As the U.S. heads into the Memorial Day weekend, beer companies may have podcasters to thank if Americans are cracking open a cold one. Magellan AI says the beer industry increased its ad spending on podcasting by 53% from March to April. Compared to a year ago, beer companies’ podcast ad spending jumped 56%.
The increases were driven by brands such as Molson Coors, which poured on the ads and hit Magellan’s top ten last month. It spent an estimated $1.884 million on podcast ads during April as Magellan detected its ads on 111 different shows – with Sports the most-used genre by the beverage giant.
Grupo Modelo also ramped up its ad spending, said CEO Cameron Hendrix. On a webinar this week, he said the spring season increase in podcast marketing by beer companies is something they also saw a year ago.
Magellan also reports the gift industry once again pulled out the stops for Mother’s Day. Brands in that ad category increased their podcast ad spending 50% between March and April to nearly $2 million with brands such as StoryWorth, Aura Frame and Blue Nile behind the increase. Hendrix said the pattern of Mother’s Day spending picking up in a big way from March to April is one they also saw in 2021.
But Magellan also reports that compared to last year, gift industry ad spending on podcasts decreased seven percent between 2021 and 2022.
Overall, Magellan reported that BetterHelp remained podcasting’s biggest advertiser during April. Magellan AI’s monthly update shows the online mental health care provider grew its spending to an estimated $7.7 million during the month. It was followed by ZipRecruiter, Express VPN, Progressive, and HelloFresh.
Overall, Magellan estimates the top 15 podcast advertisers invested a combined $35.49 million during April. That is a down three percent compared to the $36.77 million spent by the top 15 during March.
Magellan analyzes podcast advertising data from the top 3,000 podcasts in the U.S., as ranked by Apple Podcasts. Magellan’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.