There was an unexpected pullback in spending among podcasting’s biggest advertisers last month, as Magellan AI says total spending among the top 15 largest spenders totaled $40.02 million.
The online mental health service BetterHelp easily remained the biggest advertiser. Magellan AI estimates it spent more than $7.5 million on podcast ads in May, which was down slightly from the $7.7 million it spent during April.
Amazon remained in second place with $4.1 million in spending, down from $5.5 million in April. And Toyota spent $3.3 million last month, according to Magellan estimates, and despite trimming a bit from its budget a month earlier, the carmaker moved up into third place.
Magellan says three of the top 15 brands increased their podcast investment last month. That list includes insurer Progressive, which spent $2.4 million. That was up from $2.2 million in April. Rival insurer State Farm also boosted its spending, putting just under $2 million into podcast marketing in May. The fashion retailer Quince also made its debut on the top 15, spending $1.8 million on podcast ads last month, according to Magellan estimates.
Among the top 15, the most commonly used genre was Sports, with a third of the top brands putting most of their dollars into that show category. Other popular choices were Comedy and News, each of which was used by three shows. Two advertisers spent the most in the TV & Film genre, while Society & Culture and True Crime each was used by one.
Magellan AI’s monthly ranking of brands that delivered the biggest increases in spending in the medium — its list of movers and shakers — was led by underwear retailer MeUndies, which spent $752,300. That was a six-fold increase from what it spent in the medium the prior month.
Rakuten ranked second among the so-called movers and shakers, with a four-fold jump in its podcast spending, rising to $742,000 last month. It was followed by IBM, which spent $550,000 versus $41,400 in April.
Overall, Magallan AI says the movers and shakers spent an estimated $5.8 million on podcast ads during May.
Magellan AI analyzes podcast advertising data from the top 3,000 podcasts in the U.S., as ranked by Apple Podcasts. Magellan AI’s proprietary model is used to estimate advertising spend. It includes factors such as the number of ads and variation in ad load detected for a given episode, number of downloads for each episode, and estimated CPMs as reported in select media kits and estimated based on popularity.
Emperor's new clothes that podcasting world.