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- [00:01]
Adlib Sponsor
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- [00:40]
AdTech God
A word from our Sponsors Philo Ads brings performance focused CTV advertising to brands of every size. With over 900 million ad impressions each month, no minimum spend and a brand safe environment, Philo Ads makes it easy to scale your campaigns with confidence. Ready to see how Philo Ads can work for you? Head to Ads Philo TV that's a D S.P H I L O TV to get started today welcome to the Ad Tech Godpod, your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, AdTech God. Welcome to the AdTech.pod where we are joined by the programmatic leaders of our industry. Today on the AdTech.pod, i'm joined by Ari Stein, Senior Director of programmatic sales at SiriusXM Media, which includes SiriusXM, Pandora and an extensive streaming and podcast network. Ari's been with the company for over 13 years, starting out at Pandora before it was acquired by Sirius XM in 2019. He's built his career around audio, beginning as an account executive and now leading his team of programmatic sales executives. As both a podcast host and an avid listener, I'm excited to dive into the state of podcasting, what's changing in audio and especially what's coming next. Ari, welcome to the EdTech Godpod.
- [02:13]
Ari Stein
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to join.
- [02:15]
AdTech God
Same here. I don't think I've had anyone from the audio space with the exception of a product guy from Spotify, which was an interesting guest. We mostly talked about high level Spotify products, but serious to me I've been a Pandora user and that's actually my streaming solution of choice. So I've seen that product really evolve over the years, but podcasting in general has been so hot and I'd love to hear your perspective considering the time that you've been at Pandora.
- [02:43]
Ari Stein
Well, first and foremost we appreciate the loyalty and appreciate you being an avid listener. It's, it's always great to hear how someone's, you know, been able to utilize the platform over the course of many years and you know, we hope you're Growing. And your streaming listening is growing with us. That's the best kind of relationship to have.
- [03:01]
AdTech God
It's wild because, you know, audio streaming was just like on demand before, right? Like, it was really just listening to music. And now with podcasting booming everywhere, it's incredible the amount of content you can find across various topics and categories.
- [03:18]
Ari Stein
Yeah, I mean, the explosion of opportunity just to be able to listen and absorb content has been tremendous. But, you know, I'm thinking back to the days when I was in grad school, sitting in the library with my headphones in, streaming Pandora on my desktop. And that was, you know, that original Internet radio experience and just how far it's come since then. It's tremendous to see it. And yet, to your point, sometimes when I just need to relax, I fall back into that exact experience. It's there for me, the opportunity to just dig in, throw on a station, let that algorithm go where it wants to for me and just enjoy the ride.
- [03:52]
AdTech God
I mean, I think my account is sold. I still have my preferred suggested music from 15 years ago. So I'll go back and it's like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to play these again. Ari, question for you. You have been at Pandora and now SiriusXM for a very long time. I would love to hear how that experience has been, how that's contributed to your growth. You're now, you know, leading on programmatic sales. And truly what got you to the point that you're at today, it's been.
- [04:24]
Ari Stein
An interesting journey because it's one where as much as I've had five year plans in my career, and as much as I've tried to think about what it was I wanted to do next, I've also allowed the opportunities, to a certain degree, come to me. And the ones that I recognized as being unique and exciting and that fit me specifically were the ones I was able to jump into. So in a lot of ways, my career has been a series of very happy accidents. But I, you know, I think of them as more than accidents. I think of, you know, I try at least, and I try to give this as advice to people who come to me to keep an open mind for what's going on around me and what areas I can jump into. But even my entrance into Pandora was really just, you know, I was working. My first media sales job was at a small startup in Silicon Valley that doesn't exist anymore called Meebo, where, you know, I really dug into the performance doctor side of things from a media sales perspective. And someone just recommended me to talk to Pandora, which as far as I knew at that point was just a company that played my radio stations for me. But a chance conversation really led to a great career opportunity and that's where I've been able to be ever since. The other side of it is that I've been able to really do many different things. At first I was selling Dr. Performance Media on a managed service basis. Then they introduced Programmatic to the company and they looked at my team and said, hey, what you're doing within and without of the company fits really well with this new medium. At least it was new to us at the time and we think you all should take the wheel and drive with this. And it's really been an opportunity for me to continue growing. 13 years at any company, a single company, is a long time, especially in this industry. But the opportunity to keep growing, keep learning and, you know, just generally work with amazing people is really what's been able to drive me for the last 13 years.
