Podcast Ads Deliver Digital Audio’s Strongest Purchase Impact.

Podcast advertising continues to deliver meaningfully stronger incremental purchase lift than streaming audio overall, according to new data from Podscribe — a finding the company says underscores the unique ability of podcasting to reach audiences untouched by other media channels.

The latest Podscribe Performance Benchmark report shows podcasts drive a median 28% purchase incrementality, double the 14% lift delivered by streaming audio alone. For brands running both channels simultaneously, the combined lift falls to 15%. Podscribe says the reason may be streaming audio’s advertisers often run heavy campaigns across radio, TV, and digital, meaning its audiences are frequently reached through multiple touchpoints. That duplication limits its incremental lift. Podcasts, by contrast, bring in brands whose messaging isn’t echoed elsewhere — giving the medium a stronger boost in true incrementality.

Podscribe’s Head of Partnerships Matt Drengler said during a company’s recent webinar detailing the latest PPB that the concept of incrementality is essential for advertisers trying to understand whether campaign-driven conversions would have happened anyway. “When we measure incrementality, it isolates the impact of the campaign — the difference in conversion rate between the exposed group and the control group is the isolated impact,” he explained.

Why the higher lift for podcasts? Drengler said it ties directly to how difficult podcast listeners are to reach elsewhere. “If podcasts are one of [a brand’s] channels, they seem to have very high incrementality,” he said, because podcasting often isn’t competing with a brand’s saturation of billboards, banners, search ads, and other digital touchpoints. As a result, podcast impressions are more likely to be the true cause of consumer action.

The effect is even more pronounced for smaller brands. The report shows advertisers with a million or fewer monthly unique site visitors saw a 41% median incremental lift from podcasting vs. 23% for mid-size brands and 12% for brands with 5 million to 20 million visitors.

In a finding that shows podcasting is effective across the board, Podscribe says large brands with over 20 million monthly visitors — who typically buy across more channels — still saw a 16% lift.

“The smaller the brand, typically, the more incrementality that you enjoy,” Drengler said. Bigger advertisers, he added, are probably buying in many channels. The result is there’s likely going to be more channels competing for that consumer’s attention, which Drengler said naturally dilutes the unique impact of any single one.

Across categories, performance varies widely. On the streaming audio side, Food & Beverages led at 28%, followed by Financial Services (24%) and Fashion Retail (23%).

On the podcast side, marijuana and tobacco advertisers delivered the highest podcast incrementality at 61%, followed by supplements at 53%. Drengler said that continues a pattern where digital-first and specialty categories lean heavily on podcasting’s ability to deliver fresher, harder-to-reach audiences.

“One of the reasons why these are relatively new companies — there’s also a lot of restrictions in a lot of other channels too, and podcasts don’t have the same level of restrictions. So they really enjoy incrementality, because podcasts are one of the only channels that they can truly advertise on,” Drengler said.

Regardless of category, he said podcast ads consistently produce more attributable, incremental purchases than streaming audio impressions — and for smaller, digitally native brands, the effect can be dramatic. Podscribe says future PPB reports will give more detailed advertiser category data.

Download the latest PPB report HERE.