Media Trends Executive

Media Deals

A stacked bar chart shows U.S. programmatic digital audio ad spending from 2025 to 2028. Spending for 2026 through 2028 is projected. The total spending shows gradual growth from just over $20 billion in 2025, reaching a projected $26 billion by 2028.

U.S. programmatic digital audio ad spend

Audio has been making a bid to become a default media buy through new buying, targeting and measurement tools. 

Why it matters: Ad dollars still lag listening time.

The big picture: The goal is to make audio "so easy to buy, so easy to measure, so easy to understand performance" that advertisers see it as a foundation of their media plans, Sherene Hilal, SiriusXM's senior vice president and chief advertising product officer, told Axios.

SiriusXM reported in its earnings this past week that advertising revenue grew 5% year over year to $454 million, citing strength in podcasting, higher programmatic demand and technology fees.

"Programmatic represents to us a common language around media, and audio should be participating much more visibly than it traditionally has," she said.

The strategy behind SiriusXM's recent deals is not just to prove SiriusXM works, but to "prove audio works," Hilal said.

State of play: Audio players are making the medium easier to buy like other digital media.

SiriusXM has expanded distribution and monetization through deals with Audacy and Tubi. It also became YouTube's exclusive U.S. audio ad representative.

iHeartMedia has been building contextual targeting and brand-suitability tools through Triton Digital's Sounder. It also developed AudioGraph for identity-based planning and outcome attribution in broadcast radio.

Spotify has added more buying tools such as automated bidding, split testing, carousel ads and programmatic guaranteed buying.

Comscore launched transcript-level targeting integrations with Spotify, SiriusXM, Triton and others. Barometer also partnered with Spotify and SiriusXM on episode-level brand suitability targeting.

Between the lines: Another challenge is creating shared measurement standards that capture exposure, recall and influence across platforms.

Hilal said podcasting still relies on downloads as a core metric, even though "that does not mean you listened."

The Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting recently released the AMP Accords, a proposed framework for standardizing podcast measurement across audio and video.

What to watch: Audio is moving across more devices and interactive experiences. SiriusXM is helping Apple develop new protocols for how audio and audio ads are delivered in video-first environments.

"Audio has always been about background and foreground, but now you can actually interact with media," Hilal said. "People can use audio now as a common thread between different platforms, different devices and even different environments."

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Audio companies push new programmatic ad buying and measurement tools

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Audio companies push new programmatic ad buying and measurement tools

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