MarTech Interview with Stas Tushinskiy, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Instreamatic

In an era where advertising inundates our digital experiences, the challenge of capturing consumers’ attention and delivering personalized messaging has become increasingly complex. As a leading innovator in the field of voice-enabled advertising, Stas Tushinskiy, the visionary CEO & Co-Founder at Instreamatic has disrupted the traditional advertising landscape, introducing a groundbreaking solution that empowers brands to engage with their audiences in a conversational and interactive manner.

In this interview, we explore the evolving advertising ecosystem, the agitation caused by ad fatigue, and the transformative solution that Stas and his team at Instreamatic have pioneered to revolutionize the way brands connect with consumers.

Scroll through to read the full interview.

In addition to its CEO, you’re a co-founder of Instreamatic—how and why was the company originally started, and how has it evolved since then?

We launched Instreamatic to solve marketers’ audio ad engagement challenge, first by enabling brands to engage audiences in interactive, relevant, and contextually-aware voice dialogues. Consumers will quickly tune out irrelevant ads that are blind to their context, or far afield from what they actually want. Brands react to falling engagement by bombarding consumers with repeat ads, further reducing engagement rates and, frankly, annoying audiences.

Backed by our AI marketing core, our interactive voice ads continue to allow consumers to respond aloud to ads and accept or reject offers—and for brands to listen and tailor future campaign content based on those responses. For example, listeners that engage with ads offering deals on coffee in the morning or pizza at lunch will continue to receive ads designed for their needs. Alternatively, listeners who say they don’t like coffee may get a follow-up campaign ad offering a deal on tea, but they won’t receive the same irrelevant offer again.

Now, with our very recent launch of Contextual Audio Ads, we’ve evolved our voice AI-powered offerings to enable brands to further match the right content with the right consumers in context. Using advanced generative AI, Contextual Audio Ads can take one voiced audio ad and generate an unlimited number of new creatives using that same voice. Brands can then automatically produce and deliver ad variations that are carefully tailored, targeted, and relevant to each consumer. Because these ads speak to the consumer’s context and actual needs at that exact moment, listeners are more engaged, brands achieve more meaningful connections, and advertising ROI is simply much higher.

What sets Instreamatic apart from other adtech companies in the fast-moving audio advertising space?

Instreamatic’s AI marketing core introduces unique capabilities for brands, advertisers, and publishers eager to avoid the shortcomings of traditional low-engagement audio advertising. This is especially true with Contextual Audio Ads. The ability for brands and advertisers to instantly create thousands of ad variations in a synthesized voice indistinguishable from the original actor breathes new life into the possibilities and potential scope of ad campaigns. Details voiced by generative AI—seamlessly mixed into an existing ad’s audio—can specifically mention the ad listener’s location, the app or platform they’re listening on, what time of day it is, and even what the current weather is like. It opens up a new level of on-demand creativity for marketers.

Our platform vets each individual listener as potentially interested in the product or service the ad offers then assembles the appropriate detailed parameters for that listener and produces (and serves) a tailored ad in real-time. For example, a Contextual Audio Ad might say, “Good morning to you in sunny Milwaukee, hope you’re enjoying your podcast. Made lunch plans yet? Let me quickly tell you about this incredible deal.”

Creating that same ad without our contextual audio platform would require tremendous time and resources, involving branching logic, hours of recorded audio, and a lot of ad ops managers’ time. Instead, our AI does it all automatically.

How do you see the audio advertising industry evolving over the next 5-10 years, and what role do you see Instreamatic playing in that evolution?

Traditional audio advertising, and digital advertising in general, faces an engagement crisis that will only deepen going forward. Consumers are simply tuning out generalized ads. Ad personalization that enables brands to speak directly to receptive listeners is the beginning of the solution to this issue. Contextualization that goes a step further by enabling brands to understand consumers’ needs and approach them at the right moment—say with a morning coffee right when they need it, or a lunch offer right when they’re hungry—is advertising’s future.

At the same time, generative AI has arrived to allow brands to produce audio ad content like never before. Instreamatic’s Contextual Audio Ads, therefore, play a pioneering role in audio advertising’s shift to a far more dynamic, engaging, and nuanced breed of ads, harnessing generative AI and contextualization to introduce capabilities that ought to become the status quo over the next decade.

