Many Of May’s Best-Performing Podcast Ads Have Music In Common Says Veritonic.

Teladoc may not yet be a household name, but that could change based on how well its podcast ads are scoring. The telemedicine company had the best performing ad on Veritonic’s ranking of ads during the month of May. Veritonic scores audio ads run across podcasts and stacks them up against other marketers in their industry to determine which are best using sound to connect with consumers. Teledoc did 28% better than the average.

It is the first time Veritonic has released a podcast specific ranker. “With podcast ad spending on course to hit $1 billion this year, regularly assessing which brands’ ads resonate with consumers the most -- and why -- is clearly necessary to understand who’s allocating those dollars wisely,” the company said in a blog post.

The Teladoc ads was voiced by NPR’s Chioke I’Anson, who also was the voice behind several other top-scoring ads, including those for Fundrise, Dell, and Klaviyo. It also notes that just one spot, for the e-marketing platform Klaviyo, used something more than just I’Anson’s voice. Its spot added a subtle music bed. “This spot scores the highest for purchase intent (90), proving yet again that the incorporation of music – and melody in general – drives results,” said Veritonic.

Veritonic says host-read ads from Anatomy of Murder host Scott Weinberger scored the best last month for ad recall. His ad for the eyeglass company Warby Parker had a recall score of 82, and one for the online consignment retailer ThredUp had a recall sore of 81. Veritonic say consistent use of a signature piece of music across Anatomy of Murder’s ads was a driving factor. “Melody works,” it says.

In its tracking of ads with high purchase intent scores, Veritonic points to a spot that BetterHelp created using Pardon My Take co-host Kasey Smith as especially effective. That ad had a score of 75 for purchase intent, an extremely high number for that metric. Veritonic says the use of a female voice complements BetterHelp’s message around mental health.