Podcast ads continue to deliver for marketers, and Podsights says its quarterly analysis shows things have improved during the first quarter of this year. It reports podcast ads had an 82% average purchase lift, up five points since the end of 2020. Podsights data, which is based on a four-quarter average from April 2020 through March 2021, also shows the average return on ad spend was $2.59. That means for every dollar spent on a podcast ad, a brand’s sales increased more than two and a half times.
“Podcast advertising conversion rates continue to be on par with or outperform digital channels,” the report says.
The analysis is based on two thousand ad campaigns for 533 different brands. They spent a combined $198 million to achieve 3.2 billion ad impressions. Overall, Podsights says the average purchase conversion rate dipped slightly in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter. But that is most likely due to holiday purchasing peaks at year-end. A better comparison may not be quarter-to-quarter but how podcasting continues to easily beat digital display ads.
“The average click-through rate of display ads tops out at around 0.002%,” the report notes, predicting, “With purchase conversion rates over double that in podcast advertising, the channel is poised to continue capturing digital display budgets in 2021 and beyond,” it predicts.
The numbers are even better for converting podcast listeners into website visitors. In the first quarter 1.73% of people exposed to a podcast ad visited a brand’s website. That is a 53% increase during the past year.
In the latest four-quarter trend, Podsights says brick and mortar retail advertisers had the highlight lift for purchase events, with a 158% jump for those brands that bought podcast ads. “Online sales accelerated for retailers in 2020 – podcasts were exceptionally effective at capitalizing on this trend,” the report says. Telecom (+122%) and Arts, Entertainment and Media (+119%) also more than doubled their lift.
Making a sale is not the immediate goal of all podcast ads. Some marketers just want the listener to visit their website. And there the medium delivers, too. Podsights data shows there was an average incremental lift of 85% across all industries. Pharmaceutical scored the best with a 137% increase in website visits for those brand advertisers. Also doing well were financial services (+95%) and professional services (+88%).
The new quarterly report from Podsights also for the first time includes demographic data based on a partnership with Experian. Podsights says by adding that information, it will allow for a better understanding of the characteristics of households that are being exposed to podcast ads. “Although brands and agencies know their audience, they don’t inherently know how their audience reacts to their brand in podcast media,” the report says.
The data shows podcast listeners in the Podsights sample are wealthier than the general population, with the average income at $94,000 among podcast listeners compared to $67,000 for the U.S. overall. They also tend to be older, more highly educated, and skew more toward Whites and Asian Americans.
Download the full Podsights Q2 Benchmark Report HERE.
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