Streaming TV wins the living room. Digital audio wins the rest of the day.
Key takeaways
• The 70/30 strategy puts roughly 70% of a media plan into streaming TV to build awareness and demand, and the other 30% into digital audio—plus display and OLV—to carry the message through the commute, the workout, and the errands that fill the rest of the day.
• Digital audio reaches audiences streaming video can't: most heavy SiriusXM and streaming audio listeners aren't on the major streaming apps, and audio delivers more than 50% higher attentive seconds than benchmark media.
• About 80% of commerce still happens locally, so pairing streaming TV with digital audio—and measuring both against store visits, calls, and sales—holds the plan accountable to real business outcomes, not just impressions.
Streaming TV has become the anchor of the modern media plan, and for good reason. It delivers premium video, large-screen impact, and full sight, sound, and motion—everything a brand needs to tell its story well. For local and regional agencies, and for the multi-location advertisers they serve, it has finally made television feel like a performance channel: targetable, measurable, and accountable to real business outcomes.
Connected TV already sets a high benchmark for capturing attention and building brand presence. Pairing it with audio amplifies that work. Consumers spend significant portions of their day on the move—commuting, working out, running errands, cooking dinner, or walking the dog—where audio naturally thrives. Integrating the two mediums ensures the awareness established in the living room continues to resonate all day long.
The most useful way we've found to think about that problem is a simple planning rule: the 70/30 strategy. Put the majority of the plan—roughly 70%—into streaming TV to build awareness and demand on the biggest screen in the house. Then put the remaining 30% into digital that extends and reinforces the message through the rest of the day. Digital audio - combined with display and OLV—is at the core of that 30. And for advertisers who care about what happens locally—store visits, calls, appointments, sales—it may be the most valuable part of the plan they're not fully using yet.
The 70/30 Strategy
The idea behind 70/30 isn't to split a budget for the sake of it. It's to match spend to the job each channel does best.
The 70 is streaming TV. It's the demand builder—the channel with the storytelling power to create awareness and move a market. The 30 is digital, and digital audio sits at its center as the reach-and-reinforcement layer: it follows the same audience into the screen-free hours, repeats the message where video can't, and adds unique reach the 70 can't buy on its own.
Run separately, the two channels look like two line items. Run as a 70/30 plan—same audience, one strategy, measured together—the 30 makes the 70 work harder. The rest of this post is the case for why.
The Day Doesn't Stop When the Screen Turns Off
Audio has quietly become one of the largest media habits in the country. Americans now spend more than four hours a day with audio content. For younger audiences it's central to the day: Gen Z spends about 2.8 hours and millennials about 2.7 hours a day with digital audio alone.
More importantly for planners, audio reaches people that streaming video often can't. Research on SiriusXM listeners found that 92% aren't on ESPN+, 86% aren't on Peacock, 62% aren't on Hulu, and 42% aren't on YouTube. These aren't marginal audiences—they're consumers who are hard to reach consistently through video, no matter how much you spend there. That's the reach the 30 adds to the 70: incremental, unique, and impossible to buy with more video alone.
Attention Is Getting Harder to Buy—and Audio Still Has It
Modern viewing habits have also evolved alongside technology. Roughly 80% of adults keep a second device nearby while watching TV, with more than half checking their phones simultaneously. In an environment where viewers naturally multitask, audio serves as the perfect companion layer. It reinforces what audiences see on screen with what they hear, creating a cohesive brand presence that holds strong even when attention shifts between devices.
That shows up in the numbers: digital audio delivers more than 50% higher attentive seconds than benchmark media, roughly 41% average brand recall, and a 10% brand choice lift against a 6% benchmark. In a market where attention is the scarce resource, the 30 is one of the few places it's still relatively easy to find.
Despite that, audio remains one of the most underinvested channels in media. Consumers give it about 21.4% of their media time, while advertisers put just 1.8% of digital ad budgets into digital audio. Most plans are underweight on the 30—which is exactly the imbalance the advertisers who move first can capitalize on before the market corrects.
