Nielsen continues to roll out a series of sales lift studies showing the power of radio to drive measurable results for brands.

In collaboration with Katz Media, Nielsen studied a top telecom advertiser’s quarter-long radio campaign to understand how radio impacts consumer spending. By matching Portable People Meter data with consumer purchase behavior, Nielsen was able to divide the audience into two groups — those who were exposed to the ads and those who were not.

The results demonstrated radio’s huge impact on sales. Here are the main takeaways of the study:

1. Radio generated $14 of incremental telecom sales for every dollar of advertising. Customers exposed to radio ads spent an incremental $209 million!

Looking to make a big impact with a media budget? Just add radio. For this telecom client, $1 invested results in $14 of sales. Proven ROI.

2. Consumers exposed more frequently to the radio campaign spent more. 10+ ad exposures results in double the spend growth (+$16 per customer month) versus those exposed 1+ times (+$8 per customer month).

3. Radio garners $8 of sales for every dollar of radio ads across a large variety of categories. This latest telecom sales lift study represents the 12th Nielsen ROI study spanning retail, consumer packaged goods and department stores. If you average the ROI across all these studies, radio delivers 8 dollars of incremental sales per dollar spent in radio advertising.

Radio works for telecom. Radio works for advertisers.

Every $1 spent by this telecom advertiser generated $14 of incremental sales. A $14 ROI! Among those heavily exposed, spend growth per consumer doubled.
Across a whole variety of categories, radio generates an 8 to 1 ROI. Nielsen’s breakthrough studies continue to prove radio is a powerful platform to drive ROI.

Are you looking to make the most of your media budget? If so, just add radio.

Pierre Bouvard is CMO of Cumulus Media | Westwood One
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