How LiSTNR won new brand budgets by accessing behavioral intelligence

The challenge

LiSTNR, Australia's leading audio streaming platform, wanted to attract premium brand advertisers to their podcast and streaming inventory. Like most audio publishers, LiSTNR faced a fundamental challenge: the absence of cookies and MAIDs in audio environments made it impossible to offer audience targeting, limiting them to contextual or show-level buys.

Brand advertisers were willing to pay significantly higher CPMs for audience-guaranteed inventory, but LiSTNR had no way to offer this without compromising user privacy or relying on panels and extrapolation.

The solution

NumberEight integrated its Advanced Behavioral product directly into LiSTNR's ad stack, enabling real-time behavioral audience classification across their listener base. Our on-device AI identified behavioral cohorts — fitness enthusiasts, commuters, weekend explorers, premium shoppers — from anonymous usage signals, without ever accessing personal data.

These behavioral segments were made available as targetable audience packages, allowing brand advertisers to buy LiSTNR's inventory with audience guarantees for the first time — at a premium CPM.

The results

LiSTNR achieved near-complete addressability across their inventory — a dramatic improvement from the near-zero baseline in audio. The ability to offer behavioral audience targeting unlocked new brand budgets that had previously been inaccessible, driving significant CPM uplift across the platform.