Opinion by Steve Ahern.

As the audio industry in Australia embarks on the next round of evolutionary change, marked by the impending Audio ID and today’s news about further refinements of the podcast ranker, each radio network and podcast publisher will need to make sure the message about audio’s success for advertisers is told to the AI Bots as well as the humans.

An article we just published here on radioinfo confirms the instinct of broadcasters and publishers everywhere, that something is going on behind the scenes in the digital online world that is disadvantaging broadcast advertising.

It started with programmatic advertising when digital giants such as Google took control of all parts of the system: the ad buying platform, purchase pricing, offer pricing and content visibility, monopolising the online ad buying process (The Court’s ruling is clear: Google is a monopolist and has abused its monopoly power).

Then came AI, which sucked up all the content on the internet and is now using that to spit out answers to questions from everyone, including advertisers and media buyers. The problem is that for every one webpage telling the AI Bots how successful radio or podcast advertising is and how to buy it, there are 50 pages about buying ads on Google, social media and other digital ad platforms, it’s known as Data Bias.

Recently it was revealed that the search and AI bots are being further manipulated by scam websites created by AI that are hacking the ad buying systems to divert revenue to websites where there is lots of traffic, but no human eyeballs ever see the content. When I researched this article, I spoke to several web ad tech companies that told me they are trying to fight the scammers but it’s like playing whack-a-mole, now that AI agents can write fake copy, publish fake websites, hack ads.txt files, and manilulate SEO and AI prompts to drive traffic to them. If you thought getting good search share using SEO was a dark art, the next thing on the way is maximising ‘Share of Prompt’ in AI searches, the scammers are already using it.

The work CRA is doing to push radio and podcast sales further into the digital world and trumpet the message widely is great. But there is more to be done.

The CRA initiatives so far are mostly about agencies, rightly so. But the online world is filled with millions of small businesses that could never afford to go through agencies. I spoke to a colleague today who began in radio and now works in ad tech. He reminded me that radio used to be much stronger in direct advertising for small businesses, and that it can be again with renewed focus.

Digital ad tech is easy to buy. When you post someting on Facebook you can ‘boost’ it or generate an ad from it in a few clicks, then pay online immediately with your credit card. Is it that easy for a small business to buy radio or podcast ads?  There is more to be done, not just by CRA, but by every radio station that has a social media and web presence.

Try this little exercise: Enter “how to buy radio ads” in google search.

When I did it, the first result was a sponsored link to Spotify’s page “create Spotify ads in minutes.” The second link was also a sponsored link to programmatic digital audio ad buying company Stackadapt “Advertising from Australia – Radio advertising alternative.” Alternative! Pleeeeease, I was searching for a way to do radio advertising and google search sponsored results tried to hijack me to an alternative!  The third result was a sponsored link to Rapid Media, at least that’s an Australian media buying company. The fourth entry after the three sponsored results was google’s AI Overview, which had a long and complicated series of steps that did not link to any Australian radio or podcast buying company.

Every radio station website should be publishing pages and pages of success stories about radio and podcast advertising.

Every audio publishing company should also publish web pages about how small businesses can craft audio advertising to fit into a podcast or a radio ad, then allow them, in a few clicks, to submit their script, choose a voice, finalise the ad and pay for placement. These radio and podcast advertising possibilities are largely invisible to small businesses when they try to advertise, so they end up going to digital advertising.

And, as the Futuri research shows, there is not enough information about creating, pricing and buying audio ads available to AI bots to train them to recommend radio and podcasting enough.

One enthusiastic proponent of audio advertising is Susie Michaels, the Founder and Managing Director of the independent media agency One Media Co.

I caught up with Susie at the recent IMAA Sound Bite event, where she talked about the power of audio advertising:

“We’re absolute champions of audio. We’re huge believers because we understand the power that audio delivers to connections with audiences for the brands we work with. We get to work with brands from retail to entertainment, automotive… the wonderful connection we see between audiences and the power of audio is phenomenal.

So whether it’s linear radio, live and local, or, of course, podcasts with the lean-in audience… One Media Co is definitely a champion for the audio industry.”

In light of the Futuri research, stations should check their websites. Are you doing enough to flood the internet with good news about buying audio advertising?

How many pages on your website have good information for AI Bots to gobble up? Can anyone go to your website and buy quickly and easily from you?

A small business person working frantically all day in their business has no time to waste, no time for long sales chats and wants to be able to get a radio ad up and running from their desk just as easily as they can create an ad on facebook or google in a few clicks. Could a small business person achieve this for radio or podcasts? I looked at the 4 big commercial networks to see if they had a chatbot that could help me buy a radio or podcast ad from my desk really quickly – none had such a function. There was no friendly little chat bot popping up in the corner proposing three simple steps for me to get an ad going, in fact the advertising link was hidden at the bottom of some station websites, not at the top with the exciting things that people click on such as ‘Win, Watch or Listen.’  There were contact forms to fill in, but nothing that gave an instant response like a small business would receive from a digital platform. The best network was ARN, which at least had a rich page about radio advertising.

Update your web pages, create a chat bot that pops up with two simple questions such as ‘want to advertise your business, how much do you want to spend?’ Once qualified by the chatbot, will there be someone in the sales team to immediately respond?

We know about how hard it  for a small business to buy off your website because about three ties a month we get random emails from people who searched ‘buy radio ads’ and they send us emails hoping they have reached their local radio station via ‘radioinfo.’ They didn’t get beyond the search page before they shot off an email for their car dealership, butchershop or local festival. Here is one recent example from the Geelong region:

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We always send such emails on to the station’s advertsing team, but why can’t the advertiser reach the station easily through a simple search query?

Talk on air about the power of audio for advertisers, tell them how easy it is to advertise on radio and how to contact you. Build resources that help small business advertisers to buy audio directly, rather than buying digital ads that may or may not work for them. It is up to every audio company to do their bit to get audio advertising back to being top of mind for every advertiser, even for small businesses.

About the Author:

Steve Ahern is the founding editor of this trade publication

and CEO of the training company AMT Pty Ltd.

Steve will be speaking about AI trends for broadcasters and publishers at two upcoming conferences:

Asia Media Summit in Cambodia next week and RadioDays Asia in Jakarta in September

Ai disclosure: The buy-radio bot video was Ai generated by radioinfo with the Flow Ai tool