NPR listeners are lifelong learners, and that curiosity and interest extends to personal finance. They’re invested in their futures: 43% of all podcast listeners used finance, insurance or investment apps in the past month,¹ and NPR listeners overall are 40% more likely than the average adult in the U.S. to plan to invest in some way in the next 12 months.² Finance brands often see great reach and results with NPR sponsorship – and one recent campaign from a personal finance brand achieved outstanding results.
Through a mix of standard reads and custom creative, this brand achieved a whopping 18% conversion rate.³ Custom creative drove particularly great results: among listeners exposed to Product Inspiration Mid-rolls, the campaign achieved 15% lift in brand awareness and 64% lift in highly positive brand rating.⁴
Because the campaign utilized measurement tools like Podsights and Veritonic, the depth of metrics showed not only the overall impact of the campaign for the brand, but also captured insights into specific strategies and creative that were effective.
Here are three things to know:
- NPR’s producer-read credits are effective. In NPR’s audio environment, all mid-rolls are surrounded on both sides by NPR content, are voiced by trusted NPR voices, and often feature a music bed. Between producer-read and host-read credits, listeners who heard the producer-read credit achieved the same high level of awareness as those exposed to host-read credits.⁴ In this campaign, producer-read credits drove a higher conversion rate at almost half the cost of host-read ones.³
- Contextual relevance works. NPR sponsorship offers program bundles that share your brand message across a variety of shows. It’s not always the obvious fit that works. For this brand, the Arts & Life bundle performed at nearly half the cost per (website) visit compared to placements in individual shows, and ultimately achieved a 17% conversion rate.³
- NPR’s campaign measurement tools go beyond recall. Measurement tools like Veritonic help brands understand how their message resonates with audiences. Compared to NPR benchmarks, this campaign’s creative scored especially well as ‘Helpful’, ‘Trustworthy’ and ‘Relevant to me.’ And after working with in-house creative team, NPM Creative, the campaign saw an additional 10-11% increase in purchase intent.⁵
Insights like these come from attribution tools combined with dedication and expertise. The NPR sponsorship team offers campaign performance analysis for any podcast campaign to help brands make the most of their buy, from the first dollar to the last.
