In a positive sign that the podcast advertising market is weathering any slowdown in the ad market, Magellan AI says the top 20 advertisers spent seven percent more in the medium during August than in July. The ad tracking firm says the top 20 brands invested a combined $32.369 million on podcast ads last month.
The top two advertisers were the same in August as in July. The online mental health brand BetterHelp topped the ranker of the biggest podcast advertisers again in August as it boosted its spending by four percent from July to an estimated $6.8 million. Magellan AI says it ran ads across 795 different podcasts, with the biggest share going toward the Comedy genre.
Amazon held second place with an estimated $3.2 million in ad spending on podcasts during August, a 29% increase from a month earlier. It ran ads on 617 different podcasts, according to Magellan AI, with Society & Culture its most-used genre.
The food delivery service HelloFresh returned to the top five, thanks to a 44% bump month-to-month in its spending. Magellan AI says it ranked third with an estimated $2.7 million in podcast ad spending. Comedy was its top show category.
Insurer Progressive was once again No. 4. It spent nine percent more last month than in July with its podcast ads totaling an estimated $2.1 million.
And the e-commerce platform Shopify was once again in fifth place. Magellan AI estimates it spent $2.1 million on podcast ads last month, an 11% increase from July.
Magellan AI’s list of movers and shakers – the brands that increased their podcast spending the most during the month – was led by Carvana, which spent nearly $1.3 million on podcast ads last month. That compared to just $35,000 during July.
The streaming TV service Sling TV ranked second on the movers and shakers list, while the event booking service Viator ranked third, underscoring the robust return of the summer travel season.
Aspiration Financial’s six-fold increase also earned it a place on the movers and shakers list, with spots promoting Aspiration as a better moral choice than other major credit card brands. Magellan AI says Aspiration ran a similar campaign promoting their service last fall, and it looks like they are using a similar strategy this month. The majority of its ads are host-read ads in a mid-roll position averaging just over one minute in length.
Magellan AI also says that sneaker brand New Balance – which typically ramps up its ad spending in the fall to coincide with 5Ks and marathon season – started early this year, possibly to capture some back-to-school spending. New Balance targeted Sports and Health & Fitness podcasts with brand awareness ads that highlighted New Balance shoe technology. The ads are primarily placed in a mid-roll position and averaged 60 seconds.
Magellan analyzes podcast advertising data from the top 3,000 podcasts in the U.S., as ranked by Apple Podcasts. Magellan AI’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.
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