Is Bumper Score The Answer To Podcast Measurement Riddle?

As ad spend continues to lag podcast consumption, data-driven podcast consultancy Bumper is rolling out a new tool to help bridge the gap. Enter Bumper Score, an independent audience verification tool designed to build trust among advertisers with what’s positioned as a first-party data-backed currency that podcast ads can be bought and sold on. 

While there’s no shortage of podcast measurement services — Triton Digital, Edison Research, Podtrac and others all measure consumption with different methodologies — the industry has been held back by a universally adopted currency, even as the IAB has worked diligently with stakeholders to develop key audience metrics. According to 2025 research from Oxford Road, implementing better data and verification methods could unlock an additional $1 billion in ad spend for the industry.

“Every advertising medium that has ever scaled to its full potential did so only after it solved for trust. Viewability unlocked digital display. Audited circulation unlocked print. Nielsen ratings unlocked broadcast. The pattern is clear and podcasting, the fastest-growing audio medium in history, has been waiting for its reckoning,” says Jonas Woost, Co-founder at Bumper.

The Bumper Score aims to answer the question: how well does a show deliver ads to a verified audience? Scores range from 0 to 200, with 100 representing the industry average. Bumper says scores above 100 signal stronger verified reach and higher value to potential sponsors.

The score is calculated using a mix of first-party data from various sources. These include podcast delivery data from hosting providers; verified listener data from major podcast apps; and episode-level retention data to measure engagement.

Unlike published audience numbers from third party measurement services, podcasters maintain full ownership of their Bumper Score data. While advertisers and agencies may request a show’s score, the publisher has total control over whether to share it.

Wanted: More Transparency and Consistency

Krystina Rubino, General Manager of Offline & Audio at Austin-based marketing agency Right Side Up, says bringing more transparency and consistency to podcast advertising is a win for the ecosystem. “Verified audience metrics like The Bumper Score give strong shows a clearer way to stand out and help advertisers move faster and invest more confidently in the medium,” she said in press materials for the new offering.

Advertisers including Understood.org and the Stupski Foundation are using the Bumper Score in beta form to help inform spending decisions. Bumper says its clients have so far allocated more than $500,000 toward ad buys enabled by the new podcast grading system.

Bryan Barletta, Partner at Sounds Profitable and President of Podcast Movement, says the new metric “gives the industry a shared language and the necessary infrastructure for audience quality that works for publishers, buyers, and the broader ecosystem. This is something that collectively, our whole industry has been working on for over a decade, but more impressively, the first time we’ve seen it presented in a way that publishers and buyers can realistically adopt and implement into their content growth and media planning strategies,” Barletta added.

The new metric that marries consumption and engagement data arrives amidst an ongoing podcast revenue growth streak. IAB says in its just-released 2025 Internet Advertising Revenue Report that podcast revenue grew 17.6% in 2025 vs. the prior year, with total spending of $2.9 billion. Podcast ad spending may actually be somewhat higher since the 2025 tally includes only traditional audio podcast spending. The IAB acknowledges the definition of what is a podcast is expanding as video consumption grows. And while it says streaming video continues to solidify its role in digital advertising, the trade group expects 2026 growth will be increasingly tied

to accountability — including for podcasters. “This will also present new challenges for publishers and media buyers to plan, buy and measure across traditional ‘audio’ and ‘video’ channels.”

Bumper’s new system will launch as a free service in May 2026 as part of its user dashboard. Existing Bumper clients will receive priority access, with a waitlist now open for all podcasters.