Dive Brief:
- Jelli, a radio advertising platform, has partnered with iHeartRadio bringing the streaming music service’s entire ad inventory available programmatically.
- Jelli’s SpotPlan for Advertisers offers programmatic ad buying for radio ads across the country, allowing marketers to target radio audiences similar to digital and TV programmatic ad buys.
- Adding radio to programmatic advertising is a logical extension of a trend that is sweeping advertising both on- and offline. Display advertising, where programmatic has a well-established beachhead, is expected to be 67% programmatic this year, according to eMarketer.
Dive Insight:
Jelli CEO Mike Dougherty told Adweek that the company’s mission is “to make buying radio ads as easy as it is to buy a Facebook ad online.” According to Jelli, its platform should cut the time required to buy radio ads from weeks to minutes.
About the new agreement, iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman told Adweek, "The landscape is changing. Radio is taking on a new importance to people, but the buying and selling of it doesn't match the way advertisers want to do it today, which is they want it to be automated, they want it to be immediate, they want data-infused buying more than just demographics and we're able to do that today."
Even though programmatic ad buying remains something of a misunderstood tactic, industry trends indicate it’s a process that marketers should become familiar with.
Jelli pointed out in a press release about the news, radio is a $40 billion global advertising business. As digital marketing becomes more data-driven, and as programmatic continues to rise, integrating in radio could help reduce inefficiencies.
“Radio is emerging as an exciting new area for programmatic advertising, combining the inherent reach of the medium with self-service demand-side technology, advanced data integration and large scale automated guaranteed and private exchanges," Karsten Weide, program vp of media and entertainment at IDC, said in a statement about the news.