Pre-roll advertising has the highest conversion rates for podcast advertisers, according to the latest quarterly insights report from Spotify’s podcast advertising measurement service Podsights, outperforming mid-roll placements by 8%.
The Podsights Benchmark Report for Q4 2022 provides insights for podcast advertisers and publishers to help monetise more effectively by measuring performances of brands and campaigns based on campaign size, frequency, and conversion rates.
Dynamic ads inserted into episodes on a programmatic basis, were proven to be more popular than embedded ads which are permanently baked into the audio file during the editing process.
Dynamic ads had an average conversion rate of 1.12%, according to the report, with both Parenting and Gambling categories outperforming the average with a conversion rate of just over 3%. In comparison, embedded ads only saw a 0.93% conversion rate. Embedded ads made up just 16% of the inventory trafficked through Podsights, and conversion was strongest in the Automotive category, which experienced a 72% increase in embedded conversion rates.
Podsights also recommended that advertisers run campaigns on podcasts across two to ten publishers or networks to achieve better performance results. This saw the highest conversion rate at 1.43% (an 8% increase since last quarter), while advertising with one publisher had a 1.30% conversion rate (a 24% increase since the last quarter).
While the average purchase conversion rate from attributed visitors (households that visited a brand’s website after listening to a podcast ad) was at 4.81%, Beauty had the highest average purchase conversion rate in terms of website customers at 7.65%. Lead conversion rates, which include a custom event such as a sign-up or email capture in the podcast ad, were also at an all time high this quarter at 0.11%, a 38% increase since last quarter, with Health and Wellness at the top 0.19%.
In addition to the Podsights quarterly report, Spotify also released its 2022 Podcast Trends Report, based on data from Spotify’s podcast platforms, including Megaphone, Chartable and Podsights.
The report revealed that podcast listenership is expanding, with the highest growth being a 49% increase of audiences aged between 13-17 while ages of 55+ followed closely behind. Audiences are also growing in Southern Europe with the highest growth in the market being in Spain, Italy, and France with a collective 921% year on year increase in podcast downloads.
For podcast advertisers, more categories are growing in advertising with B2B ads having the highest increase of 1,254% this quarter. Travel & Leisure and Medical & Pharma also experienced a high increase with increases of 362% and 244% respectively.