- [06:18]
AdTech God
How much has it changed? Streaming has only become more and more mainstream. So I'm sure 13 years ago, 14 years ago it was done, but it was, it was really a particular generation that was streaming. Now as that generation is growing up, we're still streaming, right? The people in their 20s, you know, early teens, were streaming early on, but now it's become so mainstream, the sheer volume and usage is really across the entire spectrum and age categories.
- [06:48]
Ari Stein
No, I mean, I think you're alluding to exactly the opportunity that we've been given and that I think we're continuing to be given within the audio space. You know, I mentioned it started as a desktop app, right? And the expansion began. It was the first music app on the iPhone. The day the first iPhone rolled out, obviously it grew into a tremendous mobile driven business, right where I think at one point we got to 85 plus percent of our users were in app and then the expansion continued. You went on to, we called it at one point the Internet of things. I think that term's been dropped at this point. But we are now looking at not just where and how you listen, but what you're listening to. So the expansion started with platforms. You were able to stream Pandora radio within your connected car. Then the next piece of it became a different way to set it up. So we went from obviously the opportunity to just stream radio stations where the algorithm was kicking in and you were able to see what was played next for you to more of an on Demand opportunity where you could subscribe, build playlists, really be much more of an active participant in the streaming music experience. Then, as you mentioned, it expanded into podcasts. So now that just the content explosion has been tremendous because it's not just music anymore, it's talk, it's podcasts, it's even, you know, we're starting to see more sports being streamed. And just that, that expansion continues to go in several different directions. So it's not just that everyone's listening to it, it's that they're listening to it on different devices. They're listening to it throughout the course of their entire day while they're commuting, while they're working, while they're doing dishes, you know, while they're cooking. It really has permeated everyone's lives in such a deep way and in such a personal way. And that's where some of the exciting aspects of this come from. An advertising opportunity, because we get to talk to clients about how you're reaching these potential consumers, you're reaching these listeners in a very personal moment, in a very personal space. And if you can match that with a personal message, that takes an advertising experience from something that, you know, consumers sometimes feel they have to get through to something that they can relate to.
- [09:05]
AdTech God
You know, mentioning the story, the growth from, you know, desktop to auto to app, you know, and now we moved into smart devices and then now we're talking about television. A lot of my guests work in the connected television space, but I stream Pandora on my TV often. So I run it in my living room if I'm just like making dinner or it's in my garage and I'm hanging out with the family playing in the yard. How have you seen the boom of streaming TV help contribute to some of the growth of streaming audio?
- [09:36]
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- [10:19]
Ari Stein
It's certainly an aspect of it. I mean, I think people are Finding that they have the opportunity to plug in. And you know, I'm sure you've got a, an awesome home sound system set up that you can blast through every part of the house when you, when you want to stream something. I think the bigger piece of it has really been the smart speakers. The boom of smart speakers over the last call it now 10 years or so has really given people an opportunity to personalize that experience through their home system. I would say the vast majority of our, what we call connected home inventory is through that smart speaker. Through the Alexas and the Googles and the Sonos players. Those are more and more and more opportunities for people to connect in the way in which they want to.
- [11:03]
AdTech God
What do you think is the most misunderstood part of audio? Because a big topic is outcomes. People often talk about the outcomes happening with, you know, recognizing a brand on television who's attributing the actual conversion when you go to search. There's this argument that happens on LinkedIn. If you live on LinkedIn like I do, where it's, you know, search is taking all the credit, but people are seeing the ad going to Google order the search engine, which is primarily Google, searching for the product, and then Google's like, look, we brought you a user and a conversion. Are you finding that people are starting to relate these audio podcasts and these audio ads to directly to attributed product sales or conversions?
