Magellan AI Expands Into Broadcast Radio With Cross-Channel Measurement.

Magellan AI, the audio intelligence company that has been helping advertisers and buyers plan campaigns and measure their performance through pixel-based attribution, is expanding its services to include broadcast radio. The company is launching a new attribution solution that will allow brands to measure the impact of broadcast radio alongside digital channels in a single platform.

"Measurement needs to reflect how media actually works today — across channels, not in silos," CEO Cameron Hendrix says. "Broadcast Radio Attribution brings radio into that unified view, helping advertisers understand performance and make better decisions across their campaigns."

Magellan’s Broadcast Radio Attribution solution will give advertisers the ability to directly evaluate how radio campaigns contribute to website traffic, purchases and other key metrics. Critically, it will also offer a way to easily compare how a radio campaign is performing compared to what a brand is running across podcasts, streaming audio, connected TV, and other media. Magellan says the result is it will give marketers a more complete view of how audio drives results across the full media mix.

The addition of radio performance data is being welcomed by Christine Hess, Director of Account Strategy at the Mynt Agency. The performance-based marketing agency works with clients including Rosetta Stone, Blue Apron, and Noble Gold.

"Radio has always delivered meaningful impact, but it hasn't been measured with the same precision as digital channels," Hess says. "If you're only measuring one channel, you're seeing a distorted view of performance. With Broadcast now included in Magellan AI's multi-channel measurement, we have the visibility we need to understand and optimize holistically."

Magellan’s move comes a time when both radio and podcasters are benefiting from advertisers packaging the two audio channels together in their media plans. Nielsen says it has become a powerful reach combination. “For advertisers planning audio marketing campaigns, it is critical to understand that more than 80% of all daily ad-supported audio time goes to radio and podcasts, while only 15% goes to streaming music,” the ratings company said in a report released last week. 

Magellan took a step toward radio earlier this month when it announced that it would begin offering ad buyers the ability to target specific metro areas using the definitions created by Nielsen for radio and television. The company said integrating Nielsen DMAs into the Magellan platform will give users the flexibility to analyze an ad’s performance at the local level—something that will be critical for radio ad buyers.