NEW YORK—A new study from the IAB is reporting explosive growth in podcast ad revenue, which hit a new high in 2021 at $1.4 billion, and is forecast to exceed $2 billion in 2022.
The study also forecasts that podcast ad revenue is expected to hit $4 billion by 2024, growth that should bolster some of the investments TV news operations have been making in the medium.
The sixth annual IAB U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue study, prepared for IAB by PricewaterhouseCoopers, also reported that podcast advertising grew 72% faster in 2021 than the total internet ad market.
“Everything right now is aligned to drive growth. There’s more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences,” said Chris Bruderle, vice president, research & insights, IAB. “But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes.”
The researchers found that the growth was being driven by three factors: more growth and more content; increased use of automated ad tech and growing investment across more ad categories.
The share of ad revenue served via Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) has almost doubled in two years to 84% as now both host-read and announcer-read ads are largely being served with this functionality (84% and 85%, respectively), the report noted.
In addition it found that the share of ad revenue generated within categories with lower spend volumes has more than tripled in just two years from 8% to 28%.
More information and the full report can be found here.
