Welcome to the realm of Podcast Ads, also known as ‘Advercasting’, where creativity meets innovation to craft a beautiful symphony of brand messaging.
In this digital era, where attention span is declining, the art of storytelling has found a powerful ally in Podcasts. According to Statista, there are 464.7 million podcast listeners in 2023 and we are only halfway through this year. The number is expected to grow to 504.9 million in 2024.
Before we start, I want you to look at some statistics on the effectiveness of podcast advertising:
- 81% of podcast listeners say they pay attention to podcast ads whereas 63% say that they always or sometimes ignore TV commercials. (source: Midroll)
- Podcast advertising generated more than $1.3 billion in revenue in 2021 from $458 million in 2020. (source: Statista)
- 68% of listeners have purchased a product based on a podcast advertisement. (source: adresultsmedia)
- Brand Lift Studies by Edison Research say 75% of people are more likely to purchase a product after encountering a podcast advertising campaign.
Podcast Ads have revolutionized the advertising industry, engaging listeners like never before.
Brands are delving into the psychology of audio to resonate on a deeply personal level with their target audience. Audio advertising helps in creating a direct connection to the subconscious mind of a listener.
Picture this: you’re in the kitchen on a Sunday morning preparing a healthy breakfast with earbuds on, streaming your favourite podcast. Suddenly, a break in the narrative introduces a podcast ad that seamlessly blends with the content.
PODCAST AD DELIVERY
You can insert your podcast ads in two ways:
Baked-in
Baked-in podcast ads are a permanent part of the episode’s audio file.
Dynamic
Also known as ‘Dynamic ad insertion’ (DAI) allows advertisers to serve ads to specific listener segments based on context. Though it is usually carried by programmatic advertising it can utilize other ways of advertising as well.
TYPES OF PODCAST ADS
On a macro level, there are 2 types of podcasts ads:
- Host-read – These are audio ads that are presented or read by the host of the podcast. They can be pre-recorded or can be read during the show.
- Produced – This is just like a meta ad, where a creative is pre-produced and submitted to the podcast platform and is served according to the specifications or audience targeting set by the advertiser.
Let’s dive deep into the difference between Host-read and Produced Podcast Ads:
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Host-Read
- Mostly they live permanently but they can be served dynamically as well.
- Host-read ads are more expensive than produced audio ads. You can say, it is similar to influencer marketing or endorsement. Basically, the popularity of the podcast or podcaster will impact your advertising campaign.
- In the long run, cost per acquisition (CPA) gets low and brand equity gets high faster than produced ads.
- Since it is a purely brand marketing activity, you don’t have much control over audience targeting but still, you can choose which podcast suits your audience more.
- Host-read audio ads give you better podcast show control (shows in which your advertisement copy will be read) than audience targeting.
Produced
- Since they are inserted dynamically marketers can do better audience targeting with contextual segments or psychographics with produced audio ads. Plus, you have a better chance of scaling and geo-targeting.
- You can control the price and precisely measure the effectiveness of your produced audio ads. You can stop the advertisement or replace it with better creative or even optimize the campaign. Pre-produced audio ads give you A/B testing abilities.
- They may/ may not be seen as authentic as host-read ads.
- Data shows that produced ads with programmatic advertising have better marketing ROI.
PODCASTS ADS PLACEMENT / TIMING
These are the industry standards to place your advertisement:
- Pre-Roll Ad: Audio ad placed at the beginning of an episode.
- Mid-Roll Ad: Audio ad placed in the middle of an episode.
- Post-Roll Ad: Audio ad placed at the end of an episode.
PODCAST AUDIENCE TARGETING
Just like traditional digital advertising, podcast advertising too, provides options for audience targeting. Let’s see each type of audience targeting:
Contextual Targeting
Contextual targeting refers to an audience pertaining to a specific interest or genre. You can target audiences for specific genres like parenting, politics, religion or wider genre like comedy, society or culture.
Transcription Targeting
It is also a contextual targeting but the difference is it allows targeting at the episode level. You can include or exclude your ad according to the transcript of that particular episode. For example, you can show your ads on comedy genres but avoid episodes which joked about religions.
Geo-Targeting
Targeting based on location and language.
Dynamic Targeting
Dynamic targeting is based on the ad placement – Pre-roll, Mid-roll, and Post-roll. Data shows that Pre-roll ads targeting have better conversions and are expensive too.
Retargeting
You can show display ads to listeners that have encountered your podcast campaign.
How to Measure the ROI on Podcast Advertising?
There are useful techniques you can use to measure the ROI of your podcast advertising campaign:
Promo codes
Brands can assign unique promo codes for different podcast shows where the podcaster will mention the promo code while serving your ad. With different promo codes, you can measure which podcast shows brings better sales.
Post-Conversion Surveys
These are your “How did you hear about us?” surveys, similar to Brand Lift Studies.
Listen-Through Rates
LTR or Listen-through rates refer to the ad completion percentage. It means the average of how much of your audio ad has been consumed by the audience.
THE COST OF PODCAST ADS
Podcast ads are usually paid per thousand listens, also called Cost Per Mille (CPM). Also, there are different costs pertaining to different ad placements considering if it is a 30 seconds audio ad.
According to Podchaser, the average CPM rate was $15 CPM for a 15-25 second pre-roll ad, $30 CPM for a 30-60 second mid-roll ad, and $10 CPM for a 15-25 second post-roll ad.
There are other factors that can affect your cost of podcast ads such as the popularity of the show, type of podcast ad, pricing set by the creator, etc.
TOP PODCAST PLATFORMS
According to Chartable, Apple Podcasts has taken the top spot for the podcast platform with a 43% market share. It has the maximum downloads.
The second spot has been taken by none other than Spotify. Since it is also a music streaming app, overall Spotify has 515 million monthly active users which is larger than Apple podcasts.
In terms of advertising, Spotify is the clear winner for most marketers because of its number of users.
Let’s have a look at how Spotify works.
How do Spotify Podcast Ads Work?
Spotify supports both audio and video ad.
It primarily offers ad buying through Ad Studio (its own platform) or programmatically through Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) (e.g., Facebook Ads Manager, Google Ads, etc.).
Premium users are not shown Spotify ads but they can hear host-read ads which is a permanent part of the episode audio file.
Apps like Spotify allow platforms like ContextPros, a programmatic audio advertising firm, to run ads at scale with optimized contextual targeting. It targets both the Indian and International market.
Some Tips You Should Consider While Write a Podcast Ad Script
To create a compelling podcast ad you should:
- Know your target audience: Research their interests, preferences, and pain points to tailor your advertising message effectively.
- Engaging story-telling: Craft an authentic message that triggers emotions rather than a lazy sales pitch.
- Sonic Branding: Intriguing sound effects, captivating jingles, and well-timed music can enhance the overall ad experience,
Conclusion
Listening to audio shows is not a new fancy thing. Radio is the biggest example of why people like consume audio content. It’s just that nowadays, platforms on which these audio contents are consumed have been changed. Podcasts are slowly replacing radio. Hence, as an advertiser, it is a great time to leverage podcast ads.