Acast has signed a global partnership with Proximic, a subsidiary of long-established media analytics and data provider Comscore, the podcast platform has announced, in order to provide podcast advertisers with cookie-free audience targeting solutions.
With this partnership, advertisers will be able to access a new tool called Predictive Audiences, which the company says will allow them to target listeners through their consumer behaviours based on personas, TV viewership, retail habits and more. Rather than using third-party cookies, Comscore’s technology uses a combination of both first-party data and AI predictive models, relying on what Acast calls “privacy-friendly contextual signals”.
“The podcast advertising industry has experienced rapid growth in recent years, but has been challenged to harness its full potential largely because innovations in ad tech still lagged behind more traditional media forms,” said Proximic by Comscore vice president of targeting solutions Lee Blickstein. “With Acast’s global platform, agnostic reach, and Proximic by Comscore’s Predictive Audiences capability, podcast advertising is prepared to continue growing in both scale and efficiency despite the continual loss of access to persistent identifiers.”
Third-party cookies have been a key element of many organisations’ digital advertising strategies, but as the technology comes under increasing scrutiny for its implications on user privacy, many organisations are seeking to phase it out in favour of alternatives.
Contextual targeting and brand suitability continue to be priorities for podcast advertisers, with the number of podcast advertisers using brand safety and suitability solutions going up by 36% year on year. A number of podcast platforms have started working with AI technologies or external partners to provide advertisers with these solutions. Acast recently also launched Predictive Demographics on its podcast database Podchaser, which similarly uses AI to predict the age and gender of listeners for enhanced podcast advertising.
Predictive Audiences is now available to advertisers on Acast’s marketplace across 15 of the global company’s markets. According to research from Market.us, the global podcast advertising market is expected to reach $12.7 (£10.32) billion and go up to $40 (£32.51) billion in value by 2032.
“For nearly a decade, Acast has been a pioneer in podcasting and ad tech innovations,” said Acast global head of ad innovation Elli Dimitroulakos. “This partnership with Proximic by Comscore complements Acast’s current third and first party targeting capabilities while enhancing scale, performance, and efficiencies for advertisers around the world.
“On a global scale, this partnership is significant in further improving addressability throughout the entire podcasting landscape.”