Why This Matters More for Local and Multi-Location Advertisers
Most consumer spending still happens locally—by most estimates, around 80% of commerce takes place in stores and service locations near where people live. That's exactly the audience a multi-location brand needs to reach, and exactly where a regional agency has to prove performance market by market.
Digital audio fits that job well. It reaches people while they're out in their communities and moving between locations - the screen-free hours when a nearby store, clinic, or dealership is a realistic next stop. Because it can be targeted to the same households a streaming TV campaign is already reaching, the 30 compounds the 70 instead of scattering. And because heavy audio listeners skew away from the biggest streaming apps, the 30 extends reach across a market rather than repeating impressions to the same saturated households.
The evidence for running both together is consistent. When streaming TV and digital audio share a single plan, retail campaigns have seen a +12-point lift in aided recall and a +14-point lift in message association; consumer packaged goods campaigns have seen +9 and +6. Streaming TV creates the emotional impact; audio reinforces the message repeatedly through the day; and the combination improves memory, recall, recognition, and consideration in ways neither channel delivers alone. That lift is the 70/30 strategy working as designed.
Run the 30 That Extends Your 70
The mistake to avoid is treating audio as a separate bet—a small test budget bolted on at the end, bought through a different partner, and measured on its own. That's how the 30 ends up looking like "just more impressions." Planned as part of a 70/30 strategy, it makes the whole plan work harder. A few principles hold up regardless of who you work with:
• Plan around the audience, not the channel. Define the household or market you're trying to move, then reach it across the 70 and the 30 so one message follows people through the day.
• Manage frequency across both. The job of the 30 is to extend reach and add exposure in new moments - not to hit the same homes more times.
• Measure the whole plan against real outcomes. Judge the 70/30 on store visits, calls, appointments, and sales—online and offline—not on impressions in isolation. If you can't see both channels in one view, you can't tell what actually drove the result.
Do that, and audio stops being a standalone line item and becomes what it should be: the 30 that keeps a streaming TV campaign present in a consumer's day long after the screen goes dark.
Plan Your 70/30 Strategy with Jamloop
If you're building streaming TV for local and multi-location advertisers, the 70/30 strategy is the natural next step - and the value comes from running the two as one plan. That's how Jamloop approaches it. We plan, buy, and measure streaming TV and digital audio together, targeted to the same audience across a market, and optimized toward the outcomes that matter: store visits, calls, and sales, online and offline. First-party data ties it to real households, and unified reporting shows you what each channel contributed, all in one place.
The 70 builds awareness. The 30—digital audio—extends and reinforces it through the rest of the day. Together they deliver broader reach, stronger attention, and better performance than either channel can on its own.
Figures cited are directional industry benchmarks drawn from Nielsen and Edison Research audio consumption studies, SiriusXM Media cross-platform reach data, and Dentsu and Advertiser Perceptions attention research. They illustrate category trends and are not guarantees of campaign performance.
FAQ
What is the 70/30 strategy?
It's a media-planning approach that puts roughly 70% of a budget into streaming TV to build awareness and demand, and the remaining 30% into digital audio, display, and online video to extend and reinforce that message through the rest of the day.
Why add digital audio to a streaming TV plan?
Digital audio reaches people during the screen-free hours—commuting, working out, running errands—when streaming TV can't follow, and it reaches audiences, like heavy SiriusXM and streaming audio listeners, who often aren't on the major streaming video apps.
Does digital audio actually capture attention?
Yes. Digital audio delivers more than 50% higher attentive seconds than benchmark media, roughly 41% average brand recall, and a 10% brand choice lift against a 6% benchmark.
Why does this matter more for local and multi-location advertisers?
About 80% of commerce still happens locally, so reaching people while they're out in their communities—and connecting that exposure to store visits, calls, and sales—is central to proving performance market by market.
How should a 70/30 streaming TV and digital audio plan be measured?
Beyond impressions, the plan should be judged against real business outcomes - store visits, calls, appointments, and sales, online and offline—viewed together in one report rather than as separate line items.
How does Jamloop run a 70/30 plan?
Jamloop plans, buys, and measures streaming TV and digital audio together, targeted to the same audience across a market, using first-party data and unified reporting that shows what each channel contributed.
