Independent podcast network Acast has today (15 November) launched a keyword targeting tool for podcast advertisers to ensure contextually relevant advertising and brand safety.
The new facility allows advertisers to target podcasts most suited to their brand by using advanced speech-to-text transcription technology, artificial intelligence and natural language processing to identify key words and phrases in podcast episodes that would be most relevant to them.
“We’re on a mission to ensure advertisers can be as contextually relevant – and effective – as possible in podcasting,” said VP of advertising product at Acast Chris Wistow. “With Keyword Targeting, brands can be part of the immediate conversation, whether that’s a major calendar event, breaking news story or even something as quirky as an interviewee’s favourite meal.
Wistow also added that keyword targeting will benefit Acast podcasters of all sizes as it will give them the chance to connect with advertisers they may not have previously been matched with based on category alone. There is also the option to exclude specific words and phrases in order to allow for more brand safety.
Keyword Targeting is a new iteration of Acast Marketplace’s conversational targeting tools that the company launched in May this year. It started with IAB category targeting which allows advertisers to filter through topics at an individual episode level, followed by keyword targeting, and will later include topic and trend analysis in podcast discussions as well as sentiment targeting which will highlight the emotion and tone of the podcast speakers on a certain topic.
In addition to conversational targeting, Acast also launched a first-party data targeting solution for advertisers in October 2022, allowing advertisers to import their own first-party data and match it with an Acast identity graph that shows listener consumption signals in order to create more efficient and targeted campaigns.