- [11:43]
Ari Stein
Yeah. More and more every day, people are starting to understand that they have to have a full funnel look at their media mix. They can't just kind of take that last click, last view type of approach to determining what is it that is driving success for them as a marketer. It still exists, in fact. I mean, as I mentioned before, I started my career in performance doctor media sales. And I didn't think that 14 years later we'd be having a conversation about last click with any clients.
- [12:15]
AdTech God
Right.
- [12:16]
Ari Stein
It still happens. But at the same time, more and more folks are understanding that whether it's some sort of multi touch attribution modeling, some sort of media mix modeling that they need to look at, they're understanding that it has a role. And as my manager is fond of saying, money follows measurement. So if the right measurement is in play, if marketers are investing in their marketing budgets and they're using a piece of that marketing budget to be able to say, hey, we need to really understand in greater detail what all of our media is doing for us, then audio constantly shows up. And one of the big surprises when we're having conversations with buyers is that audio isn't necessarily restricted to one part of the marketing funnel. There's upper funnel success that we can show. You know, great brand list studies that we run that if you're running, you know, CTV and audio alongside it within your DSP, you can get as high of a lift as 14% message association with those campaigns. We also see it in lower funnel campaigns. We just actually recently rolled out a case study that shows that local tier 3 auto dealers adding audio to their CTV campaigns within a given market on average you'll drive an increase of 5% market share. That's car sales. That's as bottom of the funnel in a long sales cycle as you can get. But you still see the audio can have an impact there.
- [13:48]
AdTech God
I knew when I asked you to be on the pod that you were going to throw some stats at me and a lot of these stats I don't know which is good. Honestly. I love having like people who are, who are engulfed in the sales aspect of a company because I'm technical, but not that technical. But I definitely love to hear stats and case studies on podcasts, especially about a medium that I don't hear much about personally on a day to day, which is the audio space. So let me, let me flip this around. Growing up we were playing FM radio. We're constantly listening to the radio, whether it was, you know, whatever Kiss FM or whatever station you listen to. And now we've moved into podcasting. What has changed across the board for media buyers when looking at their media plans and deciding I want to spend on, you know, linear radio or I want to spend on streaming audio, has that behavior changed? Has that adaption happened at a more accelerated rate over the last couple of years or how has that changed overall in your, from your view?
- [14:44]
Ari Stein
It's definitely changed. As an impatient salesperson, it hasn't changed fast enough in my opinion. But there's, you can definitely see progress along this front and you can see certain moments where you get a little bit of a faster bump. And I think the introduction of podcasts as a scalable audience based buying opportunity, particularly within the programmatic space, has been one of those opportunities to see, you know, the, the line move up into the right pretty quickly. When you think about when a buyer rather is thinking about a host red opportunity, they're not thinking about scale, but the opportunity within podcasts, because of the size of it, because of the number of people that are engaging with it, because of the number of hours of the day that they're giving to it, the opportunity is really an audience based buy, one that can drive the kind of scale that they as marketers are looking for. They're trying to get as much reach as possible against their consumers and can really make sure that their message is getting out there to as many people as possible. Back to your original question. The change is happening. It's just taking people time to shift their mindset to one of I can get as much scale and reach within this digital streaming slash podcast medium as I can in linear, but have it have a greater impact than what is possible in the linear world.
- [16:12]
AdTech God
I'm going to go back to your career journey because I have a general question for you. 13 years at a company, 13 plus years as a company is really hard. I think on average people in our space survive two or three years and they're constantly jumping ship. What has kept you at SiriusXM/ Pandora for so long and what do you think about the company culture that has kept you there and kept you going?
