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Like your Facebook relationship status circa 2008, the podcast industry\u2019s relationship with programmatic advertising could be best described as \u201cit\u2019s complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Programmatic advertising represents a small portion of podcast ad spend. It accounted for 2% of spend in 2021, per the IAB. By 2024, that share is expected to grow to just under 10%, Insider Intelligence predicted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
One of the companies trying to drive that growth is AdsWizz, a tech platform for digital audio owned by SiriusXM that includes an audio-centric supply-side platform called AudioMax and its demand-side counterpart, AudioMatic. AdsWizz is one of the predominant forces in audio ad tech, claiming to operate the first marketplace of podcast-only inventory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe usage is really taking off more in the last year,\u201d Anne Frisbie, SVP of global business development at AdsWizz, told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Even as podcasts have become more popular over the years, some audio buyers and sellers still aren\u2019t totally sold on programmatic advertising, since the industry has historically found success with host-read ads. There have also been instances of programmatic tech leading to ads appearing in episodes they weren\u2019t supposed to, like BP and ExxonMobil spots showing up in science pods that block ads from oil and gas companies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Still, thousands of publishers and dozens of agencies transact programmatically to some extent through AudioMax and AudioMatic these days, according to Frisbie, who worked at Yahoo in the early 2000s before spending more than a decade at mobile ad-tech company InMobi. Spotify and iHeart also offer programmatic marketplaces for audio.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Frisbie said current economic conditions give her reason to believe even more will buy into programmatic this year. Several podcast networks have recently started selling their inventory programmatically, suggesting that the industry may be increasingly interested in a method that has long represented only a small slice of its ad revenue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThings have changed quite rapidly over the last two or three years,\u201d Frisbie said. \u201cNow, most of your top podcasts and top podcast networks do make their inventory available to programmatic buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
AudioMax and AudioMatic have been around since 2015 and 2016, respectively, but Frisbie said it wasn\u2019t until the past year and a half that podcast inventory\u2014premium podcast inventory in particular\u2014started to gain traction in the programmatic marketplace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Before the shift, \u201cthere were premium podcasters that had such high fill rates on their advertising from just their direct sales efforts, and at very good CPMs, that they didn\u2019t really need to bother, to be quite honest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Now, the economy\u2014and the advertising industry\u2014look different. Buyers are facing more pressure to demonstrate that ad dollars are being spent efficiently, Frisbie said, and inventory might not be selling out as easily anymore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cEven if someone\u2019s doing as well with the buyers today, which would be hard just based on macroeconomics, they might have twice as big of an audience,\u201d she said. \u201cNot just the economy, but the sheer increased interest and listening hours from consumers is also meaning that we have to evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
What seems to be a growing interest in programmatic is reflected in SiriusXM\u2019s earnings: Overall ad revenue from its Pandora and off-platform segment\u2014which includes fees from AdsWizz\u2014was down slightly year over year in Q1, but revenue from fees tied to AdsWizz\u2019s programmatic platforms on their own grew 20% year over year in Q1, according to Frisbie.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s more money on our platforms being spent today in programmatic buys for streaming inventory than there is for podcasts,\u201d she said, but added that \u201cthe growth is faster on the podcast side.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
AudioMax\u2019s clients include major podcast publishers like New York Public Radio, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Univision, Barstool Sports, and Betches Media, Frisbie said. Barstool and Betches confirmed that they use AudioMax; the rest either declined to comment, did not respond, or hadn\u2019t confirmed by publication time. NPR and Acast also said they use the platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Buyers using AudioMatic include Dentsu\u2019s 360i and iProspect, GroupM\u2019s Xaxis, performance audio agency Veritone One, and digital media agency Division-D, according to Frisbie. Xaxis, Veritone One, and Division-D confirmed they use the platform; Dentsu hadn\u2019t confirmed by publication time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Some major networks have started testing programmatic podcast sales as recently as this year. Betches Media, which has more than a dozen podcasts, began using AdsWizz in April for unsold inventory, according to Arisara Srisethnil, its VP of marketing. Crooked Media started selling some inventory programmatically last year after partnering with SiriusXM for ad sales, VP of Sales Giancarlo Bizzarro said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rogers Sports & Media\u2014the media division of Rogers Communications that owns TV channels, radio stations, and podcast companies across Canada and sells podcast inventory for companies like SiriusXM, NBC, and the NHL\u2014started selling programmatically through AudioMax about 12 to 18 months ago, according to Mike Viner, director of digital audio advertising at Rogers Media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The company already had a \u201cvery robust programmatic business\u201d in display and video, he said, so programmatic audio felt like a natural next step. \u201cWe want to be agnostic,\u201d Viner said. \u201cWe want to make our inventory available where buyers are buying.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Acast saw some increased interest in programmatic late last year and early this year, according to Global Head of Ad Innovation Elli Dimitroulakos, particularly with regard to private marketplace deals. Programmatic sales made up 13% of the company\u2019s revenue at the end of last year, up from 10% the year prior.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Michelle Slinkard, chief business development officer at Division-D, said AudioMatic, which it\u2019s been using since 2018, is the agency\u2019s \u201cbiggest DSP for audio,\u201d but that it also uses The Trade Desk, Yahoo DSP, Amazon DSP, and Spotify Ad Studio for programmatic audio buying.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe reason we got into it is because we work with a lot of local and regional clients, and programmatic audio gives us the ability to scale more effectively into niche targets,\u201d Slinkard said. \u201cWe also really like to pair it with cross-channel remarketing…and when we\u2019re running everything programmatically, the whole process is much more seamless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n