Imagine you’re shopping for a new kettle, or even a car. You search for it, and the top sponsored result is from a brand you’ve never heard of. The price looks fair and the wording is clear, but something makes you stop and not want to click. Who is this brand? Can you trust them? Will the product even arrive?

Most of us have scrolled past a result like that and picked a name we know further down the page instead. So what would give that shopper the confidence to click? And could hearing about the brand earlier, on the radio during the school run or in a favourite podcast, make the difference?

Why many people hesitate to click paid search and social ads

Search and social are central to many performance marketing plans. However, research from Radiocentre suggests a large share of people are wary of paid activity.

In their Sound Profits study, 38% of respondents said they’re unwilling to click paid advertising links in their social feed. Additionally, 36% said they’re unwilling to click paid links in search results.

Source: Radiocentre, Sound Profits, survey conducted by d.fferentology. Base: 6,000 UK adults.

These figures describe how willing respondents say they are to click. They don’t measure actual click-through rates and they don’t show how much advertising spend is wasted.

However, they do point to a challenge worth taking seriously. More than a third of respondents say they’re unwilling to click paid-for links. For those people, simply appearing in their search results or social feed may not be enough to earn a click.

How brand familiarity affects paid search and social clicks

What helps people get past that hesitation? Familiarity seems to play a big part.

6 in 10 respondents agree they’re more likely to click paid links or social ads for brands they’re familiar with.

Source: Radiocentre, Sound Profits, survey conducted by d.fferentology. Base: all 6,000 respondents.

A recognisable name makes clicking feel less risky and suggests the business is established and that what’s behind the link will match expectations.

Therefore, if familiarity makes people more open to paid advertising, be it search or social, how can marketers build this familiarity before someone reaches the search results page or scrolls past a sponsored post?

Can audio advertising make people more likely to click?

Also in Radiocentre’s research, 1 in 2 respondents agree they’re more likely to click social media ads or paid search links for brands they’ve heard advertised on radio or in podcasts.

Source: Radiocentre, Sound Profits, survey conducted by d.fferentology. Base: all 6,000 respondents.

To be precise, that’s half of respondents saying they’re more likely to click. It doesn’t show that audio delivers 50% more clicks, and it shouldn’t read that way. What it does suggest, however, is that in people’s own view, hearing a brand on radio or in a podcast can affect how they respond when they later see it in search or social.

There are many good reasons for this. Audio advertising has the power to reach people when they aren’t actively shopping. They could be driving, cooking, working or exercising. A brand heard in those moments may already feel familiar by the time a genuine need for its products comes up.

Audio is also highly trustworthy in that it carries a human voice. Tone, music and a consistent sound can help a brand feel recognisable and credible in a way a text link alone may struggle to.

With this in mind, it’s important to highlight that audio advertising and paid advertising aren’t competing for the same job. Audio could help build the familiarity and trust that make someone more willing to click. Search and social can then capture that interest when the moment comes.

How to test audio’s impact on search and social performance

The research points to a link worth exploring in your own campaigns. These are our suggestions for how to approach it, not findings from the study.

• Keep brand messaging consistent across audio and digital advertising. When the name, offer and tone of a radio or podcast ad match what people later see in search and social, recognition has a better chance of carrying over.
• Look at search and social results alongside audio activity. Track how your search and social campaigns perform while audio is running, rather than judging each channel on its own.
• Measure familiarity and trust, not just conversions. Brand measures can show whether audio is changing how people see you, which conversion data alone might miss.
• Where you can, run a controlled test. Comparing audiences who hear your audio campaign with similar audiences who don’t can help show what difference audio makes to your search and social results.

Using audioXi to support your search and social campaigns

Bauer Media’s audioXi is one way for brands to try this approach. audioXi lets brands reach listeners across digital platforms and devices.

That makes it easier to plan audio advertising alongside search and social. A brand doesn’t have to book separately with lots of different publishers. Bauer Media can manage the brand’s audio activity in one place, serving ads to the right audiences, in the right moments, wherever they are listening.

Campaigns can be targeted by age, device, location and context. So brands can focus on the same audiences they’re reaching through search and social, and time their activity to match.

This means the audiences you’re trying to reach through search and social could hear your brand before they see your sponsored search results or social ads. The research suggests that could help build familiarity and trust, and make people more willing to engage when they do.

Want to be heard before the click?

Go back to that unfamiliar result at the top of the search results page or in your social feed. For many people, the decision to click isn’t made in that moment alone. It may be shaped by what they’ve already seen or heard.

The Sound Profits research suggests that hearing about a brand on audio first could make people more willing to engage with its search and social ads. For marketers spending heavily on paid activity, that’s a reason to think about what happens before the click as carefully as what happens after.

Planning your next paid campaign? Talk to our team about where audio could fit.

Contact us today