US Podcast Advertising Growth, 2015-2021 [CHART]

Chart: US Podcast Advertising Growth, 2015-2021

With more Americans listening to podcasts than ever before, podcast advertising revenues are also on the rise, with just 22 companies self-reporting revenues of $344.7 million in 2018, in a market estimated to total $479.1 million (up 53% year-over-year).

These figures come from a new report from the IAB and PwC, which also forecasts podcast ad revenues for the self-reporting companies to reach $694.0 million, in a market estimated to exceed $1 billion by 2021.

For this year, the report forecasts the total market estimate (not just the 22 surveyed companies’ self-reported revenues) to reach $678.7 million, representing an expected increase of about 42%.

So, what is driving this growth? Below are 5 highlights from this newest study.

While about half (51.2%) of podcast ads are baked-in ads (ads which are part of the published podcast content and, therefore, remain throughout the lifetime of the podcast), dynamically inserted ads (pre-recorded ads inserted into the podcast file through an ad server that can be changed throughout the lifetime of the podcast) are gaining in popularity.

In just one year, dynamically inserted ads’ share of the total has increased by 17% (from 41.7% to 48.8% share).

Host-read ads remain the ad type of choice, representing 63.3% of podcast ads in 2018.

However, this is actually a slight decrease from 2017 when about two-thirds (66.9%) of podcast ads were host-read as opposed to announcer-read/pre-produced ads or supplied ads (radio/non-radio). Previous research has indicated that host-read ads tend to perform the best with podcast audiences. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.