People spend “roughly a third of their time, or four hours a day, listening to audio, yet only 6 per cent of ad revenues are coming towards the medium,” says SCA Chief Commercial Officer Seb Rennie. The network is betting on a data-powered push for performance ad dollars to change that with today’s launch of LiSTNR’s AdTech Hub.

SCA has made huge gains – slashing cost of acquisition 60 per cent for its LiSTNR app – after embedding a CDP and overhauling its data capability. Now it’s aiming to do the same for advertisers with a new data clean room play that means advertisers can match their own first party data with SCA’s – alongside new dynamic creative optimisation and contextual targeting capability, says Executive Head, LiSTNR commercial, Olly Newton.

As a result, SCA can both build brand and drive conversion via tactical performance campaigns – and Rennie thinks a market-wide shift of budgets towards the latter may last beyond the current economic crunch. Either way, says Newton, “we’ve got a total solution.” The key is making it easy for advertisers to use. Hence SCA bucking the Big Tech trend of self-serve and ‘headcount rationalisation’ – instead creating a managed service to help advertisers navigate its new tools. Last month SCA “road-tested” the new data matching capability via Australia’s major ad holding groups.

“There’s huge appetite,” says Newton. “And it’s really just the beginning.”

Meanwhile, SCA has bullish forecasts for its own business as well as the broader industry. Per latest IAB data, Australia’s digital ad revenue growth was a subdued 3.7 per cent in 2023. Digital audio was up 20.6 per cent – and per 38.4 per cent growth in the December quarter, accelerating hard. “Momentum is building,” says Rennie. Now SCA has some sharper targeting tools to convert it.