Why Marketers Need a Better Way to Buy Broadcast Radio

Marketing leaders are under growing pressure to prove performance.

Today's media plans are increasingly built around audience intelligence, measurable outcomes and streamlined buying workflows. Yet broadcast radio, one of America's largest media platforms, has traditionally operated outside many of the systems marketers use to plan and evaluate digital media investments.

That disconnect often creates unnecessary complexity. Teams may plan broadcast and digital separately. Measurement frameworks vary by channel. Comparing performance across media can be challenging. And despite radio's unmatched reach, marketers haven't always had the tools to evaluate it through the same audience-first lens they use elsewhere.

AudioGraph was built to change that.

What Is AudioGraph?

AudioGraph is iHeartMedia's ID-based solution for broadcast radio.

The platform combines audience intelligence, predictive listening models and measurement capabilities to help advertisers move beyond broad demographic assumptions and toward audience-based planning.

Rather than starting with the average listener of a station, AudioGraph starts with the audience a brand wants to reach. Predictive listening models then identify the stations and dayparts where those consumers are most likely to be listening.

By connecting audience targeting, campaign activation, attribution and optimization, AudioGraph helps bring broadcast radio into the same strategic planning frameworks marketers already use across other channels.

How Does AudioGraph Work?

AudioGraph is designed to fit naturally into the way marketers already work.

1. Plan

   Brands define the audiences most relevant to their business goals. Custom ID-based audience segments can incorporate first-party client data and identity-based audience intelligence.

2. Activate

   AudioGraph uses predictive listening models to identify the stations and dayparts most likely to reach those audiences at scale across broadcast radio.

3. Measure

   Campaign exposure is mapped to IDs and can be evaluated through measurement and attribution partners, helping marketers better understand audience delivery and business outcomes.

4. Optimize

   Insights from campaign performance can be applied to future planning and investment decisions.

This approach allows broadcast campaigns to be planned and measured at the person level, creating a stronger connection between who marketers want to reach, where those consumers are listening and how campaign performance is evaluated.

How Does AudioGraph Help Solve the Scale vs. Precision Challenge?

For years, marketers have faced a tradeoff.

Digital channels provided detailed targeting and measurement capabilities. Broadcast radio delivered extraordinary reach, trusted personalities and daily engagement. Most brands invested in both, but often through separate planning and buying frameworks.

AudioGraph helps bridge that gap.

Testing demonstrated that ID-based broadcast planning was 34% more precise at reaching target audiences than traditional planning approaches and delivered 75% stronger KPI outcomes. In first-party data matching scenarios, AudioGraph reached 14% more known customers than traditional planning methods.

The result is a stronger connection between audience strategy, media activation and measurable outcomes.

What Results Has AudioGraph Delivered?

Recent market testing highlights the potential of audience-based broadcast radio planning.

A campaign for a major retailer targeting homeowners delivered:

• 27% greater precision in reaching the intended audience
• 49% stronger store visitation outcomes than traditional demographic planning

In another test, a professional networking platform targeting active job seekers achieved:

• 7% greater audience precision
• 81% stronger site traffic performance than traditional demographic buying

These findings demonstrate how audience-based buying can help marketers improve both audience quality and campaign performance.

The latest round of testing covered six campaigns across five brands. The tests evaluated AudioGraph's ability to predict ID-level radio listeners across station-dayparts, find audiences using first-party data and custom audience segments, and measure targeted listeners' exposure to campaign messaging.

Why Is iHeart Uniquely Positioned to Deliver AudioGraph?

AudioGraph is powered by an advantage few companies can replicate: scale across the entire audio ecosystem.

iHeartMedia's combination of broadcast radio, podcasting and streaming creates the foundation for more consistent audience definitions and campaign strategies across audio. That scale allows marketers to take a more connected approach to audience planning while continuing to use the strengths of each audio channel.

The platform also combines modern measurement capabilities with trusted third-party attribution relationships, helping marketers connect audio exposure to meaningful business outcomes. AudioGraph is designed to work across the broader digital measurement ecosystem, with deeper integrations validated with partners including Magellan AI, PlaceIQ and GroundTruth.

Just as importantly, campaigns are delivered through the voices, personalities and creators audiences actively choose to spend time with.

That combination of audience precision and trusted human influence reflects iHeartMedia's broader Guaranteed Human philosophy, which emphasizes authentic connection in a media environment increasingly shaped by automation and algorithms.

AudioGraph 101

How is AudioGraph different from traditional radio buying?

Traditional planning often focuses on demographics and station composition. AudioGraph starts with the audience and uses identity-based intelligence and predictive listening models to identify where those consumers are listening.

Instead of describing the average listener of a station, AudioGraph assesses listening behavior and builds targeting from the person or ID level up. This creates a stronger connection between targeting and measurement than previous broadcast planning approaches.

How is AudioGraph activated today?
AudioGraph is currently available as a managed-service product through iHeartMedia.

Is AudioGraph available across all broadcast inventory?
AudioGraph is currently available across iHeartMedia's owned-and-operated broadcast inventory, with coverage across the top 50 U.S. markets. iHeartMedia's longer-term goal is to extend these targeting, measurement and buying capabilities more broadly across the broadcast ecosystem.

Can marketers use their existing measurement partners?
Yes. AudioGraph was designed to work within the broader measurement ecosystem and support measurement, attribution and analytics partners that advertisers already use.

Who is AudioGraph designed for?
AudioGraph is especially valuable for marketers focused on audience-based planning, measurable outcomes and cross-channel media strategies who also need the scale and influence that broadcast radio provides.

The solution can be particularly relevant for brands that have previously prioritized digital media because of addressability and measurement requirements but still need broader reach and real-world influence.

Can AudioGraph help unify broadcast and digital strategies?
Yes. AudioGraph connects audience planning, activation, measurement and optimization through an identity-based framework, helping align broadcast radio more closely with modern media workflows.

iHeartMedia's scale across broadcast radio, podcasting and streaming also creates opportunities to apply more consistent audience definitions and strategies across audio.

What AudioGraph Means for Marketers

Marketers no longer want to choose between scale and accountability. They need both.

AudioGraph helps bring broadcast radio into the modern media ecosystem through ID-based audience planning, measurement, attribution and optimization. By connecting America's largest audio audience with the approaches marketers already use, AudioGraph helps make broadcast radio more targetable, measurable and actionable.

Most importantly, it combines the precision marketers expect from modern media with the trusted influence, scale and human connection that have always made audio powerful.

Ready to connect audio's unmatched reach with the precision and accountability modern marketers expect? Connect with the iHeartMedia team to learn how AudioGraph can power your next campaign.