The Future of Performance Audio: How Audion is Rewriting the Digital Audio Playbook

Digital audio is undergoing a massive paradigm shift. Long relegated to top-of-funnel brand awareness, the medium is rapidly evolving into a data-driven, highly measurable performance marketing channel. Driving this programmatic evolution are advanced attribution models, AI-powered optimization, and Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) tools that allow brands to unlock incremental business value at scale.

In this edition of the Quo Vadis Green Shoot AdTech Interviews, we sit down with Arthur Larrey, CEO and Co-Founder of Audion , the leading performance audio platform. Arthur breaks down how Audion acts as the "scientist of the audio space," the friction-reducing power of AI in campaign planning, and why the rise of video podcasts is redefining omnichannel audience attention.

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Q1: Can audio truly deliver measurable performance?

A: Arthur

For years, audio has been viewed primarily as an awareness channel. It delivered attention, engagement, and brand impact, but marketers often struggled to connect that influence to measurable business outcomes.

That is changing. We now have better data, more sophisticated activation technologies, improved attribution models, and cross-channel measurement, making audio increasingly accountable. The question is no longer whether audio can influence consumer behavior; it is whether marketers have the infrastructure to measure and optimize that influence at scale.

In our view, performance audio should not be defined by clicks alone. Just like connected TV, audio’s evolution is about proving incremental business impact across awareness, consideration, intent, site visits, lead generation, and sales. That’s why we think of ourselves as the tvScientific of the audio space.

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Q2: Is the advertising industry underestimating digital audio’s potential?

A: Arthur

In many ways, yes. Consumers spend hours every day listening to digital audio across podcasts, music streaming, radio streaming, and increasingly video-first audio experiences. Yet advertising investment has not fully caught up with consumer behavior.

We’ve seen this playbook before. Historically, audio lacked the buying, optimization, and measurement infrastructure that marketers expect from channels such as search, social, or CTV. As those capabilities mature, audio is becoming easier to activate, measure, and justify within performance-driven media plans. The opportunity is not that audio has suddenly become more valuable. It’s always been highly valued since the first radio ad.

The first official radio advertisement in the United States was broadcast on August 28, 1922, on New York station WEAF. The 10-minute commercial, purchased by the Queensboro Corporation for $50, promoted apartments in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens.

From our vantage point, today's big audio opportunity is about how advertisers can prove the value audio has always delivered.

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Q3: In what ways does dynamic creative impact performance in digital audio campaigns?

A: Arthur

Creative relevance has always been one of the strongest drivers of advertising performance, and digital audio is no exception. Marketers know that consumers respond better when messaging reflects their context, location, interests, stage in the customer journey, or even external factors such as weather, time of day, or current events. Our approach to dynamic creative allows advertisers to adapt messaging at scale rather than relying on a single generic audio asset. That’s a big difference between radio and digital audio. As audio becomes more performance-oriented, creative optimization becomes increasingly important. It’s all about delivering relevant experiences to drive performance.

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Q4: How is AI changing the way digital audio campaigns are planned, optimized, and measured?

A: Arthur

We think AI is most valuable when it removes friction. Friction in the audio world comes from a fragmented ecosystem comprising millions of content signals, audiences, formats, platforms, and consumption contexts. Historically, that complexity made planning and optimization difficult. But now, AI allows advertisers to process those signals at a scale that would be impossible to do manually.

The most important role we offer with our AI tools is to help marketers make better decisions faster, from contextual targeting and creative optimization to campaign pacing, performance analysis, and measurement. From what we can tell over the past two years of AI innovation, the future of digital audio will be defined by what AI enables to drive more relevant campaigns, more efficient activation, and better business outcomes.

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Q5: What does the rise of video podcast consumption mean for the future of digital audio?

A: Arthur

The growth of video podcasts is a welcome expansion to the audio ecosystem as audio and video converge and grow in lock-step, and consumer attention becomes platform-agnostic. Our data show that consumers are increasingly moving seamlessly between listening and watching, depending on the moment, platform, and context. But the most important trend for us is not whether a podcast is audio or video. It’s way more important that creators are building audiences across both formats. That’s very exciting for our space and our company.

For advertisers and their media budgets, they are focusing less on channels and more on audience attention. And from what we can tell, the future of “audio” belongs to solutions that can activate consistently across audio and video environments while maintaining coherent targeting, creative, and measurement strategies.