My Synced Banner impressions do not equal my ad play impressions, why?

Synced banners are a fantastic way to sell buyers on Internet Radio. ".... And when the audio plays, a banner will show up and allow the user to click right to your website!"

The challenge is that synced banners work only when radio stations, and the end listeners, are using technology that support them being displayed. Currently, synced banners are only supported when radio stations use streaming players that support delivery of the banner images.  Synced Banners are not 'ubiquitous' in the radio industry. Some stations garner more than 80% of their audience from standalone players such as iTunes, Shoutcast.com or mobile devices.  None of these platforms allow for synced banners to display.

When a campaign calls for "Audio + Synced Banner" it’s assumed that for each audio impression, a banner impression will be generated as well. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here's why:

"NewCo Internet Radio" is a single channel online radio station which streams to a peak audience of 8,500 listeners. They stream in 4 formats, iTunes, Windows Media, a web player and Shoutcast.

Here is their listener breakdown by format at peak time for "NewCo Internet Radio"

- 3,000 listeners on Shoutcast
- 2,000 listeners on iTunes
- 1000 listeners on Windows Media
- 2500 listeners on the web player

TOTAL 8,500 listeners

When an audio ad plays on the stream, it will reach all 8,500 listeners (totaling 8,500 audio impressions)

However, if it has a synced banner, that synced banner will display on only 2500 web players (totaling 2500 impressions) it will only display to listeners which are using players that can display the image.

Expanding this logic to include all other forms of "listening" it's easy to see why there is always a discrepancy between audio impressions and banner impressions. It’s a technological limitation of the different available players on the market and it is also a function of the listener’s listening environment not blocking synced banners, javascript, iFrames or other forms of web delivery

Taken together, it is easy to see how there can be a large difference between the number of audio impressions served and the number of synced banners that are served for that audio ad.