- [16:39]
Ari Stein
13 years is a long time. You know, I can look back over that time and I can see a lot of positive, I can see some negative as going to as as will exist within any experience over a long period of time. But every time I do the math it adds up to a general net positive. 13 years I was really frankly expecting to be put on a chair and lifted up, have my Pandora bar mitzvah and I hit that mark. That hasn't happened yet. I'm waiting for, you know, for that from my boss. But if I had to point to one thing, it's the people, it's that no matter what iteration of my team or the broader sales team or leadership within the company, there is a aspect of wonderful people who I both am excited to work with, but I also am excited to hang out with outside of work that you're just not necessarily going to find everywhere you go. I have given people career advice over the years. One of the lines that if there was an Ari Stein drinking game, this would probably be one of the things that people would have to take a shot when they hear don't run away from something, run towards something. And I've had conversations with other companies, great companies, I've had conversations with other teams in the industry and some of them have been compelling, but none of them have been as compelling or more compelling than what I had in front of me over the last 13 years at SiriusXM and prior to that at Pandora. And so I've stuck it out and you know, 13 years so far, we'll see. We'll see how far that goes.
- [18:21]
AdTech God
It's wild to me. Are you. Because I ran a poll just coincidentally a few days ago asking about what's the current environment or the culture at your company. And I think I had something where one was like, it's great and super supportive. The other one was like, it's okay. And the third one was it's toxic. And the toxic one was surprisingly 28% and toxic. Meaning like people are generally like unhappy. I don't share what companies voted that. I'm not going to say who, who did or didn't. But I think what was shocking to me was that almost 30% of people are working in an environment that's not happy, that's not driving their growth, that's not, that's either not stimulating their intelligence. That's, you know, a lot of political driven decisions are being made. And so when I speak to someone such as yourself, 13 years, I had Jared Wilichinski at Paramount. He started way back when when it was like Sportsline. So he's like, almost 20 years, the same thing came up. He was like, I'm always going for the new opportunity. I'm always putting my name in the hat. But most importantly, it's like the people around me have always been really good and supportive and it's been a healthy environment. And usually when I see someone like you and I look at the LinkedIn and I see 13 years, the first thing that pops into my head is, what kept him there for so long? And every answer has always come back with culture, growth, opportunity, good people. So it's good that you, you feel the same way about SiriusXM?
- [19:45]
Ari Stein
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, I've seen so many people make a jump and then regret it. People who really were upset or unhappy, you know, in their current job and I don't, you know, on the other side of the coin, I don't necessarily want anyone to be complacent either, or to be afraid of taking risks. I think risk taking is important in a person's career. But do the math. It's not hard if you know yourself and if you know the right questions to ask as you're exploring opportunities, you should constantly be doing the math to see, you know, does everything add up? Does every aspect of this add up? Not just the flashy name or the big title or even the big salary, but does everything really add up as it mixes with your goals and your lifestyle?
- [20:30]
AdTech God
Where do you see things heading in the audio podcasting space? A lot of Guests talk about things like improved measurement or the world famous topic of AI or outcomes seems to be hot. We're doing architecture live in October which is focused on outcomes, which as you had mentioned, I'm surprised we're still talking about it, but it seems like the shift is back. People want to know what happens with their ad spend, but what positive trends are you seeing that are impacting the audio space?
- [21:02]
Ari Stein
Well, from a consumer perspective, growth isn't slowing down. We're continuing to see folks spend more time, absorb more content, different types of content. The demand is only growing, which is an exciting place to be. From a marketing and advertising perspective. The biggest job that we have is making sure that audio is getting its place in terms of recognition, in terms of measurement, in terms of consideration. And I think one of the biggest challenges that we've had within the audio space from an ad sales perspective, from a market education perspective, is that there's a perceived issue with audio that it's not sight, sound and motion and therefore not a priority. If I'm having a conversation with a client or with a DSP partner or with an agency partner, one of the things that we're really digging into is the fact that there's a massive opportunity for marketers to own the space, for brands to own the space. Right now, 25% of consumers time spent is with audio. Only 8% of the media budgets are going towards the channel. That's an opportunity for somebody to come in and own the space. They just need to strategize on where it fits within their media mix. But it definitely has a place and we can show that it's funny.
