Extending podcasting's special relationship with listeners with engaging ads
by Jeff Ulster, Co-Founder & VP, TPX
A new survey from Sounds Profitable offers some valuable new insights about how listeners respond to the quality and quantity of the podcast ads they hear.
The good news is that podcast listeners are very receptive to brand messages, and they're also pretty happy overall with the ad experience they're currently getting. But if we want to maintain this very special relationship between podcasts, hosts, brands and listeners, it's important to understand and respect listener expectations.
Some examples of listener expectations:
most listeners (73%) expect to hear 2-3 ads in a typical episode of their favourite podcast
most prefer 1-2 ad breaks per episode
just like consumers of other media, some podcast listeners will skip ads. The interest/engagement the ad creative generates can play a big role in how likely that is to happen. So can ad frequency and lack of relevance to the listener.
With regards to ad creative - listeners don't get tired of funny/novel/interesting ads. One of the largest motivators of podcast listening is to learn something new, along with an attraction to great storytelling. The ad experience should line up with the engagement level of the podcast content!
... and some good news that confirms why podcast ads are working well:
Most listeners (66%) say they heard an ad 2-3 times before making a purchase, with 75% of those who made a purchase doing so within a week of last hearing the ad.
28% of listeners say they listen to “all of the ads” on podcasts, the highest percentage among all media channels tested.
The podcast ad is credited by 72% of consumers as “influential” in their decision to purchase a product or service they heard about on a podcast, even if it was encountered in other media.
There are many more insights in the study, so I highly recommend you check out Sounds Profitable for that and more great work they've done.
Collectively, if we can protect the listener experience and put the same effort into a quality ad experience as we do with our podcast content, then podcast advertising will continue to be a highly desirable and effective channel for brands.
In other words, as presenter Tom Webster said so succinctly during the study’s webinar: “Podcast listeners don’t skip ads, they skip crap.”
References:
Ad Nauseam from Sounds Profitable - US-based survey, designed to learn how people perceive ad quality and quantity in podcasting. Research executed by Signal Hill Insights.
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