Ads that are too short, too stacked, or run multiple times are not only advertiser and listener frustrations. A new analysis by the advertising attribution and verification platform Podscribe finds these placement errors can also have a significant impact on a podcast commercial’s performance.
That is most dramatically demonstrated with double spots, or the duplication of the same ad in a single episode. Podscribe finds for those ads, the percentage of listeners who visit a website mentioned in the spot plunges 59%. And for ads that are stacked in a long set of ads, Podscribe finds similarly poor results. It says an ad with at least three other commercials in front of it sees a 41% drop in the percentage of listeners that visit the advertised website.
“Campaigns with ad stacking – such as double-spotted ads or a high frequency of 15+ ads per listener – show severely diminished performance. This suggests a saturation point where too many ads can negatively impact effectiveness,” the report says.
The quality of the ad also impacts the results. Ads with what Podscribe describes as “low ad read scores,” or those where the ad didn’t provide satisfactory personal endorsement, the performance drops 22%. If an ad appears in the same episode as a competitor, it also has a detrimental impact. It says in those situations, its analysis shows that 8% fewer listeners visit the brand’s website. A commercial that is shorter than what a marketer has bought is also a negative when it comes to performance as 6% fewer listeners visit a brand’s website.
“Campaigns that have these common flags typically showcase weaker performance compared to those that don’t,” says Podscribe in its newly released quarterly Podscribe Performance Benchmarks report. The company tracks more than 18 different verification flags to catch mistakes and discrepancies in real-time.
Podscribe reports that across the 58,000 campaigns it examined, podcasting had an attributed visitor purchase rate of 6.3% overall. That new metric means that among podcast listeners who heard an ad that pushed them to a website, 6.3% went on to make a purchase.
Frequency continues to be one of the key factors in determining how well a podcast ad works. As a general rule, Podscribe says as the frequency of a single campaign increased, both visitor and purchase rates decline significantly. That remained true in Q2, as a single ad exposure continued to have the biggest impact on listeners.
“Generally, we have found that optimizing campaigns for one or two frequency derives the most efficient and effective outcomes,” the report says.
Download the latest PPB report HERE.
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