The Internet Radio Ad Load Report for Q3 2015 showed a small growth in advertisers, but a reduction in the frequency of the top advertisers. The spots are getting spread around among more advertisers. In Q3, Retail and the combined Media, Entertainment & Gaming (MEG) group were again the top two industries represented in Internet radio ads followed by Restaurants and Automotive. However, MEG grew rapidly and represented 25% of all advertisers identified in the quarter.
Automotive was steady with Q2 while restaurants made a big surge to surpass 10% of advertisers—the industry’s highest level since Q4 2014. Healthcare and Business Services continued a two quarter decline while other industries tended to fluctuate. An interesting point to note was that the Consumer Electronics industry disappeared from Internet radio advertising completely. CE advertisers may still be out there, but didn’t appear in our sample and have never been broad users of the channel.
No Media, Entertainment & Gaming Advertisers Rise to Top of Spot Load Charts
Three of the top 10 Internet radio advertisers by spot load in Q3 were retailers, three were restaurants and one was an automaker. No MEG advertisers made the top 10 spot load list. Two insurers did make the list even though they represented only 4.7% of all distinct advertisers compared to MEG’s 25%. The key lesson here is that broad industry participation in Internet radio doesn’t necessarily translate into spot load leadership. Instead, there are a lot of MEG advertisers that are conducting small ad buys and a few insurers that are making large ad buys.
You might also think that music would be the big driver of MEG participation. In reality, it represents less than one-fourth of the industry group’s advertisers or 6.1% overall. Even if you eliminated the music industry from the group, it would still be almost 50% higher than retail which came in at number two overall in the quarter.
To read more about advertising practices and trends in Internet radio, download the Internet Radio Ad Load Report below.
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