Podcasting Sees Strong Start To 2025 With Ad Growth; Amazon Tops 2024 Advertiser List.

Podcast ad spending has entered 2025 with double-digit growth, according to Magellan AI. It estimates total spending in the medium grew 23% in January and 25% in February compared to a year ago, suggesting economic jitters are not yet having an impact on marketing allocations to podcasting. And while advertising loads did take a dip in February, they began to climb again during the early weeks of March.

Magellan’s look back at 2024 shows that 8.6% of podcasts episode time was dedicated to advertising last year, which is a 35% increase from the 6.38% average logged in 2023. That translates into about 79 seconds. The analysis shows that most of that non-content time was traditional advertising, accounting for 6.97%, with another 1.63% attributed to podcast promos.

The data shows the share of episodes dedicated to ads peaked during the second quarter, when more than 9% was other than content. While 7% was ads, another 2% was attributed to podcast promos. Magellan says by year-end the pod-on-pod ad loads lightened, and it resulted in a smaller share of episodes going to ads and promos.

Magellan CEO Cameron Hendrix said on a webinar that although the total ad load declined in later quarters, it wasn’t a significant change as the listener experience is assessed. “From a listener perspective, listeners may still perceive pod on pod ads, as ads,” he said.

Shows in the top 500 are the podcasts most sought-after by marketers and as a result they dedicated the most time to ads. Magellan’s analysis shows during the second half of the year those podcasts had more than 9% of their episode time filled with commercial messages. That was a percentage point more than shows ranked 501 to 3,000.

True Crime had the most ad time during the fourth quarter, followed by shows in the Society & Culture, Education, and Sports categories. “One out of every six new brands includes Sports in their in test campaigns, and that was reflected in the increase in ad load that we saw year over year,” Hendrix said.

Amazon Was 2024’s Top Spender

In the year-end report, Magellan says the top 10 advertisers in 2024 spent an estimated $369 million on podcast advertising. That was a 9% increase from the $338 million spent by the top ten in 2023.

Amazon knocked off BetterHelp as the top advertiser last year. The retailer spent $60.3 million on podcast ads during 2024, according to Magellan estimates, surpassing the $57.8 million spent by BetterHelp. Toyota moved up to third place with $41.4 million, followed by T-Mobile with $40.6 million in spending and FanDuel with $31.6 million. Magellan notes that seven out of the 10 top spenders in 2024 were also on the top list in 2023.

The fastest-growing ad category last year for podcasters was beauty, which nearly doubled year-to-year, growing 98% to $19.9 million of total spending during 2024. Web hosting marketing grew 91% to $56.6 million, and dating services increased spending 87% to $7.5 million.

Pointing to continued gains for the industry, just over 3,000 new brands were detected during both the first and second halves of last year with $27,366 in average spending for new brands during the first half, with $37,392 spent on average during the second half. Business software and services delivered the largest number of new advertisers with Magellan detecting 488 new brands in that segment. It was followed by financial services (291) and food (203). Sports was the most popular genre for new brands to run on in 2024. 

Magellan says brand awareness ads made up a majority 52.7% of podcast ads last year, with 44.5% direct response spots, with another 2.6% tune-in promos. In terms of how much each spent, the report says average monthly spend in 2024 increased 20% for direct response vs. the prior year but grew by 23% for brand awareness ads.

Download Magellan AI’s Podcast Advertising: 2024 Review and 2025 Preview HERE.