IAB/PwC: Podcast ad sales to grow 47%

Podcast ads continue to show strong growth, according to a new report from the IAB working with professional services firm PwC.

Why it matters

A winning medium from the lockdowns, podcast advertising still inspires buyers who are slated to grow their spend by 47% this year. While that’s not quite the 75% YOY growth seen in 2021, it still shows that there is a big opportunity for audio media.

What’s driving this

Reported in Variety, the IAB’s figures suggest that US podcast advertising has a few years of strong continued growth with forecasts pointing to $4.2 billion spent on the medium by 2024. The trade body suggests the following factors are behind the continued strength:

• More content, more listeners
• New tech has brought programmatic to the forefront of podcast advertising
• More ads are appearing in genres and categories that used to see lower ad volumes.

This follows Omny Studio figures reported last Autumn by WARC, which found that sport and news podcasts led the pack in terms of ad investment, but did warn that audiences were growing ahead of investment, suggesting an audio investment gap.

The IAB’s figures are relatively optimistic compared to WARC forecasts from earlier this year which estimated 27.5% investment growth this year (though these were global figures compared with the IAB’s US-only figures).

Sourced from Variety, WARC