Internet radio company Pandora expanded on Nov. 18 advertisers’ location-targeting abilities to include targeting by congressional district among other geographical areas.
Pandora spokesperson Francisca Fanucchi said via email that the company launched the new targeting capabilities to help political campaign strategists market to voters.
“The new features unveiled today allow campaign strategists to connect with voters by specific regions, such as congressional district and MSA [metropolitan survey area], making their campaigns on Pandora more efficient and helps eliminate ad spend waste,” said Fanucchi. She said that more than 110 political campaigns have run on Pandora this year.
In addition to targeting by congressional district, the new targeting capabilities enable ad targeting by state, country, metropolitan survey area and designated market area. Previously, targeting was limited to consumers’ age, gender, ZIP code, time of day, music genre, seeded artist, interaction, mobile and first impression. When registering for a Pandora account, consumers must submit their email address, age, ZIP code and gender.
Advertising accounted for 87% of Pandora’s total second-quarter revenue, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in September. Revenue from advertising more than doubled from the previous year, increasing by 118% year-over-year to $58.3 million for the quarter.
Pandora said in the regulatory filing that 37 million consumers actively use the service as of July 31 and that the company has streamed 3.4 billion hours of radio listening during the first six months of 2011. Mobile has accounted for 51% of total listener hours for the 2011 fiscal year, the company said.
