Privacy-first contextual intelligence platform NumberEight and digital audio advertising platform AdTonos have announced a cross-media partnership aimed at expanding contextual targeting capabilities for audio advertising, including in-game audio advertising. 

London, UK, 7th April 2022 – AdTonos- member of IAB UK, IAB Europe and the European Association of Commercial Radios – is the first company in the world to offer real-time interactivity to live radio. Through support from the UK Department of International Trade, AdTonos has scaled over the years to develop its YoursTruly technology, created to deliver interactive audio ads. YoursTruly allows advertisers to dynamically insert interactive ads in live radio content and works on all Echo devices or any smart speakers, Google Home devices or mobile phones that are either Alexa or Google Assistant-enabled. 

AdTonos have recently announced their cross-media partnership with contextual intelligence platform, NumberEight. NumberEight offers mobile addressability solutions at scale by giving new life to untapped 1st party data. The company empowers app developers, ad partners, and advertisers to explore the power of mobile marketing in order to connect with their users in a relevant, impactful – and most importantly – a private way. They do this through state-of-the-art mobile AI software, which uses mobile device sensors to predict the live context of a user (e.g. running, commuting). The software then packages users into ID-less behavioural audiences (e.g. joggers, frequent shoppers). All computations happen on the device, thus producing a privacy-by-design solution that guarantees a higher regulatory immunity.

“We’re delighted to be partnering with Michal and his team at AdTonos, who are an absolute pleasure to work with. Audio, as we all know, is a unique format since the content is consumed throughout the day, across different devices, in the background and foreground, and now even inside games. We’re very excited to partner with an omnichannel audio partner like AdTonos and help digital audio advertisers take advantage of this massive opportunity to reach relevant audiences in the moments that matter most with our unbiased mobile contextual data without any reliance on PII or identifiers – a very exciting time indeed!” – Abhishek Sen, CEO, NumberEight 

“Cross-platform addressability and consumer privacy solutions, allowing to reach measurable audiences at scale, are at the core of building the next generation of the ad tech stack. Our partnership with NumberEight accelerates our innovation rate and targeting capabilities, while providing a brand-safe marketplace for advertisers and agencies.” – Agata Maria Hirche, VP of Product, AdTonos 

Traditionally, audio advertising heavily relied on contextual targeting, as audio is one of the few formats that is consumed throughout the entire day, yet contextual targeting is not as commonly used or available on digital platforms. As a result of the new privacy regulations (GDPR, Apple’s ATT Privacy Framework, Google Privacy Sandbox), advertisers will find it harder than ever to continue to target audiences the way they have done previously.      

NumberEight and AdTonos seek to resolve this issue by combining AdTonos’ ability to insert audio ads on any stream with NumberEight’s privacy-first contextual intelligence data. As a result, their combined offering can now deliver Mobex (mobile context). Mobex grants digital marketers access to live user contexts and behavioural audiences. This allows advertisers to reach relevant audiences across all audio media without the need for personally identifiable information (PII) or advertising IDs. Mobex mitigates the loss of targeting capabilities and reintroduces contextual targeting capabilities into the world of digital audio advertising.

Brands have, at their fingertips, an easy-to-reach audience of more than 272 million unique online audio listeners worldwide and the potential of at least 3 billion ad playouts a month. The world of digital advertising is clearly going through an audio renaissance. The numbers speak for themselves: more than 75% of UK adults (aged 16+) listened to digital audio content at least once a month in 2021. Adults in the UK spent over 53% of their total media time consuming digital media; a whopping 5 hours and 50 minutes. 

With audio consumption across radio stations, podcasts and music streaming services on the rise, it’s only natural that brand interest in audio advertising is on the uptake once again. This time, it’s paired with more traditional digital marketing approaches. These come with their own set of challenges, which AdTonos and NumberEight have sought to resolve through their partnership.