Studies: Radio Powers Tax Preparation Brand Effectiveness

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, November 27, 2023 | 3:15pm CT

Cumulus Media and Westwood One

The Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group fielded a series of studies to measure the impact of multiple tax preparation services' AM/FM radio campaigns in 2023. LeadsRx site and search attribution measured the impact of the entire radio campaign for several tax preparation services. MARU/Matchbox and Motionworks brand studies examined brand equity and AM/FM radio campaign effect. Motionworks location attribution quantified the impact of AM/FM radio campaigns on visitation to tax preparation offices. The results of these studies were published on this week's blog.

• AM/FM radio listeners are more likely to be users of online and onsite tax preparation services: According to an April 2023 MARU/Matchbox study of 1,033 respondents, heavy AM/FM radio listeners over-indexed in tax preparation services versus heavy TV viewers both online (116 for heavy AM/FM radio listeners versus 92 for heavy TV viewers) and onsite (144 for AM/FM radio and 63 for TV).

• AM/FM radio is an ideal medium for the tax preparation category: Heavy AM/FM radio listeners are +39% more likely to pay $301+ to have their taxes prepared and show greater familiarity, interest, consideration, and usage of tax category brands.

• AM/FM radio ads drive site traffic for tax preparation brands: In the LeadsRx attribution study of a tax preparation service's multi-wave campaign, AM/FM radio generated between a +43% to +47% increase in website traffic.

• Branding early and often in tax preparation service ads drives more site traffic: LeadsRx found the top three creative executions that drove site traffic for a tax preparation service had the marketer's brand name within the first five seconds of the ad.

• Web interactions peaked for the tax preparation service on Mondays and slowly decreased throughout the week.

• News/Talk and Sports programming attributed web sessions outperformed their share of AM/FM radio campaign impressions.

• While web sessions peaked early in the campaign, Motionworks found location visitation surged in March and April: Markets receiving heavy AM/FM radio campaign investment received significantly greater unique location visitation activity for the tax preparation service brand than markets with light media weight.

• AM/FM radio worked: Easy to mind, easy to find; Aided awareness for a tax preparation service brand was stronger among heavy AM/FM radio listeners.