Not all reach is equal. Engagement matters — especially in today’s highly cluttered media landscape. The typical US media consumer uses seven different types of media in a given week. This poses significant challenges for brands to break through and be heard.

As a leading content provider, we often answer brand questions about how Audio resonates and how it fits into the media mix. At Audacy, we’re driven by data-based measurement. So we embarked on a journey to define and measure Engaged Impressions across media channels.

Great content moves hearts and minds. And that leads to action. Immersion, the key metric in our study, is a scientific measure of emotional connection and attention. It predicts action, such as sales. How did we measure it? We tracked variations in heart rate as participants consumed media content across media types and formats. Science shows that the brain is directly connected to the heart. By measuring variations in heart rate, we understand what the brain values.

This study showed that Audio is more immersive than other media, including linear TV and social. The immersion index is based on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher the number, the more immersive the experience is. The results of our study showed that audio exceeds industry norms, and is also significantly more immersive than other media, such as linear TV and social media.

Marketers Use Immersion To Predict Consumer Action

Immersion is predictive of action — whether it’s site visits or purchase. Advertising dollars placed with audio will turn into business. Immersion successfully predicted YouTube views that would result from SuperBowl ads. An increase of 10% in advertisement immersion, led to a lift of +20% views on YouTube. Immersion also predicted first week ticket sales from movie trailers for a ticket sales company, showing that 10% increase in movie trailer immersiveness generated +3% increase in first-week ticket sales, yielding additional revenue of $945K.

Audio clients who wish to gauge the immersiveness of their campaigns are in the advantageous position to fine-tune their messaging and select advertisements that will drive results. To learn more about Entercom’s immersion study and discuss how agencies and advertisers can apply this powerful metric to their planning and buying strategies, tune into our webinar on March 2nd at 1PM EST: Immersion: How Top Advertisers Reach and Move Audiences.

[Study Methodology: Audacy fielded a proprietary study, with Alter Agents — an independent third-party research company — bringing together media user surveys and neurological measurements. The study delved into how Audio programming performs alongside content spanning today’s media landscape — including TV, video, social, and digital pureplay platforms.]