Podcast listening continues to climb, and so too is advertising investment in the medium. WARC Media forecasts that global podcast ad spend will exceed $5 billion in 2025, a 7.9% increase versus a year ago. It estimates podcast revenue will rise another 6.5% next year to $5.5 billion. Both increases are smaller than the double-digit 13.2% increase seen in 2024. Yet WARC says despite its burgeoning cultural impact, podcasts remain caught in a battle to win share of audio ad dollars.
One reason for that optimism is WARC’s annual Marketer’s Toolkit survey, in which more than half of global marketers (55%) plan to increase their podcast ad investment this year. Podcasts ranked fifth highest in intention to invest — behind only online video, influencer/creator marketing, and social media.
Yet difficulty in scaling podcast ad buys is one oft-repeated complaint among brands. Another is a perceived deficiency in podcast measurement tools. The result is podcast spending is climbing more slowly than investment levels in other emerging channels, including retail media (+14.8% in 2025), CTV (+15.4%) and digital out of home (+14.9%).
“Podcasts are having a moment. Fresh from seemingly helping Donald Trump to win last year’s ‘podcast election’ in the US, brands are reappraising the medium through fresh eyes,” says Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media. “However, ad investment growth remains sluggish, with podcasters trapped in a contest for a slow-growing pool of global audio ad budgets. Publishers and platforms are now eyeing expansion into video, in the hope of further boosting consumption, as well as winning a share of a fast-growing slice of the ad market.”
WARC Media, which estimates global podcast ad spending reached $4.8 billion in 2024, says the US accounts for nearly half (45.9%) of all global podcast ad spend. Recent research by WARC and Audacy found that, while podcast listening accounts for 4.5% of all ad-supported US media consumption, the channel only receives 1% of total US ad investment. By that measure, it estimates US podcast ad spending will total $2.4 billion in 2025.
Retail continues to be the category with the highest podcast ad spend in the US, while last year’s election prompted a slight increase in government and non-profit spend. Food category spend remains low but is forecast to record the fastest growth in 2026 at 13.2%.
As the medium matures, the analysis says smaller, direct-to-consumer brands will play a reduced role as larger brands are becoming a more dependable source of income for podcast publishers. Top podcast spenders in the US include Amazon, T-Mobile, Capital One and Toyota.
In the UK, the second-largest podcast market, WARC forecasts podcast ad spend will reach $136 million (£110m) this year, growing at 12.8%. This is a faster rate of growth than in the US.
Video is also playing a larger role, and analysts at WARC say as brands become more sophisticated in how they incorporate creator content into media plans, it may provide an opportunity for podcasters to escape the “audio bubble.” However, obstacles include consumers wanting to minimize video and listen to audio only, podcast creators unwilling to embrace video and lose control over monetization, and perceived deficiency in podcast measurement tools.
Yet in light of the US election result, it believes previously cautious marketers are re-considering their brand safety approach when it comes to podcasts, in particular in advertising against right-wing content to reach younger male audiences.
WARC Media’s latest Global Ad Trends report says the total global audience reach of podcasts has increased from 60.6% in 2020 to 66% in 2025. On average, younger audiences spend more time on podcasts each day than older groups. As of Q2 2024, podcasts’ reach among Gen Z audiences worldwide (68%) exceeds radio by ten percentage points.
But there is a wide range in adoption based on each country. In markets like the UAE and Brazil, podcast listenership among all adults has exceeded radio, whereas countries like Germany and China exhibit subdued and downward trends, according to WARC Media and GWI data.