Instreamatic’s technology allows brands to deliver more conversational and context-based audio advertising experiences. How do you balance the advantages of that personalization with concerns about data privacy?

Data privacy concerns have consumers taking action. Consumers are increasingly savvy about managing their privacy settings, and increasingly blocking unwanted tracking by the apps they use. Blocking tracking data leaves context as the only remaining approach to consumer targeting, and arguably a better one. Contextual Audio Ads are able to mention an individual consumer’s specific app, location, and weather conditions providing personalization without access to any data that is particularly invasive or personal. As a result, this context-aware personalization is more prone to being perceived as a compelling wow factor that grabs attention and boosts engagement, and not a privacy issue.

How do you ensure that the conversational experiences created by Instreamatic’s technology are both engaging for listeners and valuable for brand marketers?

Considering the persistent engagement challenge of traditional audio ad strategies, our Contextual Audios Ads offer a night-and-day contrast in the relevance and precision with which brand marketers can approach individual listeners. A traditional 30-second audio ad might feature a few recorded variations (if any), and simply cannot compete with the thousands of generative AI-driven variations that surprise and engage listeners of Contextual Audio Ads. Brand marketers can easily derive superior value from these capabilities, converting that increased engagement and refined consumer targeting into better ad ROI.

What kinds of brand advertisers does Instreamatic target? Who are some of the brands that have found success with Instreamatic’s adtech solutions?

Top-tier brands across industries, including Visa, Mastercard, IKEA, HP, Infiniti, and more, have utilized the Instreamatic platform to much success. Interactive voice advertising campaigns on our platform have demonstrated voice engagement rates of 12%—meaning that one in eight listeners actively engage these ads in conversation. These ads also earn an interest rate of 5% (consumers interested in the offer). That’s a magnitude higher than the 0.6% average click-through rate of mobile ads.

What’s the advantage of conversational and contextual audio ads for publishers of audio content (digital radio media, podcasters, etc)?

Contextual Audio Ads also benefit publishers by offering seamless access to all the advantages we’ve discussed, making their ad units more valuable and effective. There’s also no complex integration necessary for publishers to get started. These ads work with all demand-side platforms and ad servers that support VAST tags, so publishers can instantly launch and scale their Contextual Audio Ad utilization.

Podcasters in particular can realize unique opportunities by backing their native podcast ads with Contextual Audio Ad capabilities. Ads read by podcast hosts have a powerful impact on loyal audiences and value all their own to advertisers. But, these ads are difficult to scale or tailor to the particular audiences that advertisers would like to target. Podcasters often lack the resources to record multiple specific ad creatives, or the technology at hand to deploy custom ad creatives effectively. With Contextual Audio Ad capabilities, podcast hosts can read a single creative, let the technology do the work of producing and deploying countless ads tailored to individual listeners, and reap the revenue benefits.

Instreamatic’s technology has won several awards for its innovation in the adtech industry. What do you attribute this success to?

Our audio ad marketing platform continues to earn honors, such as being recognized with the 2022 CUSTOMER Magazine Voice Technology Excellence Award, and for Innovation in Audio Advertising at the AdExchanger Awards. These recognitions speak to the transformative ad technology we bring to market, especially when it comes to giving consumers a voice that brands can hear and enabling advertisers and publishers to deliver ads that speak to individuals in their specific context.

How do you, personally, stay current with the latest trends and technologies in the audio advertising space (and what resources do you rely on to do so)?

I rely on various resources to stay current, including:
1. Industry publications: I keep on upon advertising and marketing publications covering the latest developments in the industry, and in particular the trends and technologies in audio advertising.
2. Webinars and conferences: Attending webinars and conferences focused on audio advertising, and advertising in general, is a great way to learn about new technologies, trends, and best practices from industry experts.
3. Social media: I keep track of industry experts, influencers, and companies on social media platforms such as Twitter, and LinkedIn. This helps me stay informed about new developments and trends in real time.

Can you share any upcoming product rollouts or partnerships that Instreamatic has in the works?

Yes—we’re going to release the next generation of Contextual Audio Ads later this year, which will address creative fatigue. Our AI technology will be able to produce fresh audio creatives daily so that users don’t get bombarded with the same ad over and over again.

Advertisers will only need to provide some initial input and the AI will do the rest, including real-time A/B testing and creative updates.

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