• by Joe Mandese , Yesterday

Comscore and The Trade Desk cap off a week of consumer media data-integration announcements with one this morning they claim will "unlock incremental reach" for advertisers and agencies buying programmatic audio inventory.

The deal is noteworthy because while the ad industry often talks about "advanced" audience targeting, audio inventory in a multi-media marketplace, audio often gets overlooked in the mix.

The deal -- which covers streaming audio and podcast inventory -- integrates both of Comscore's "contextual" and "content-level" audience metrics in one place.

Importantly, the enhanced audio audience targeting does not involve tracking cookies or individual user IDs, ensuring that the buys also are privacy-compliant.

The integration leverages content-level audio insights from The Trade Desk, delivering targeting without the need for cookies or user IDs, addressing increasing demand for privacy-conscious advertising solutions.

“Audio is one of the most engaging channels in digital media, and this integration gives advertisers even more ways to reach those audiences with precision,” said Shelby Coon, senior director of data partnerships, The Trade Desk. “Together with Comscore, we’re helping marketers better understand the incremental reach and impact of audio, while reinforcing the importance of independent measurement and performance-driven decisioning across every channel.”

According to Comscore data, 45% of adults surveyed between the ages of 25 and 34 listen to podcasts weekly highlighting the medium’s deep engagement with a key demographic and the opportunity for advertisers investing in audio and the importance of more advanced targeting and measurement solutions.

Essentially, the integration combines Comscore's Proximic AI-enabled contextual data -- modeling the audience likely to be present in the digital audio environment the ads are served in -- with content-level audience data enabling more refined national and local audio reach and frequency of explicit consumer targets.

Based on initial testing, Comscore claims the new approach has been averaging a 10% boost in incremental reach by adding digital audio inventory to the mix.