Approaching The Summit is a series of special interviews created in partnership with Point to Point Marketing featuring speakers at the upcoming 2026 Barrett Media Audio Summit in New York City. Follow along with this series as prominent names surrounding the event June 30-July 2 share their insights and expectations for what’s to come in the Big Apple. The Summit takes place at the SVA Theatre on West 23rd Street. For tickets and hotel room reservations, click here or visit the Summit section at the top of the website.
Garrett Searight: Before we get to the Summit, I’d like to ask you about the recent partnership between Magellan AI and Signal Hill Insights. Start me out with how things got rolling with Signal Hill. Why does this matter to you guys, and how does it all come together?
Cameron Hendrix: We’ve known Signal Hill for quite a while. First, the best way to think about our business is that Magellan AI is an audio ad intelligence and attribution platform.
Historically, attribution for us has meant offering middle- and lower-funnel measurement. That means we’re looking at events such as leads and purchases. An advertiser is interested in driving a listener to a website and tracking exposure to that website, then tracing it through to whatever event the advertiser cares about achieving. That’s more middle- and lower-funnel attribution, depending on where you’re measuring.
A partnership with Signal Hill allows us to go a little further up the funnel. Signal Hill is known for its brand lift studies. We had an opportunity to work with an advertiser that would be working with both Magellan AI and Signal Hill. We were able to serve as the point of contact for gathering data for both lower-funnel attribution and upper-funnel brand metrics.
In this case, the advertiser cared about website visits and purchases further down the funnel, but they also cared about how consumers perceived their brand after being exposed to the advertising. That’s where Signal Hill’s brand lift study came in. The partnership really grew organically out of the demand we saw from advertisers and culminated in this relationship.
GS: When you look at where the attribution space is in its life cycle, where would you place it right now?
CH: That’s a good question. I always find the baseball metaphors funny — whether we’re just pulling into the parking lot or haven’t even gotten our hot dog yet.
The bottom line is that the audio space is still in the early stages. It’s been a hot topic for a while, but we still see a tremendous amount of growth ahead for audio. While multiple attribution companies have launched and been acquired, we believe it’s still early.
We also think attribution itself is still evolving. For advertisers, attribution isn’t just about one channel; it’s about multiple channels. That’s why we measure not only audio but also connected TV, display advertising, and other digital channels. Within audio, we measure podcasts, streaming audio, and broadcast radio.
As an industry, we’re really just getting started in solving advertisers’ needs. And also helping them understand which campaigns are driving the strongest performance.
GS: What have been the biggest challenges in creating and evolving that space?
CH: In audio specifically, the medium can be complex because of the different ways ads are served and sold.
That’s both the challenge and the opportunity. We’re able to work with many different ad servers and formats while ultimately presenting data in a way that’s familiar. They can view audio performance through dashboards similar to what they’re accustomed to seeing in connected TV or digital advertising.
The challenge is that there are so many different ways audio can be bought, delivered, and measured. The opportunity is bringing all of that together into a unified measurement framework.
GS: How different does the future of this space look compared to where things are right now?
CH: I think we’ll continue to see advertisers gravitate toward platforms that can measure multiple channels. And also provide a broader perspective on overall marketing performance.
That’s part of why we partnered with Signal Hill. It enables us to provide advertisers with more top-of-funnel insights into how campaigns impact awareness, favorability, and purchase intent, in addition to lower-funnel outcomes like website visits and purchases.
I think we’ll continue to see a trend toward advertisers seeking platforms that offer a more complete picture rather than relying on a collection of separate point solutions to measure different parts of their marketing budgets.
GS: You’re going to be speaking at our Summit later this month. How important is it to get people from the industry together to share ideas, challenges, and experiences?
CH: One of the things we’ve found most gratifying about working in the audio space is how collaborative it is. There’s a lot of openness to new solutions and a willingness to share challenges.
That’s how we learn and grow as an industry — by bringing together potential customers, existing customers, and even competitors. Discussing the challenges advertisers and publishers face helps the entire industry improve.
I think it’s absolutely critical for us to be in the same room discussing these issues.
GS: When you attend a conference, what are the priorities that stand out to you?
CH: We really value attending events that attract the right people. People who are experiencing the business challenges we want to discuss within audio and the broader advertising and content ecosystem.
We prioritize events where we can connect directly with people who are facing challenges we can help solve or learn from ourselves. That’s really the biggest factor when deciding which events to attend.
GS: Cameron, I think that’s everything I wanted to cover. If there’s anything I didn’t ask or anything else you’d like to add, I’ll give you the floor.
CH: One thing I’d like to emphasize, going back to the Signal Hill partnership and attribution more generally, is that we think there are two types of marketing channels: demand-driving channels and demand-capture channels.
Demand-capture channels include things like search. Someone is already looking for a product, clicks on an ad, visits the website, and makes a purchase. They’re acting on an existing decision.
Demand-driving channels work differently. Someone hears about a product, relates it to a challenge they’re experiencing, and begins considering whether that product could help them. Audio often falls into that category.
That’s one reason we’re excited about the Signal Hill partnership. We view audio as a demand-driving channel. While we measure lower-funnel metrics such as lead generation and purchases, there’s also tremendous value in understanding upper-funnel metrics like awareness, favorability, and consideration.
That perspective helps address one of the challenges audio faces compared to channels where someone clicks a search ad and immediately purchases a product. Audio often introduces consumers to a product for the first time. It may take multiple exposures and a longer decision-making process before they make a purchase.
Being able to measure metrics such as purchase intent, favorability, and consideration makes a significant difference. That’s a major part of what we’re accomplishing through our partnership with Signal Hill.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
