In a milestone for Audioboom, the podcast network says it has surpassed one billion available monthly advertising impressions for the first time. During October 2023, podcasts in the Audioboom Creator Network generated 1.01 billion advertising impressions. It credits a “strategic implementation” of the AdRip inventory creation tool, first launched in 2021. The tool enables creators to automate the removal of old advertising in their episodes and replace it with new ads each time a back-catalog episode is listened to.
More ads mean more revenue, and Audioboom said earlier it expects to generate more than $19 million of revenue during the quarter, which would be a return to year-over-year top-line growth and the strongest revenue period for the network since the second quarter of 2022. It would also mark a turnaround from the first three quarters of this year. Total revenue for the first nine months of the year was $45.8 million, a 20% decline from a year ago. The company has blamed that on a combination of weaker advertising sales and also the loss of the Morbid podcast, which exited Acast in May 2022.
“I’m delighted that we have achieved this milestone. To create more than one billion monthly advertising impressions highlights the scale that we are developing at Audioboom,” CEO Stuart Last said in a statement. “We continue to develop innovative technology that enables our creators to maximize the value of their content, while providing our brand partners with powerful advertising options. Our increased scale will power a record year for Audioboom in 2024,” he said.
Not only did Audioboom use AdRip to insert new ads into old episodes, but it also added new shows and had audience growth for existing podcasts. Audioboom says it reached more than 38 million unique listeners during the third quarter and average more than 127 million downloads each month.
Audioboom announced last month that its monthly download total will grow to eight million with the addition of four shows, including Girls Next Level, The Bulwark Podcast, We’re Here to Help, and Out of the Pods. The signings of the shows come as Audioboom announced earlier this year that it is focusing on scaling back on how much it is paying out in minimum guarantees, especially as its ad revenue has been weaker.