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A few years ago, podcast ad revenue was projected to cross the $1 billion mark in the US by 2021. That prediction came true, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
In its sixth annual US Podcast Advertising Revenue study released yesterday, the org said revenue jumped by 72% year over year to reach $1.4 billion last year. It’s forecasted to surpass $2 billion by the end of this year and more than $4 billion by 2024.
Podcast ads 🏃♀️online ads: Podcast ad revenue grew about twice as much as total internet ad revenue in 2021, per the report.
- Big spender: Financial services brands and DTC retailers, as well as arts, entertainment, and media companies, led the pack in terms of podcast ad spending in 2021.
- Join the party: Brands from a broader array of industries are starting to invest in podcast ads: Last year, nearly a third of revenue came from brands relegated to the “other” category, which includes industries like energy, tech, law, and sports. In 2019, this segment represented 8% of revenue.
In terms of genre, news, comedy, and society and culture podcasts, in that order, drew the largest share of ad spending last year. The sports category made a comeback after the peak of the pandemic in 2020, roughly doubling its share of ad revenue year over year in 2021.
The rise of DAI and pre-rolls: In 2019, the split between dynamically inserted and baked-in ads was fairly even (48% to 52%). But in 2021, 84% of revenue came from DAI, and 16% from baked-in ads.
- Mid-roll ads are still most popular, but the share of ad revenue attributed to pre-rolls increased from 22% in 2020 to 32% in 2021.
- Host-read ads continue to account for the majority share of revenue by ad type, although their share is down from 66% in 2019 to 55% in 2021.
Lag: Programmatic advertising still isn’t very popular in podcasting. It fluctuated slightly from 2.2% of total ad revenue in 2020 to 1.7% in 2021.—AM