The Trade Desk is planting the UID2 flag in another emerging media channel.
Pandora is the first digital audio platform to integrate The Trade Desk’s UID2 alternative ID, the companies announced today. The UID2 integration is also Pandora’s first partnership with a third-party ID.
The integration adds more addressability for AdsWizz, the end-to-end programmatic platform owned by Pandora parent SiriusXM. Now, Pandora can match the email addresses of its logged-in users to UID2 tokens, which can then be passed through AdsWizz, The Trade Desk and other ad platforms that integrate with UID2.
Pandora isn’t so affected by the third-party cookie phaseout, since it makes most of its ad revenue in the app. But UID2 and alternative IDs protect its business from a possible phaseout of mobile ad IDs, said Brian Gilbert, SiriusXM VP of programmatic operations.
Pushing programmatic audio
Pandora sees this integration as a continuation of its 7-year partnership with The Trade Desk to expand the programmatic audio market, Gilbert said.
SiriusXM has seen momentum in its programmatic business. A month ago, during its Q1 earnings report, the company said its programmatic deals were up 29% compared to Q4.
But there’s still a gap between the amount of time people spend listening to streaming audio and advertiser investments in the channel, Gilbert said. Currently, he said, streaming audio accounts for 31% of audience time spent but attracts only 9% of audio ad budgets.
For its part, The Trade Desk is a vocal proponent of digital audio as an untapped programmatic channel. According to TTD’s recent Sellers and Publishers Report, the imbalance between overall streaming audio attention time and its relatively low ad spend “will start to reverse in the years ahead as more advertisers target highly engaged digital audio consumers.”
Digital audio is akin to CTV in that it’s “truly encompassing of who you are and what your interests are,” said Verna De Jesus, VP of CTV, audio and publishers at The Trade Desk. Advertisers can build more encompassing interest-based profiles when users are logged in and there’s a persistent identifier like UID2 associated with that login.
Increased demand
The UID2 integration with Pandora also addresses a common request for more scale in terms of addressable audio audiences, De Jesus said.
Some brands – particularly in more performance-oriented verticals like finance and consumer packaged goods – have been asking for alternative ID integrations to help correlate ad exposure with conversions and measure the lifetime value of certain user profiles, SiriusXM’s Gilbert said.
“We want to be at the forefront of those conversations,” he said. “We’re working on co-selling activities [with The Trade Desk] and how to talk to clients about the benefits of [UID2 integration].”
Pandora gets better access to demand from The Trade Desk, too, if its inventory carries UID2 IDs, according to Gilbert. But Pandora doesn’t expect the integration to result in an overnight flood of incremental business, he said.
Rather, the Sirius unit will spend the next few quarters measuring The Trade Desk demand and yield improvements after the UID2 integration.
“There’s still a lot of training and education that needs to happen with our team, our partners at The Trade Desk and our advertiser clients,” Gilbert said.
The integration also makes it easier for advertisers to target Pandora users on desktop and mobile web, not just in app. Although only a fraction of Pandora’s audience accesses its streaming service on desktop and mobile web, targeting and measurement on these channels are threatened by the impending phaseout of third-party cookies.
And UID2 compatibility also lays the groundwork for cross-platform targeting on other devices listeners use to access the Pandora service, such as in their cars or via smart speakers, Gilbert said.
First to market
Pandora was slower to launch its programmatic offering than Spotify, Gilbert said. Its integration with UID2 is part of Pandora’s effort to restore its reputation as a trailblazer in data-driven advertising.
Pandora expects other digital audio platforms will follow its lead, he added. That includes media in the SiriusXM network, such as SoundCloud and the namesake SiriusXM service. But if rival platforms would also integrate the alternative ID, it could improve the value of cross-publisher digital audio marketplaces activated through The Trade Desk, he added.
Podcasts, however, remain unaffected by the new UID2 integration. Pandora mostly focuses on streaming music. It does serve as a distribution network for third-party podcasts, but those publishers’ audiences won’t be included in UID2 generation.
However, the eventual adoption of UID2 by SiriusXM’s podcast network – which has been integrating the properties of podcast platform Stitcher, which SiriusXM discontinued last year – could spur advertiser investment in programmatic podcast ads, Gilbert said.
Whether other audio platforms would join the UID2 bandwagon remains to be seen, let alone joining Pandora’s ad marketplace.
“Whenever you see [a CTV platform] say it earned X percent programmatic revenue because of [integrations with The Trade Desk], five more CTV providers hop on,” Gilbert said. “It’ll be interesting to check back in 90 days and see what other audio publishers adopt.”
