9 Audio Ad Networks for Websites, Blogs, and Beyond
While some have slammed Internet audio ads as annoying, some marketers admit that having a bit of sound can be a good way to bring readers’ attention to one ad amongst half a dozen banners. Do you like audio ads? Would you consider putting one on your site or blog? Or would you prefer using an audio ad for your online ad campaign? Below are 9 audio ad networks for websites, podcasts, and beyond.

Tell us how you feel about audio ad networks in the comments.


Podtrac

Podtrac is a popular ad network for podcasters. It basically acts as a sales representative for podcasters to advertisers. It also provides demographic analysis and targeting, third-party measurement, content ratings, planning and purchasing, creative rotation, and multiple advertising delivery options. Podtrac boasts of hundreds of top podcasts in its network including many from the iTunes Top 100 list.

Kiptronic

Kiptronic positions itself as “the first and only provider of downloadable media ad insertion to offer built-in support for DoubleClick’s DART for Publishers and Microsoft’s Atlas Publisher Suite.” It insert audio and video ads on podcasts, which work online as well as offline on iPods, smartphones, Internet-enabled TVs, game consoles, and more.

RadioTail

RadioTail is another podcast advertising network that provides podcast stats through its service called Ripple. Some of the features RadioTail provides to publishers include insertion of ads at specific times during the day, automatic insertion and rotation of ads, customized podcast statistics reporting, and more.

VoloMedia

VoloMedia boasts of some of the largest media houses as its clients, such as MSNBC, Forbes, Newsweek, Fox News, etc. VoloMedia adds ads on video and audio content online and on portable devices while providing statistics on the consumption of media. Ad targeting can be done geographically, demographically, and by time of day. It also provides publisher plugins for the iTunes Media Player and Adobe Flash to capture usage metrics.

VoodooVox

VoodooVox says phone calls are the new page views. What it does is insert short audio ads in phone calls generated by its network, which consists of hundreds of call publishers including calling card companies, 411 services, call centers, radio stations,VOIP providers, and Web applications. Each of these call publishers generate “approximately 300 million calls monthly.” According to VoodooVox, inserting audio ads in phone calls is better for the advertiser than Web banners since the ads are “delivered directly into the ears of the intended audience.”

Audio ads are something we take for granted when we call up a company’s customer service, like our mobile phone operator, bank, satellite TV service provider, etc. But can these ads can be served without interfering much on our phone experience?

NetAudioAds

NetAudioAds claims to have more than 46 million participating webpages and that seems like quite an impressive number to start with. The service’s ads are short 5 second audio ads, known as adlets, that are played whenever a visitor opens a participating webpage. Listeners can be targeted by demographic and by location. NetAudioAds also says that its ads are measurable, and audited and verified by accredited third party auditing companies. You can run the ads on your blog or on your MySpace (MySpace) page as well.

Google Audio Ads

According to Google Audio Ads, “22% of Internet users make purchases after searching for something they learned about on the radio,” and so it might be a nice idea to run a radio ad campaign for your online business or site. Success stories include Gifts.com, which “received 23% more visits and a 34% higher conversion rate in markets which ran radio ads.”

To learn more, simply login to your Google Adwords account and choose the audio ads tab. You can choose to run ads on 1,600 terrestrial FM and AM radio stations across the US, choose the top stations only, or choose by location or time of day. You can also search for a specialist at the Google Ad Creation Marketplace to create a custom radio ad for your campaign.

TargetSpot

TargetSpot starts off where Google Audio Ads finishes. It lets you run audio ads, video ads, and banners across hundreds of Internet radio stations. You can select stations by location and format, and target your ads by time of the day, region, or specific market. Will running an ad on an Internet radio station be useful? TargetSpot quotes Arbitron and Edison Media Research that “33 million people tune into Internet radio each week, and the at-work audience has grown from 12% to 20% in one year.” Also, “57% of users reported listening to streaming radio while buying at a website, according to RAEL’s Radio and Internet: Powerful Compliments for Advertisers.”

LocalVocal

LocalVocal is an audio ad network that places audio ads across free directory assistance services, radio, Web telephony, IVR systems, and calling cards. Setting up an ad campaign is very easy from the LocalVocal site and can be as low as $5. You can choose to target locally or across the US and pay only when your ad is heard or when you receive leads.