Creative Drives Sales More Than Targeting, Studies Show

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, August 4, 2025 | 1:50pm CT

Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group

A new series of studies from NCSolutions, TikTok, and Podscribe is challenging longstanding assumptions in media buying and advertising strategy. According to the latest Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group blog, authored by Pierre Bouvard, the most effective driver of sales isn't advanced targeting or ad placement -- it's creative quality.

NCSolutions found that creative accounts for 50% of a campaign's sales impact, far more than marketers typically assume. A February, 2025 study by Advertiser Perceptions revealed that advertisers believe creative contributes only 21% to sales, while placing targeting at the top. In contrast, NCSolutions data shows targeting drives just 11% of sales -- less than half what marketers expect.

Supporting this, a major TikTok-backed study conducted by brand tracker Tracksuit found that brands with high aided awareness see purchase conversions nearly three times higher than those with low awareness. "Be known before you're needed" was the message: awareness significantly amplifies performance marketing impact.

Podscribe's analysis of over 20 billion podcast impressions across 240 advertisers revealed that small and mid-sized podcasts -- those with under 750,000 monthly impressions -- achieve double the purchase conversions of larger shows. These smaller audiences tend to be more engaged, contributing to lower cost per acquisition (CPA).

Notably, several commonly debated ad tactics -- including single-show versus run-of-network placement, host-read versus producer-read ads, and varying ad lengths from 30 to 75 seconds -- deliver roughly equal cost efficiency when adjusted for CPMs. Even pre-roll and mid-roll placements were found to perform similarly, while post-roll ads lagged with higher CPAs and lower conversion.

Podcast ad impact is not immediate. Only 17% of site visits occur within the first day of an ad airing, while 80% unfold over a 30-day period. According to the "Profit Ability 2" meta-analysis by Ebiquity, nearly 60% of total advertising profit impact occurs between 14 weeks and two years after exposure.

The report also emphasizes that genre and product category play key roles in conversion success. Though the top ten podcast genres had similar CPA rates, variations exist in performance across advertising categories, underlining the importance of category benchmarks.

Creative strategist Chris Smith summed it up: "A radio spot is not a hotel -- you don't have to fill all the space." He and other experts encourage advertisers to focus their message rather than overwhelm listeners with dense content.

Read the entire blg post here.