Performance Audio Is Becoming a Global Conversation

By Arthur Larrey, Co-Founder & CEO, Audion

One of the most interesting things about working across global advertising markets is seeing similar consumer behaviors take shape in very different places. Digital audio is one of the clearest examples. Across Europe, the U.S., Australia and other mature advertising markets, streaming music and podcasts have become part of everyday life, accompanying commutes, workouts, workdays, shopping trips and time at home.

Americans now spend roughly four hours a day with audio, according to Edison Research, while weekly online audio listening has reached 76% of the U.S. population age 12 and older. Edison also estimates that Americans now consume 812 million hours of podcasts every week, compared with 167 million in 2016. Similar adoption patterns have emerged elsewhere. In the UK, 74% of people age 16 and older consume online audio weekly, while New Zealand reports 76% monthly streamed audio consumption and 55% monthly podcast listening.

The rise of video podcasts has accelerated this shift and made the distinction between audio and video less meaningful for consumers. A podcast might begin on YouTube, continue on Spotify and generate conversation through short-form social video, all while remaining part of the same content experience. 

Mainstream Adoption Is Changing Media Strategy

The tools marketers use to buy and measure media are beginning to reflect those behaviors. Better audience data, programmatic buying, attribution and independent measurement have made it easier to evaluate digital audio alongside other performance channels.

Recent initiatives from the IAB and the AMP Task Force represent the next stage of that evolution. Both groups are introducing consistent measurement standards that make it easier to compare digital audio with other performance channels based on incremental reach and business outcomes.

For marketers, that changes where audio belongs in the media plan. Rather than occupying a separate awareness budget, digital audio can increasingly be evaluated alongside other performance investments based on incremental reach, customer acquisition and business outcomes.

The Performance Question Is About Incrementality

The most direct question marketers can ask is whether adding digital audio improves the overall effectiveness of the media plan. Advertisers should know whether digital audio reached consumers other channels missed and whether those consumers took action.

We are beginning to see useful evidence that it is. In Europe, the independent measurement company FLUZO examined two national campaigns that combined traditional radio with digital audio across digital radio, YouTube, and Spotify. Using a representative panel of 2,000 people, FLUZO measured actual campaign exposure and identified the incremental audience generated by digital audio.

For a French national banking network, adding digital audio increased campaign reach from 62% to 71.6%. The largest incremental gains came among adults ages 35–54 and those over 55. In a separate campaign for a French energy supplier, digital audio added 2.87 percentage points of overall reach. Among adults ages 18–34, it accounted for 53% of the campaign’s total reach.

This is not to suggest that two French campaigns establish a universal benchmark for digital audio, but they do illustrate how incrementality helps marketers understand audio’s contribution to the broader media plan. Rather than evaluating audio in isolation, marketers can measure its contribution to the overall effectiveness of the media mix and identify audiences that would otherwise have been missed.

Some macro evidence points to the market moving in the same direction: Edison’s 2026 Podcast Consumer research also found that 76% of weekly podcast consumers said they had taken some form of action after hearing a podcast advertisement, including visiting a website, seeking more information or making a purchase.

 

A Global Shift in Performance Thinking

That is why the context for all of this listening is so important. People consume audio while driving, exercising, cooking, commuting, shopping and working. That gives marketers access to moments of consumer attention that often exist outside the environments where search, social and display advertising typically compete.

For performance marketers, the question is whether audio can make the overall media plan work harder by finding additional consumers and generating outcomes that established channels would not have produced on their own. That is ultimately the promise of incrementality, and it is a much more interesting way to evaluate digital audio than treating it as another source of impressions.

What interests me most is how similar the underlying opportunity is becoming. Consumers have built listening into their daily lives, the advertising infrastructure around that behavior is becoming more sophisticated, and marketers everywhere are looking for incremental growth. Performance audio is increasingly being evaluated like every other performance channel: whether it helps make the overall media plan more effective.