Google Turns Off the Radio — Too Bad!
Google Audio Ads — a service that sells broadcast radio advertising over the Web — will end on May 31. We covered how marketers were using the AdWords-based system for airing ads across the country at a low cost. I thought it was an interesting service that illustrated the breadth of Google’s advertising ambitions.
The marketers we talked to for the article thought the service was much cheaper and easier than buying ads direct from radio stations.
Steven Wagner, President, Kudzu Consultancy, one of my sources for the original story, had stopped using Audio Ads in December, mainly because his clients didn’t need them, he says. But that does not mean he did not enjoy the service.
“It was a great deal…We still saw that big markets, or even niches, were incredibly effective and cost effective…It was so simple. It took something that was so difficult and inefficient at times and made it so easy,” Wagner says.
“Someone at the corporate level could, through a Web browser, buy radio advertising at a discount without the need of an agency to do the media buying.”
Wagner says he’ll miss the product — but will he still be advertising on the radio?
“Nope. Definitely not…It’s too much of a hassle, and you’d be paying a premium.”
It sounds like Google just closed a cheap advertising gateway.
Categories: Media Buying broadcast, Google, radio
Yes, it was cheap, but I always wondered how effective it was. The beauty of Google is that you can tie marketing spend to results, tracking inbound leads all the way through to sales.
Although the Audio Ads program provided economy of scale, I think marketers weren’t quite convinced to jump into “old” media, just because it was provided as a service by a new media company.