SCA in March launched three big tech bets for its LiSTNR master app – a customer data platform (CDP), customer-specific data matching clean rooms and dynamic creative optimisation. The bets are paying off and SCA is no longer reliant on third party data sources. Execs say the platform and its 2.1m logged-in users already command over 40 per cent of all digital audio ad dollars, helping SCA’s $50m investment reach breakeven a year ahead of schedule. LiSTNR is now moving into the next phase of audience matching, granular targeting and attribution via its own first party data and ANZ spend data. Its first API-connection based on fuel price changes went so well – landing multiple briefs within weeks – that LiSTNR’s launching 20 more across five categories including finance, property, travel, weather and utilities. “Whatever the agency or brands want to work on, we're able to activate those APIs quite quickly,” per LiSTNR commercial boss Oliver Newton.

It’s also launching ‘mood targeting’, i.e. contextual ads for brands based on what audiences are listening to, as well as audio retargeting. Next year LiSTNR will also be able to tell brands the carbon impact of their campaigns across SCA’s assets thanks to a partnership with emissions mapping platform, Scope3. Newton reckons CO2 measurement credentials will be table stakes as advertisers move into negotiation mode for 2025 – especially for larger firms newly mandated to report emissions data, of which advertising and marketing is an eye-wateringly large chunk.

The advertiser adoption curve is steepening. In June, 20 per cent of LiSTNR campaigns made use of the Adtech Hub. By September that had jumped to 33 per cent. Next year LiSTNR aims for 45-50 per cent, according to head of SCAiQ Abi Wallis. She says brands are buying-in because they can target people based on where they are, what they are doing, and which brands they are buying. They can suppress existing customers and target only new potential customers based on their listening and spending habits, or likewise upsell and cross-sell to their existing customers, with sharper smarts and context, tailored dynamic creative, and with the spend and audience data enabling “a real world view of the impact” and ROI.

LiSTNR’s new capabilities put it on a par with the big tech platforms, per Wallis and Newton, if not beyond – and the opportunity to harness the Adtech Hub is not limited to big brands. “Agency or direct … It’s there to be utilised by anyone looking to access digital audio,” says Newton.

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