Living in NYC, I frequently would get targeted radio advertisements for car dealerships in central New Jersey and mentions of concerts in genres I didn't enjoy. I was puzzled why in the age of programmatic advertising, with tons of information about their target consumers, how their advertising would be so ineffective. To make it worse, the same ads would play on endless loop - did Pandora have a problem selling ad spots or were they not taking advantage of modern programmatic technologies?
Then, earlier this year, in one single day, I noticed a change. Suddenly the ads seemed relevant to my life - targeted for my neighborhood and about products I am interested in. After all these years of listening to their website and mobile app, it was as if they were finally listening to me. But what changed? and why?
For this blog post I decided to look in to Pandora's advertising history and explore if there was an impetus for this change. Sure enough, there was a major change this year and I found an article that summarized what happened:
In summary, Pandora had previously outsourced their supply side ad sales to a third party management company. In 2019, they purchased a company called AdsWizz that gives them enhanced geo-targeting capabilities, expanded reach, and holistic reporting for improved analytics. These capabilities make Pandora a more attractive advertising medium for advertisers and will drastically improve the user experience. Yes - improved ads improves the user experience. So not only are the ads now more relevant for me, it seems there are now more advertisers using Pandora as a target service. Just today I heard an ad of a new Target location opening a few blocks away from my house - relevant and timely!
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