Bumper's Partnership with Oxford Road: Putting a Number on Trust
Recently Bumper partnered with Oxford Road, the world's largest podcast advertising agency. Together, we're bringing the Bumper Score into planning and buying conversations with their clients and partners.
Oxford Road has been leading the charge on the AMP Accords, a proposed framework for better podcast measurement standards. They see the Bumper Score as a practical tool buyers can use today, while the AMP Accords work toward broader industry adoption.
What is the Bumper Score?
The Bumper Score represents a podcast's ability to deliver ads to a verified audience. The higher the score, the more confidence advertisers have that their ads reach real podcast listeners and viewers.
Bumper scores each participating podcast from 0 to 200, benchmarked against the industry average. A score of 100 means a show is performing at par – anything higher signals a stronger ability to reach a verified audience, giving advertisers more confidence in their buys.
Why Bumper is excited about this partnership
We've been talking about the gap between podcast delivery and consumption for years. In blog posts like this or this or this. And at every podcast conference we've ever been to. When we saw Oxford Road’s work on the AMP Accords, we were encouraged to see the industry finally moving toward a shared understanding of what a podcast play is, and what an ad impression should actually mean.
But getting the AMP Accords fully adopted, and changing how podcast ad buys are transacted, will take time. We want advertisers and publishers to have a way to trade more transparently and efficiently today. The Bumper Score is the best possible tool to do that now.
So why is Bumper, a podcast growth company, in the business of audience verification? Because our clients asked us to be. We kept hearing from advertisers that better audience verification could unlock bigger budgets for podcasting. If we want the industry to keep growing, we need better data behind it. That's exactly the thinking behind the AMP Accords too, which is what makes Oxford Road such a natural partner.
Available now, to everyone
The Bumper Score is available to all podcasters now, free of charge. Podcasters can sign up here and get their show’s Bumper Score. Buyers can start asking publishers for their Bumper Scores now.
Two things we want every podcaster and buyer to know::
Participating podcasters have full control over their data and can share their Bumper Score with Oxford Road (or any other third party) at their discretion. Bumper Scores are not visible to third parties by default.
Our partnership with Oxford Road isn't exclusive. Neither of us sees the Bumper Score as a proprietary tool for a select few — it's built to be used by anyone who wants to buy or sell podcast ads.
If you want to learn more about how the Bumper Score can help you buy or sell podcast ads, get in touch.