BetterHelp Remained Podcasting’s Top Ad Spender In March, FanDuel Is The Big Mover.

For the seventh consecutive month the online mental health service provider BetterHelp was podcasting’s biggest advertiser despite cutting its total spending by 12% month-to-month. Magellan AI says it spent an estimated $3.8 million across 438 podcasts during March. That compared to $4.3 million in total podcast advertising in February.

Comcast popped into Magellan’s top 15 last month with an estimated $2.6 million in ad spend across 633 different podcasts. Among the top 15 advertisers, Magellan says no marketer spread its money across more shows than Comcast last month. It also reports ZipRecruiter moved up two spots to third place with an estimated $1.7 million podcast ad allocation in March, which was $100,000 less than a month earlier.

FanDuel topped Magellan’s monthly list of movers and shakers – the brands that had the biggest month-to-month increase in their spending. It spent $1.1 million across 206 podcasts last month as it looked to capitalize on interest in the March Madness NCAA men’s basketball tournament. That was a four-fold increase compared to what it spent in February, the most ever during a single month for the sports betting brand. “FanDuel reached audiences well beyond sports podcasts including shows in True Crime, Business, and News genres,” says Magellan in a blog post. It says FanDuel used a mix of pre-produced and host-read ads.

Magellan says a pair of subscription lawn care services also made its movers and shakers list as spring has listeners again thinking about their grass. Sunday spent an estimated $114,000 last month across 25 shows. Its direct competitor, Instead by Swiss Farms, was detected on 49 shows in March but its overall spending was less at an estimated $108,000. Magellan says the two brands did not go head-to-head. Sunday’s ads are highly concentrated in Comedy and Sports shows while True Crime topped the list for Instead.

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 on select media kits and estimated based on popularity.