'Casting' a narrow web through Podcast Advertising
Based on current trends and market sizing, podcast advertising will reach an estimated total of $679 million. According to the Podcast Revenue Report, ad revenues on U.S. podcasts hit an estimated all-time high of $479 million in 2018, a 53 percent increase from the previous year. If the growth continues, revenues from podcast advertising will surpass $1 billion by 2021.
Audio continues to grow
“Content is available everywhere. But podcasts have a very active listener base,” says Chris Apostle, the chief media officer for advertising agency iCrossing. Podcast listeners tend to gravitate toward a few niche types of content. Therefore, advertisers buy audiences, not screens or content.Podcasting platforms like Apple, Google and Spotify collectively host hundreds of thousands of unique podcasts and offer content in over 100 languages. These numbers continue to grow as listenership increases.
Categories for podcast advertising
In 2018, the five most popular types of podcasts in the U.S. were news and politics, comedy, business, education, and arts and entertainment shows. These five categories together generated 66 percent of the total podcast advertising revenue in 2018, according to the Podcast Revenue Report.
Listeners prefer host-read ads
According to IAB research, two-thirds of all podcast ads last year were read by the shows’ hosts. The other one-third of ads was made up of pre-produced ads. Podcast listeners tend to prefer host-read ads over pre-produced ads.
60-second ads are standard
The most popular spot length last year was 60-second ads, which made up 30 percent of all podcast ads. Followed by 90-second ads at 27 percent and 15-second ads at 23 percent.In just a few years, podcast advertising has sky rocketed and will continue to grow. Sixty second ads read by the shows' hosts placed in one of the top five categories will perform the best.
Need help navigating?
If you need help navigating this new frontier and wondering how to get your brand in front of an extremely loyal audience that hangs on to every word, we are here to help.