- [22:30]
AdTech God
You know, it's. I would, if I was buying media today and I looked at audio and someone on my team, let's say, were to say, well, it's not sight, sound and motion, so I'm not going to spend, I would. I look at it differently. Like when I'm in my car, I am primarily focused on two things, driving and looking ahead of me and listening. I'm not distracted by my kids. Usually I'm not distracted by a phone in my hand playing a game or browsing LinkedIn or Twitter or anything else. I'm actually primarily focused on what's playing on the radio, so whether it's music or a podcast. So I feel like the attention towards audio is so high and I'm assuming most people listen in their cars to some degree that it would be a priority supply source to me to capture people's attentions just as much as it would be on television, even though there's no sight to it. So I don't know. I'm surprised that the spend isn't greater. It definitely should be, in my opinion.
- [23:32]
Ari Stein
I think what's underestimated by many people right now is the power that audio has to seep into our minds and our consciousness, even though the data says it right. I quoted you some stats before in terms of just how the lift in that type of attention can be seen when you're adding audio to other channels that you're running. But people are really missing out on the fact that the theater of the mind is powerful, that imagination is powerful, and audio presents the opportunity to add a strong message to that imagination, to let people's imagination go wild. You know, my version of what you were saying before is that I'm washing dishes, and not only is am I, you know, focused on not breaking the dishes, but I'm also focused on the audio. I'm also not going to necessarily pull my hands out of the dishes, dry them off, to skip ads. Whereas in other mediums, you see people's attention drift when the ads come on, if they don't get up out of the room, they certainly pick up another screen and start perusing and scrolling and doing something else. But audio sticks with you. And you're going to be. Because you're doing something like driving or dishes or cooking, you're going to be absorbing not just the content that you opted into, which is an important piece as well, because people are opting into the content they listen to, whether the media Planner has heard of it or not, but they're also ready and primed to lean in and pay attention to the brand message that's running during those ads.
- [25:10]
AdTech God
Ari, final question for you before we finish off the podcast. The advertising industry has gone through a little bit of a transitional phase over the last couple of years. A lot of people are really stressed out. There's a lot of people that are looking for work. People are scared of AI taking their jobs. I think it's more of a tool than it is a job replacement. But what, what keeps you happy? Like, what keeps you balanced day to day? What gets you up in the morning? And you say, look, I'm going to do this again. I'm going to close a deal. I'm going to talk to new client, good outcome or not, like, I'm going to keep chugging forward. How do you, how do you balance that happiness between your, your personal and your business life?
- [25:49]
Ari Stein
Well, first and foremost, as, as much as I love the space. And as much as I've loved the experience of helping to drive innovation, particularly within Programmatic Audio, it's all a means to an end. I got a five and a seven year old, two boys, I've got, you know, a beautiful home, a wonderful wife. Right. And, and the work I do here fuels that. That's motivation number one. Motivation number two is I get to work with great people. I get to help manage a really first class team of salespeople who are not only great at their jobs, but they're so open to learning, they're hungry to learn, they want to learn and grow. And that's having managed many different forms of teams and many different personalities over the years. You don't necessarily get that every single time. And it's something that I'm really leaned into because not only that, their success is my success. Their success is more exciting than my own success. They close a deal. I'm so much more excited than when I was a salesperson closing a deal. And then finally, I would say just to our entire conversation, it's an interesting space to be in. Thank God, no offense to anyone who works in Search, if they find an excitement about it, that's great. This is a dynamic space. It's an exciting space. It's changing, it's evolving. And as much as it sometimes gets frustrating that people might be hooked on video or hooked on Last Touch, still, if that's something that they believe in, it's an opportunity for me to do education and for us to do education out in the market. And so there's only one direction to go.
- [27:45]
AdTech God
Amazing. Ari, I wanted to thank you for being my guest today.
- [27:49]
Ari Stein
Thank you for having me.
- [27:51]
AdTech God
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the AdTech Godpod, a podcast for the people about the people. Stay connected with me for more insights, trends and interviews in the realm of adtech. Don't miss out on the latest updates. So follow me on X Instagram and connect with me on LinkedIn. Don't forget ATG Slack community has insights, networking opportunities and jobs. Keep the conversation going and stay at the forefront of adtech innovation.