Radio: The Performance Multiplier

Client: Radiocentre

Online brands are increasingly turning to offline media to grow their business. This is a growing phenomenon because of the “performance plateau” when highly targeted digital media loses effectiveness and customer acquisition costs become more expensive. Despite evidence of radio’s effectiveness, it remains underutilised due to challenges with attribution and measurement—marketers struggle to link radio exposure to online behaviour.

To address this, Radio: The Performance Multiplier was launched. The study aimed to: (1) quantify radio’s short-term impact on web sessions, (2) define its contribution to performance marketing, and (3) grow radio’s share of performance ad spend. Partnering with research agency Colourtext, the team used a self-tuning multiple regression model analysing data from four advertisers—1.6 billion media impressions and 30 million web sessions.

Key findings revealed that traditional attribution models miss 92% of radio’s impact due to delayed responses—radio ads take up to 19 hours to deliver full results. When measured accurately, radio boosted daily web sessions by an average of 9%, at twice the cost efficiency of other demand-generating media. Radio also amplified the effectiveness of digital channels like search and social, and delivered long-term brand benefits such as increased mental availability.

The results were shared widely, leading to increased engagement from advertisers and media planners. Within a year of the research launch, radio ad spend among performance brands rose by 8%, versus an 8% decline in total ad spend, delivering £19.1 million in new revenue—a 17% increase in category share and an ROI of £264 on the research investment.