Financial Technology Company

In an increasingly competitive financial services landscape, a leading financial technology company set out to drive efficient customer acquisition through innovative media channels. After seeing promising results from podcast endorsement ads in Q3 2024, the team faced two consecutive challenges: first, to scale the channel during one of the busiest times of the year while maintaining cost-efficiency and proving incrementality; and second, to sustain and build upon that success in Q1 2025 while increasing media spend.

Across both quarters, the company prioritized optimization of their bottom funnel metrics. Demonstrating that podcast advertising could not only scale but also remain efficient and incrementally valuable at scale was essential to justifying continued investment.

In Q3, ARM expanded the audio strategy by layering in programmatic alongside the company’s traditionally podcast-focused efforts. A structured incrementality test revealed that programmatic not only complemented existing podcast campaigns – it amplified them. Specifically, produced audio ads running in tandem with host-read endorsements significantly increased overall performance by 15%. 

This integrated audio approach reinforced cross-channel effectiveness, driving stronger incrementality and more efficient conversions throughout the campaign period.

The second half of 2024 through Q1 2025 marked the company’s most efficient and impactful period for podcast-driven performance to date. Q4 2024 emerged as the strongest quarter of the year, with momentum carrying into 2025.

This success underscores the effectiveness of scaling investment in a proven channel, expanding spend on a new test tactic, and executing a disciplined test-learn-scale strategy rooted in intentional experimentation, rigorous performance tracking, and continuous optimization.