of 146.

Meanwhile, podcasts stand out as the more efficient platform for reaching Democrats, indexing at 121. And what about those Independents, who often tip an election? Both streaming music, and in particular music videos on YouTube, over-deliver for these potential voters, with indexes of 103 and 123 respectively.

Regardless of the party that buyers are trying to reach with political ads, audio stands out as a superior pathway to reaching voters. Audio provides enormous audiences and often a far less cluttered political environment than other ad channels.