More than half of Canadian marketers expect a rise in podcast advertising investment in the coming years, according to a new report from Sweden’s Acast.
The podcast company surveyed 500 advertisers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Singapore between September and October. The survey, titled “The Global Podcast Opportunity,” found that marketers in those target markets are 10 times more likely to predict an increase in podcast ad spending over the next five years than a decrease. In Canada, 55% of respondents believe the market will grow, while 5% think the opposite. Marketers who have previously purchased advertising space on podcasts are the most likely to believe the market will grow (62%), indicating they have had a positive experience doing so.
According to the company, which calls itself the “world’s largest independent podcast company” and runs a network of indie podcasts monetized by dynamic ad insertion, marketers ranked podcasts as the most effective audio medium for advertising. The company says respondents cited audience household income and brand safety as reasons they ranked podcast advertising highly.
Survey respondents also told Acast that podcasts are one of the least ad-saturated media. Only 16% of respondents said podcasts are oversaturated with ads, while 35% said they think TV is. Social media (31%), online video (24%), radio (24%), movie theaters (22%) and print (21%) also ranked as ad-saturated media.
Acast’s publication of the report follows its recent announcement of a partnership with Proximic by Comscore to enable cookie-free audience targeting across the podcast platform’s over 100,000 podcasts. Under the partnership, advertisers will have access to a new tool that, the company says, will allow them to target listeners based on their consumption behavior. “Acast’s most recent partnership with Proximic by Comscore enables Canadian advertisers to connect with those hard-to-reach audiences through privacy-safe contextual signals,” Heather Gordan, managing director of Acast in Canada, told MiC.
According to a recent MTM report, the audio market has been rebounding since people started returning to offices in 2023. Around 21% anglophones ages 18 to 34 spend time listening to podcasts on streaming platforms, while 31% of those ages 35 to 49 do so.
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