SmartServing a campaign through Podscribe unlocks a greater level of control and precision over how impressions are served, to maximize performance. SmartServe enables programmatic control on direct buys, although it even works with programmatic buys.
Buyers can use campaign data from all campaigns for a brand that Podscribe is tracking, and their 1st party data to manage frequency and target in ways never before possible.
Ability | Examples |
Manage frequency, using impressions from other campaigns | - Serve ads to only new listeners who have not yet received an ad in another campaign
- Serve up to 2 ads per listener globally, so if they received 1 ad from another campaign, they’ll only get 1 ad on this campaign. |
Exclude customers from targeting | Avoid sending impressions to listeners who already purchased |
Re-target site visitors who did not yet convert | Target listeners who visited the brand’s website in the past 3 months but have not yet purchased |
Create a randomized holdout group for lift testing | Randomly hold out 10% of the audience to be compared against the exposed group for a conversion lift test. This does NOT require sending them actual ads, as Podscribe just marks the IPs as in the control group. |
A/B test creatives | - AB test creatives, randomly dividing audiences into each group. Avoid contamination by excluding listeners exposed on other campaigns, if desired. |
Sequential + Geo Creative Delivery | - sequentially message listeners with creative A first, then B. This can work even if a listener heard creative A, or any ad, on a non-SmartServed campaign
- serve different ads to different users based on geo |
Target by geo | Target only listeners in certain countries, states, cities, DMAs or zips, or block specific geos. Eg if you’re a US brand, prevent host-read impressions from going to non-US listeners. |
Target by show | Select only certain shows in a RON buy to serve impressions to. Or, block certain shows. |
Target by app, device, & device type | Serve impressions to only Spotify iPhone users, or only Apple devices |
Target by episode & content age | Target only certain episodes, or say just episodes published in the past week. |
Target by day of week, and time of day | Select which days of the week or time of day to send ads on, eg only weekdays 5 am - 8pm ET. |
Got another use case not listed? We’d love to talk! Please email adops@podscribe.com to discuss.
FAQ
How is this different from programmatic bought through a DSP?
On a DSP one can adjust what CPMs they bid. However, with SmartServe, you can only control which impressions get served an ad. That being said, there are advantages to SmartServing:
- It can be done for any direct buy (assuming the publisher accepts VAST tags, as almost all do), so any existing direct buys can take advantage of this precision.
- The targeting is configurable within the measurement dashboard, to make it simple to adjust targeting based on measurement to maximize performance.
- More Data Available: a) Unlike DSPs, Podscribe tracks impressions served for the advertiser across all publishers. This allows for global frequency capping, to serve ads to only new listeners who haven’t heard an ad on any other campaign, for example. b) Podscribe likely already ingests site purchase data from the advertiser, to allow for targeting that excludes prior customers, or retargets site visitors, all without needing to place another tag on the site.
Why should I use SmartServe even with my programmatic buys?
If a brand is advertising not solely with one DSP, it is unlikely any DSP is aware of all of the listeners being served the brand’s ads. The DSP may also not be receiving the brand’s customer data, so is not aware of who is converting or the brand’s 1st party segments. Podscribe however is aware of all other listeners across the brand’s full buy that are receiving the brand’s audio ads (not just within one DSP), so SmartServe can use this full context to target smarter, eg global frequency capping across all campaigns, global sequential messaging, cross-publisher/DSP creative A/B tests, etc. If Podscribe is doing attribution for the brand, then SmartServe also can use the brand’s customer data to target smarter, eg avoid sending ads to existing customers, re-target site visitors, send a different message to customers, etc.
Where can I use SmartServe?
Most hosting platforms and DSPs (eg Adswizz, TTD, Pontiac, Viant, etc) support VAST. On Megaphone however support is spotty. SmartServe acceptance is not universal (yet), but most publishers are familiar and accept it. We recommend confirming with any publisher before signing any IOs though if they will accept SmartServe for your campaign.
How does SmartServe exclude prior customers, or listeners of other campaigns, or manage frequency?
Because in podcasting IP is typically the only reliable identifier available, SmartServe primarily identifies listeners based on IP addresses. So, this means that Podscribe will take the IP of a customer, to then not target that IP again, if the targeting is set to exclude prior customers. Similarly, if a global frequency cap of 1 is set, if an IP hears an ad from a campaign, that same IP won’t receive another ad.
When a household’s IP address changes (roughly every month in the US), Podscribe usually can link the household’s new IP using its devices graphs (Experian & TransUnion).
Noisy IP addresses do pose a challenge here, since they have many individuals on them, and may change frequently. If maximum listener identification accuracy is desired, we’d recommend setting the Non-Household IPs to Serve Ads setting to 0%, so the campaign only serves ad to household IPs.
In streaming however, MAIDs are often (on average 50% of the impressions) present. When available, SmartServe will then prioritize using a listener’s MAID over their IP address.
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