Reviewed by Peter Berk, President and Chief Media Strategist, Berk Marketing · Last reviewed 17 August 2026
Internet Radio Advertising
Streaming audio lets you speak to a defined age, gender and radius instead of a whole market. The precision is real. So is the trade: you reach only the free, ad-supported slice of the audience, and reach per dollar is thinner than broadcast. We will tell you which side of that trade you are on.
No cost, no obligation. Or call (866) 747-4707 and speak with Peter Berk or one of his Berk-trained partners.
Internet radio advertising is the purchase of audio commercials inside streaming music and radio services such as Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Slacker, and the stations listed on aggregators like TuneIn and Streema. The commercial is delivered to one listener at a time rather than broadcast to everyone on a frequency. You do not pay per commercial. You pay for impressions, quoted on a CPM basis, meaning cost per thousand. Because most listeners log in and have told the platform their age, gender and location, a schedule can be aimed at a described person rather than at a format and a daypart.
The result is a different kind of buy. Targeting and delivery reporting beat anything broadcast offers. The addressable pool is smaller, because every service sells a paid subscription that removes commercials and only the free tier is reachable. Broadcast radio still reaches a very large weekly audience, and many of those listeners also stream. It is not an either/or choice. Berk Marketing holds no inventory and represents advertisers, not media companies, so our job is to say when streaming is the right layer and when it is the wrong place for your money.
The problem
Almost every internet radio proposal we review has the same shape: an impressive targeting description, a CPM, a budget, and no honest statement of how many of your people the platform can actually deliver.
Holding a Pandora, Spotify or iHeartRadio proposal? Send it over. We score it against our ten-point standard and tell you what it is missing, whether or not you buy through us.
Get It ReviewedHow it works
Internet radio borrows its buying model from digital, not broadcast. Once you understand the unit you are buying, most of the sales pitch decodes itself.
| Element | How it actually works | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| The unit you buy | Impressions, not spots. One impression is one ad delivered to one listener, priced as CPM, cost per thousand. M is the Roman numeral for a thousand. | A low CPM on a target nobody is listening to is no bargain. Ask for deliverable impressions, not just the rate. |
| Who hears it | Listeners who log in have shared age, gender and location. The platform plays your ad only into sessions matching the description you set. | Every filter shrinks the pool. Targeting and volume pull against each other on every buy. |
| The addressable pool | Only the free, ad-supported tier hears advertising. A large share of listeners stay there, but paid subscribers cannot be reached at any price. | If your customers skew toward paid plans, streaming caps how much of your market you can touch. |
| Frequency | Impressions divided by unique listeners. Reaching 20,000 matched people four times in a month is 80,000 impressions. | A budget spread too thin buys one impression per person, which is close to buying nothing. |
| What it costs | Impressions times CPM. At a $15 CPM, 80,000 impressions is $1,200. Arithmetic, not a rate card. Rates move with target, geography and season. | Treat any published example as illustration. Your mileage may vary, sometimes by a lot. |
| Reporting | Impressions delivered against impressions ordered, plus completion and click activity where the format allows. | Delivery reporting is not response reporting. Response tracking is built on your side before launch. |
| The commercial | Scripting, voiceover and editing are handled in house, so the spot is written for the medium it runs in. | A script recycled from a broadcast schedule usually needs rewriting first. |
The dollar figures above are a worked example to explain CPM math, not a quote. Berk Marketing publishes no response rate, because response varies widely by category, offer and creative.
Where the ads run
Services like Pandora build a station around a seed artist or song. Listeners log in, and account data supports filtering by age, gender and radius. The classic internet radio buy.
Spotify and similar services let listeners pick tracks and playlists. Advertising reaches the free tier only, but login data supports the same targeting.
iHeartRadio and other groups stream their own AM/FM stations online. The closest thing to a familiar station with digital targeting attached, and often negotiable alongside the over-the-air schedule.
TuneIn and Streema list hundreds, arguably thousands, of stations from all over the planet. Useful when your audience is defined by language, country or niche format rather than a local market.
Apple iTunes Radio, Google Play, SoundCloud and Slacker have all carried advertising. Availability changes, so each is checked at the time of the buy.
Inventory unsold as the flight approaches buys on different terms than guaranteed placement, trading control for efficiency. See remnant radio advertising.
Costs
There is no single rate for internet radio. The CPM you are quoted depends on how hard your target is to find, how much control you demand, and how much room the platform has left to fill.
We publish no rate card and quote no CPM in advance. Any number written before we know your target and geography would be fiction. See radio advertising costs.
Want to see what your budget buys in your radius, on streaming and on broadcast, side by side? That comparison is free.
Get It ReviewedIs it right for you?
If the answer is no, we say so and point you at the medium that fits. That advice costs nothing. Start with is radio right for my business.
