The release of the 2021 line of Volvo XC90 and XC90 Hybrid cars drove the automaker’s parent company Greely to podcasting. Its push to sell the two models to podcasting’s audience made it the biggest spender in October. Magellan AI says Greely spent $2.1 million on podcast ads last month, a significant jump from the $119,000 it spent in September promoting the XC90 and XC90 Hybrid. The spots ran on podcasts such as Stuff You Missed In History Class and 30 for 30 Podcasts. Magellan said it first detected ads for Volvo in February 2018, but last month’s podcast ad budget was 1,651% more than what it invested in those early days.
The banking and financial services ad category was among the strongest for podcasting last month, with a third of the top 15 spenders coming from that sector. Combined, they spent slightly more than Volvo. The biggest financial services spender was the Pentagon Federal Credit Union, which invested more than $1.3 million in podcast ads, followed by Chase, which spent $397,000. Other financial companies included Ally Bank, MasterCard, and LoanDepot.
“October is the first month where Magellan AI detected LoanDepot ads on podcasts, so this is definitely an advertiser that we will be keeping an eye on in the coming months,” said Magellan in its monthly update. It said the lender is looking to take advantage of historically low interest rates to promote loans and refinancing options. LoanDepot spent $98,000 on podcasts such as Political Scandals and Conspiracy Theories in October.
Magellan analyzes podcast advertising data from the top 3,000 podcasts in the U.S., as ranked by Apple Podcasts. Magellan’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 estimates based on popularity.
Separately, Magellan will hold a webinar on Tuesday, Nov. 24 detailing the trends it sees in the ad market. Register HERE.