Google launches programmatic audio ads

Google announced that DoubleClick Bid Manager, its DSP (demand-side platform), will now feature programmatic audio ads that can be placed on Spotify, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Pandora, and Google Play Music.

According to Jean-Claude Homawoo, product manager for DoubleClick, 1.2 billion people will use a music streaming service by 2018 globally. The programmatic audio ads allow advertisers and agencies to reach a passive content-consumption audience across music and podcast streaming, he added.

The announcement did not mention Google's hardware devices such as Home and other IoT devices as platforms for ad broadcasting, and a spokesperson from Google said that audio ads are not related to Google Assistant.

"Our first goal with the Google Assistant is to provide users with the best possible experience, helping them get things done in their day to day lives," the spokesperson said. "You’ll see us focused on that for awhile."

Zuzanna Gierlinska, the head of Spotify in Europe, has been running programmatic audio ads since 2016 and was quoted in the announcement as being optimistic about advertisers using DoubleClick Bid Manager to use video, display, and audio ad formats on Spotify to reach audiences.

An early adopter of the service, MightyHive was quoted to have achieved ad completion rates over 95% and a 0.11% clickthrough rate.