Podcast Ad Interest Soars, But Brands Urged To Move Beyond ‘Toe in the Water.’

An annual survey of marketers and media agencies shows that since 2015, attitudes about podcast advertising have changed significantly.

The most recent study in the series, conducted by Advertiser Perceptions in June among more than 300 advertisers, found that at every stage of the funnel — whether discussion, consideration, or likelihood of podcast advertising, or current advertising in podcasts — interest and activity has hit an 11-year high.

“There has been massive growth in the use of podcasts as an advertising tool,” Liz Mayer, Senior Insights Manager for Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group, which commissioned the annual studies, said during the company’s webinar last week, noting the across-the-board increases over the course of the 11 Advertising Perceptions surveys.

According to an analysis of the data in Westwood One’s blog, over the past 10 years discussion of podcast advertising for potential media investment has more than doubled — from 41% in 2015’s study to 91% in 2025 — while likelihood to consider podcast advertising in the next six months quadrupled from 18% to 74%, with likelihood of advertising in podcasts in the coming six months up from just 10% to 69%, and current advertising in podcasts from 15% to 78%.

As Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard notes, not all these trends showed steady rises from one study to the next. “The 2020 pandemic caused a dip in brand/marketer conversations about podcast investment [and] a pause in spend trajectory,” he says, “[but] by 2021, podcast advertising had resumed its growth, and in 2022, those discussions roared back and have never looked back.”

Bouvard also points out big gains from just a year ago. “The growth in podcast spend consideration from 2024 to 2025 (65% to 74%) was the biggest increase since the post-pandemic surge (2022 to 2023),” he says, “[while] the 2024 to 2025 surge in brands and agencies advertising in podcasts (59% to 78%) is the largest increase in the history of podcast advertising.”

Advertiser Perceptions’ findings, however, aren’t telling the full story when it comes to advertisers’ commitment to podcasts, as the blog notes that during Q1 2025, marketers spent only $300,000 per month on those ranked in the top 500, according to Magellan AI.

“Brands might feel they are in the podcast pool, but they are just sticking their toe in the water,” Bouvard says. “Magellan finds new podcast advertisers adhere to the ‘spray and pray’ school of tiny spend. In Q1 2025, the 1,024 new podcast advertisers spent only an average of $42,100, [which] only buys 2.1 million impressions, nowhere near what’s needed to grow a brand and generate sales effect.”

For podcasts to deliver real results for advertisers, Bouvard recommends that “brands get serious and allocate 5% of digital budgets to podcasting. While it is encouraging [that] marketers are using podcast advertising, the focus must now shift to meaningful investment.”