Comparison
| Internet / streaming audio | Terrestrial AM/FM | Podcast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you buy it | Impressions, priced on a CPM basis. Never per commercial. | Spots, priced by station, daypart and length. You pay per commercial aired. | Impressions or show sponsorships, usually CPM based. |
| Targeting | Individual. Age, gender and radius from logged-in listener data. | By proxy. You choose format, daypart and market, then infer the audience. | By subject. You choose the show, not the listener. |
| Reach per dollar | Thinner. You pay for precision and buy into a smaller pool. | Strongest of the three. One schedule reaches a very large weekly audience. | Narrow but attentive. Small audiences, high engagement. |
| Addressable audience | Free, ad-supported tier only. Paid subscribers hear nothing. | Anyone with a receiver. No login, no subscription, no account. | Anyone who downloads or streams the episode. |
| Measurement | Delivered impressions, completions and clicks, reported by the platform. | Affidavits and schedule verification. Response measured by your tracking. | Downloads plus promo codes and vanity URLs. |
| Ad avoidance | Paying to remove ads is a permanent opt-out, one tap away. | Listeners change presets, then come back. No permanent opt-out exists. | Skip-forward is easy, though host reads survive it better. |
| Credibility of the read | Produced spot. Professional, but no personal endorsement. | Produced spot, or a live local personality vouching for you on air. | Host read carries the host’s endorsement. The medium’s main asset. |
| Best used as | A precision layer aimed at a defined buyer. | The frequency and reach base of a campaign. | A niche buy against a specific interest or intent. |
Most campaigns we build are not single medium. The right split depends on your target and budget, not on which seller called you first. Compare with FM radio advertising and SiriusXM advertising.
Why Berk Marketing
An independent media buying agency holding no inventory. The platform list starts from who reaches your customer, not from what we need to move.
Peter Berk has been in radio since 1979, including two decades on the station side at KCHS-AM New Mexico, KKAL California, KABC and KMPC Los Angeles, and 91X San Diego as General Sales Manager.
Every proposal is scored against the same ten-point standard, ours and a competitor’s alike. If another plan scores higher, we say so.
Certificate no. 589, issued by the Radio Advertising Bureau on December 2, 1980. Berk Marketing has bought for advertisers as an independent agency since 1999.
Standard media commission built into the buy, split with Hybrid Media Services on most campaigns. No separate retainer, and no fee for a plan or a proposal review.
Commercial writing and production are done in house. Big Lou Insurance, which sells term life to people aged 50 to 60 with health issues, has run national radio and SiriusXM with us since 2011.
How we work
Who buys from you, where they are, what a customer is worth, what you can spend. No obligation, and no pitch until we know whether streaming belongs in the plan.
We size the addressable audience against your target and radius, get availability and pricing from the platforms worth including, and compare the result against broadcast and satellite for the same money, all scored against the ten-point standard.
We negotiate rate, delivery terms and flexibility, then write and produce the commercial in house so the copy is built for the medium.
Delivery is checked against what was ordered, response is tracked with the mechanism set up before launch, and targeting or weight is adjusted mid-flight.
FAQs
It is the purchase of audio commercials inside streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple iTunes Radio, Google Play, SoundCloud, Slacker, TuneIn and Streema. The ad is delivered to one logged-in listener at a time rather than broadcast to a market, and you buy impressions rather than spots.
On a CPM basis, cost per thousand impressions, with M being the Roman numeral for a thousand. You do not pay per commercial as you do on traditional radio. At a $15 CPM, 80,000 impressions costs $1,200. That is a worked example, not a quote. Actual rates depend on your target, geography, platform and season.
Broadcast sells spots against a format and daypart and reaches anyone with a receiver. Streaming sells impressions against a described person and reaches only the free, ad-supported tier. Streaming gives better targeting and reporting. Broadcast gives more reach per dollar. They solve different problems.
Yes. Both are bought regularly and both support targeting by age, gender and location. We also buy iHeartRadio and other broadcaster streams, and we compare them against each other rather than defaulting to whichever one you have heard of.
Precise enough to name a demographic and a radius. A yoga studio whose customers are women aged 28 to 52 living within fifteen miles can have the ad played only into matching sessions, whatever those listeners are playing. The limit is volume: the tighter the filter, the fewer impressions exist to buy.
No. Every major service offers a paid subscription that removes commercials, and that does shrink the pool. But a large share of listeners stay on the free tier and accept occasional ads. The honest way to handle it is to size the addressable audience for your target before you commit a budget.
It has not. Broadcast radio still reaches a very large weekly audience, and many of those same listeners also tune into internet radio of some kind. It is not an either/or choice. The useful question is how a specific budget should be split between them.
Platforms report impressions delivered against impressions ordered, which tells you the ads ran. Whether they produced business is measured on your side, with tracked numbers, landing pages or promo codes set up before launch. We publish no response rate, because response varies widely by category, offer and creative. What the CPM math lets you do is decide what a response is worth to you, then work backwards to see how many a campaign at that cost would need to produce to be worth running.
Commercial writing and production are handled in house: scripting, voiceover and editing. Compensation is the standard media commission built into the buy, split with Hybrid Media Services on most campaigns. There is no separate retainer, and reviewing a proposal you already have costs nothing.
Keep reading
Tell us who your customer is, where they are and what you can spend. We will size the addressable audience, price it against broadcast and satellite for the same dollars, and say plainly if internet radio is wrong for you.
Or call (866) 747-4707. No obligation, and no pressure to buy through us.
Tell us who you want to reach and what you want to accomplish. No obligation, and nothing is placed until you approve it.
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