Podcast advertising gained momentum through the fourth quarter, and when the final numbers were tallied Magellan AI says overall spending during Q4 increased 19% from a year earlier. It also rose 14% versus the third quarter, as monthly spending throughout Q4 outpaced the Q3 average.
The top 10 advertisers during Q4 spent an estimated $124 million, a third more than the top ten did in the prior quarter. The biggest spender was Amazon, which spent an estimated $22.2 million on podcast ads. The online mental health service BetterHelp, which had been at the top in previous quarters, slid back to third as it cut its quarterly spending to $15.1 million. Video game publisher Activision rose to third, with $17.1 million in total ad spending, which Magellan notes gives the company its first top ten appearance in the past year.
The data shows ad spending remains fairly concentrated among the biggest shows. During the fourth quarter, Magellan says about $5.10 out of every $10 in podcast ad spend went to the top 500 shows. That is slightly lower than in Q3, however. Even so, it says advertisers spent an average of $329,000 per month on podcasts ranking in the top 500 in Q4. That compared to $33,000 spent on average each month on podcasts ranked 501 to 3,000. And in Q4, about $2.10 out of every $10 in podcast ad spend went to the shows ranked beyond 3,000.
Magellan says brand awareness ads made up a 54% majority of advertising on podcasts during Q4, with direct response accounting for 43%. That helped boost the industry’s revenue as the average monthly spend in Q4 increased 16% quarter-over-quarter for brand awareness marketers compared to 13% for direct-response advertisers.
For podcasting to continue growing revenue, new brands will need to be brought into the mix, and Magellan says more progress was made on that front in the final months of 2024. It says there were 1,584 brands advertising on podcasts for the first time during Q4. The newcomers’ average spending totaled $39,900.
“Sports continued to be the most popular genre for new brands to run on in Q4,” the report says. “About one out of every six new brands included Sports podcasts in their media plan.”
Magellan says 247 brands that were new to podcasting placed ads in Sports shows. News ranked second, with 221 newcomers among its advertisers during the quarter. Comedy, with 192 brands, ranked third.
The biggest influx of new advertisers came from the television and film category, with 144 additions during Q4. But Magellan says business software and services companies make up the largest number of overall brands on podcasts, with 675 different products advertised during the quarter — including the addition of 118 new brands.
Shoes were the fastest-growing industry, with spending up 145% as brands including DSW, Tom’s, and Tecovas poured dollars into the medium.
The average ad loads in podcasting also continued to decline during Q4, as average ad load across episodes sampled fell to 8.22% versus Q3, when 8.28% of episodes were dedicated to advertising. But Magellan says ad loads still remained 6% higher than a year earlier.
There continues to be big differences in ad loads depending on a podcast’s format. None had more ad time in Q4 than True Crime shows, with more than one of every ten minutes of episode time dedicated to advertising, according to Magellan. That compares to Technology genre shows, where 6.6% of episode time went to ads.
The report also says episode length didn’t seem to lead to lighter loads in short episodes. True Crime podcasts that were less than 15 minutes had an average ad load of 34% during Q4, meaning a third of the episode was advertising — not content. That compared to Society & Culture podcast episodes that ran longer than one hour, which had an average ad load of 9% during the quarter.
Among the other findings in Magellan’s quarterly update is that 41% of ads run during Q4 were 30 seconds, making that length the most popular pick among advertisers. Another 11% of ads were 15 seconds, while 16% were a minute in length. A majority (55%) of ads ran in the midroll position, with 29% running before the episode began. The other 16% ran at the end of the episode.
Download a copy of Magellan AI’s Quarterly Podcast Advertising Benchmark Report HERE.