Brief:
- Procter & Gamble and StubHub are among the first companies to test Pandora's new audience measurement tools, per information the audio streaming service shared with Mobile Marketer. Pandora this week introduced its "Test & Tune" software, validated by media researcher Kantar, to help advertisers measure ad performance.
- The companies are testing the Pandora Surveys feature in Test & Tune that lets brands ask audiences direct questions to gain more consumer insights, including information about ad recall. Pandora Surveys offers listeners an hour of ad-free listening in exchange for taking a survey, Adweek reported.
- Test & Tune's Sales Lift feature can help marketers measure the effect of their advertising on sales, using data provided by an unnamed provider of credit card data, Pandora said in a blog post.
Insight:
Procter & Gamble and StubHub's tests of Pandora's new ad measurement tools come as the audio streaming platform continues to build out services for marketers seeking to reach the company's 63 million listeners. Test & Tunes aims to help advertisers evaluate their marketing strategies by pairing ad exposure data with other metrics, including data gleaned from surveys and credit card payments. Pandora plans to add additional features such as A/B testing, split testing and client-side tags, Adweek reported.
"StubHub's use of Pandora Surveys provided valuable insights on how the campaign resonated with our audience," Leah Atkinson, StubHub's head of media strategy, said in a statement to Mobile Marketer. "Incrementality is at the center of everything we do with regard to measurement so it will be interesting to see how the ability to read lift on business metrics (i.e. revenue) specifically associated with exposure to Pandora audio campaigns advances and progresses."
Pandora's Test & Tunes software follows other efforts to expand its functionality for advertisers. The company last month updated its app to let users gain access to its Premium tier that costs $10 a month, or $110 a year, for ad-free listening. After watching a 15-second video, app users gain access to full albums, premium playlists and new music without having to pay a monthly subscription fee. Beer brand Heineken was among the first advertisers to test the video ad format. Later in the month, Pandora introduced interactive ads that respond to voice commands. Nestlé, Unilever, PepsiCo and several other companies participated in a test of the voice-powered ads.
Pandora's Test & Tunes software arrives as rival Spotify, which also has an ad-supported tier, introduces new features for advertisers. Spotify last week introduced a podcast advertising technology called Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI) to provide data on ad impressions, frequency and reach, along with anonymized data about age, gender and listeners' device type. Athletic brand Puma was among the sponsors to test the tech.
