• by Fern Siegel , March 30, 2023

Ad-marketing platform System1 has introduced Test Your Ad Audio to enhance ad effectiveness.

The new feature helps advertisers determine the short- and long-term commercial impact of audio ads on radio, podcasts and music streaming apps.

Here’s how it works: System1 tests every ad with 150 online participants, a national representative sample. Each participant uses a series of faces, the seven basic emotions, plus neutrality, to indicate how they feel about the ad. The company also measures second-by-second emotional responses, to chronicle how feelings change as the ad plays out.

Those findings are calculated as a Star Rating, from 1 to 5.9, helping to predict long-term brand growth based on an ad’s creative quality.  

The tool also includes a Spike Rating, indicating the ad’s short-term sales potential, and a Fluency Rating to illustrate the level of brand recognition.

Such knowledge is critical in a billion-dollar ad market.

Global podcast ad spend reached $2.6 billion in 2022, according to WARC. Some 62% of Americans have listened to a podcast in their lifetime, with 38% listening on a monthly basis and 26% listening weekly, per The Infinite Dial. And Nielsen reported in 2022 that radio reaches more Americans every month (93% of the U.S. population) than any other linear or digital platform.

“Test Your Ad Audio gives advertisers a quick and clear way to understand whether their messaging will support brand building and get guidance to improve audio ads,” said Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer, System1.

Testing is available for video, image-based and audio ads.