Within the final 12 months or so, the podcast promoting trade has turned a nook. In keeping with the Interactive Promoting Bureau (IAB) and PwC’s 2021 U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study, the subsequent two years will see a big spike in podcast advert income progress.
In 2021, U.S. podcast promoting revenues rose to $1.4 billion, surpassing the $1 billion mark for the primary time, a income enhance of 72% year-over-year, in line with the research. IAB additionally forecasts that the market will exceed $2 billion in 2022 and will likely be over $4 billion by 2024.
Eric John, Vice President, IAB Media Heart, mentioned, “The report signifies important progress forward, with advertisers shopping for podcast impressions at scale whereas monitoring supply, effectiveness, recall, and outcomes. Consumers will anticipate superior model security options, viewers focusing on, and measurement, and we look ahead to working throughout the ecosystem to create requirements that serve creators, listeners, publishers, and types.”
The audio format is rising extraordinarily quick and is pushed by three key components, the research discovered. This contains the continuing enhance in podcast listeners and content material in addition to elevated use of automated advert tech and progress of advert spending within the “Different” classes that traditionally had decrease spend volumes (sports activities, faith, and so forth.).
There was a surge in listeners and content material, and advertisers are taking discover. ListenNotes estimates there are about 2.2 million podcasts in 2022, whereas different sources cite greater than 3 million podcasts. The quantity varies since many podcasts both have few episodes or is probably not lively. EMarketer predicts U.S. adults will enhance the listening time by 15.1%.
One other issue that’s driving income progress is automated promoting expertise. Because the tech improves, advertisers can now leverage podcasts to achieve their goal audiences throughout varied genres.
Pre-roll promoting, for example, elevated its share of income to 32% from 22% in 2020, per the IAB research. It additionally famous that podcast publishers ought to have a stability between a larger variety of advertisements and shorter advert lengths whereas maximizing placement throughout pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll positions.
As well as, dynamic advert insertion (DAI) expanded to 84% of advert income, nearly doubling in 2 years. Each host-read and announcer-read advertisements are primarily served through DAI (84% and 85%, respectively). Many platforms supply dynamic advert insertion tech, comparable to geo-targeting and timed campaigns, amongst different straightforward instruments to alter out content material and run varied advertisements.
There are even gamers like Spotify which can be including options like call-to-action playing cards and extra interactive podcast promoting experiences.
Utilizing Spotify for example, the corporate modernized podcast promoting in 2020 after launching Streaming Advert Insertion and a 12 months later introduced Spotify Viewers Community, the primary audio promoting market. Its promoting revenues hit a report in 2021, passing from $745 million in 2020 to $1,208 million. Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek confirmed the leap was primarily due to podcasts. The variety of podcasts revealed on the platform continues to develop as effectively and reached 3.6 million in 2021.
A couple of months in the past, in February, Spotify acquired podcast promoting tech companies Chartable and Podsights in hopes to enhance measurement and attribution. In whole, greater than $1 billion has been spent in varied podcast acquisitions.
IAB wrote in its research, “Because the trade more and more makes use of automation options, the necessity to proceed to ship robust resonance with shoppers and thus worth for advertisers is paramount. Now that almost all of host-read and announcer-read advertisements are dynamically inserted, advertisers get the very best of each worlds with podcast promoting: authenticity of messaging with the scalability/flexibility of automated shopping for.”
Lastly, new manufacturers are investing in podcast advertisements, particularly the “Different” trade bucket by which the podcast advert income proportion share has greater than tripled in two years. The “Different” advert class refers to power, authorities, non-profit, advocacy, tech, regulation, pets, sports activities, faith & spirituality, training, residence enchancment, playing, and sports activities betting.
The sixth annual IAB U.S. Podcast Promoting Income Examine relies on an internet survey despatched to trade specialists fielded in March and incorporates market-sizing estimates for the US, inclusive of non-survey collaborating firms.