SMG - Dec 1, 2025 - Validate - Audio Attribution

Introducing Validate - Audio Attribution

December 1, 2025

An overview of the Validate platform, its key functionalities, and practical guidance to effectively use it to measure radio campaign performance, track digital conversions, and enhance client relationships.

What is Validate?

Validate is a cloud-based platform designed to measure, manage, and monitor radio campaigns just like digital campaigns. It aims to provide a level of reporting and accountability in the industry that is “second to none”.

How does Validate measure radio campaign performance?

Validate connects directly to the station’s traffic system, such as WideOrbit, eliminating the need to manually enter schedules or gather campaign data. It uses data from the station’s streaming provider to determine the online audience reached by each spot. Crucially, it then extrapolates this streaming audience to the larger total audience, including those listening over the air and through non-digital methods. This extrapolation is done using a multiplier based on PPM (Personal People Meter) measurement data from over 60 markets, which tracks the percentages of overall listening attributable to streaming versus broadcast by the day and minute. This allows Validate to report the total number of impressions generated by a campaign

What are the benefits of using Validate?

• Increased client spend and retention: Patterson Media observed that clients using conversion tags increased their spend by 2.19x and stayed on air 44 days longer.

• Accountability and insights: Provides advertisers with crucial information like “who heard my spot and what action they took,” which radio historically could not provide.

• Proactive campaign management: Real-time data allows sales reps to be proactive, suggesting creative changes if conversion dips are observed, rather than waiting until after a campaign.

• Credibility with clients: The methodology provides “credibility” by delivering realistic data.

• Optimization of marketing spend: Helps national advertisers assess the balance between radio and other digital spends like Google, ensuring they have the “right balance”.

• AB Testing: Allows for real-time AB testing of creative during a campaign, enabling changes to be made and their impact observed immediately.

• Beyond traditional campaigns: Validate can measure and track not just revenue-generating campaigns, but also mentions, remotes, and bonus campaigns, as long as they are logged in the traffic system.

What is PPM, and how does it apply?

PPM stands for Personal People Meter. In Canada, PPM data is collected by Numeris in five large markets. Listeners in these sample groups are issued a device that listens for an encoded signal from radio stations, crediting the station regardless of whether the listening is digital or over the air. Validate uses this PPM data from over 60 markets to understand how people listen to radio at different times of the day (e.g., over the air during drive times, on devices midday). This allows Validate to create multipliers that are considered valid for large, medium, and small markets, providing a way to measure campaigns where a measurement system previously did not exist.

What key metrics and data points does Validate provide for campaigns?

Validate provides several key metrics for radio campaigns:

• Total Occurrences: The number of times a spot was trafficked and aired on the station and streams.

• Streaming Impressions: The number of listeners who heard the spot via the station’s stream.

• Total Impressions: An extrapolated number representing the combined streaming and over-the-air audience that heard the spot, calculated using an average multiplier. For example, in a sample campaign, 383 occurrences resulted in over 3 million total impressions with an average multiplier of 10.99.

• Cost Per Thousand (CPM): Calculated by integrating financial information from the traffic system, showing how competitive radio is against other digital spends.

• Conversion Data: When conversion tags are used, Validate reports how advertising drives site traffic and specific actions.

◦ Total Website Visits: The number of visits to the client’s website.

◦ Visits by Streaming Listeners: The number of times streaming listeners came to the website.

◦ Total Estimated Conversions: An extrapolated number of total visits from listeners exposed to the campaign, derived by applying the average multiplier to streaming listener visits.

◦ Average Ad Exposures per Conversion: The average number of times a listener needed to hear an ad before taking action (e.g., almost 7 times for a kitchen renovation company).

◦ Average Conversion Cycle (Time Since First Impression): The average time from the first ad exposure to a conversion, which varies by product/service (e.g., 44 days for kitchen renovations, 42 days for auto dealerships, 4 days for live concerts).

How do conversion tags work, and why are they important?

Conversion tags are a snippet of code (JavaScript, not a tracking pixel or cookie-based) that clients place in the header of their website. This tag allows Validate to:

• Recognize how many visits occur on that client’s website.

• Cross-reference these visits with streaming listeners to count how many times listeners exposed to the campaign visit the website.

• Document the listener’s journey from ad exposure to website visit.

• Track specific events within the website, such as reaching a “contact us” page or viewing a specials page.

• Measure conversions up to 90 days after the last spot aired, addressing a “fatal flaw” of other platforms that only track an 8-minute window.

Installing the conversion tag is straightforward; for WordPress sites, a specific plugin is available . A client can have conversion tags set up for multiple websites, including those in different languages. The dashboard indicates when a tag is successfully installed and active.

Can reports be customized and exported?

Yes, users can customize reports by selecting specific campaigns, stations, creatives, and date ranges. They can also hide certain metrics from the report if they are not favorable or relevant for a client discussion. Customized reports can then be exported as PDFs for easy delivery or printing.

Support: support@validate.audio

It's A Game Changer!

"Validate cracks the attribution code, giving our clients the metrics they deserve and a whole new level of confidence in their radio spend!"

“Validate has the dashboard to connect the dots and prove that Radio advertising campaigns deliver business results for advertisers.”

“Validate gives our account managers confidence that they can sell radio on the same playing field as digital. Validate is priceless, and its value grows every day as we adopt it across all our markets!”

“We built Validate to measure radio the way it works.”

“Momentum serves as the independent third party that safeguards your group data, avoids conflicts of interest, and facilitates an industry-wide audio attribution platform solution for Canada.”