Programmatic audio will start finding its voice in 2025

Music and podcasts soundtrack my day — from music in the office, to a podcast at the gym, to the radio when cooking dinner. I listen to The News Agents podcast daily and often find myself speaking in unison over their sponsor’s tagline when it plays before the intro — an advertiser’s ad recall dream come true.

As someone who has worked within media buying for over eight years, I’m not naive enough to think my own media consumption habits reflect those of consumers across the U.K., but in the case of audio, U.K. consumers are broadly exceeding my own audio use. GWI reports that 29% of consumers’ daily time spent with media is dedicated to podcasts and music streaming, compared to 25% on social media.

At the same time, research from IAB in 2023 found that in both 2021 and 2022, audio equated to 1% of total digital ad spend, with a moderate growth forecast. With so much opportunity, why does that gap between media usage and investment exist? Why isn’t audio investment more prominent across the programmatic plans that cross my desk?

As programmatic digital audio matures, it is creating lots of new and innovative opportunities — in 2024, we saw clients tap in to interesting approaches using weather triggers, omnichannel activations and in-game audio on their digital audio campaigns.

I believe this will only accelerate in 2025.

Many of our clients are regional, and we have found that digital audio is effective in delivering a brand-awareness message to specific geos across the U.K. Programmatic enables us to be flexible and balance budget based on scale, while also being reactive and quickly switching on a campaign across premium digital radio, streaming and podcast environments at a moment’s notice.

As digital audio gains more prominence across broader omnichannel media plans, we have found many clients looking at how to pair digital audio with other channels, with one popular combination being digital audio and programmatic digital out-of-home.

We expect to see audio ads in different environments over the next few years, especially as media consumption continues to shift. Will we hear audio ads integrated within wearables, smart homes or in outdoor environments? There are a lot of hypotheticals, but here’s what I predict:

1. An improvement in audience targeting abilities as more audio publishers continue to utilize their first-party data to create more off-the-shelf segments, as well as bespoke options. When targeting specific areas in the U.K., third-party data tends to limit reach and availability, especially when layered on within the demand-side platform. The option for more addressable targeting that is scalable will be a massive factor for driving digital audio growth across programmatic.
2. With the increased availability of retail media within the U.K., this is likely to play a part in audience targeting options throughout next year. This offers really exciting opportunities for most clients, specifically fast-moving consumer goods advertisers that can tap in to rich data signals to feed their audio approaches, as well as their wider programmatic strategies.
3. One current barrier we find with our clients for audio is production. From my experience, if a client isn’t considering radio within the briefing process, digital audio isn’t often considered an option due to the cost of creating the asset. Further access to audio creative support and automation — such as repurposing video assets by stripping the audio, or support and creation from AI tools may feed into more widespread digital audio adoption.
4. Following on from the above point, I expect to see the growth of personalization within audio ads supported by advancements in artificial intelligence. Previously, personalization at scale is often less accessible due to cost of production; however with more opportunities through AI, I expect to hear more ads that have dynamic messaging (e.g., location-based), are trigger-based (including potential bespoke triggers, aside from just weather), as well as have different voiceovers tailored to region or audience.
5. As digital audio matures, we also expect this channel to broaden its approach across the funnel. Primarily we use audio as an awareness channel due to a mixture of broader audience targeting and fewer measurement options. Alongside the job it does at the top of the funnel, we see this moving into more of a consideration or performance driver as well — especially when more technology is becoming available in tracking actions taken from exposure to an audio ad.
6. We expect more of a synergy between traditional audio (e.g., radio) and programmatic — looking at how these work together for incremental reach and how that can tackle fragmentation between planning teams. In 2024, we saw a significantly more briefs looking at linear TV and connected TV in relation to incrementality. As audio grows within programmatic plans, I expect to see similar conversations in relation to traditional audio buys, as well as other programmatic channels.

Overall, we see programmatic digital audio as a channel with new and exciting prospects. With channel maturity and innovation comes investment, so as we move into 2025, we expect that gap between share of investment and audio usage will continue to shrink.

This op-ed represents the views and opinions of the author and not of The Current, a division of The Trade Desk, or The Trade Desk. The appearance of the op-ed on The Current does not constitute an endorsement by The Current or The Trade Desk.