A Million Ads (AMA), a global digital audio advertising company, has released the findings of a study it conducted with 1000 podcast listeners in January of this year. The report shows the role of social media in podcast discovery and sheds light on listener preferences for ad formats and timing, and demand for personalized ad experiences within podcasts.

The findings indicate a strong link between social media usage and podcast discovery, with YouTube leading at 61%, followed by 46% of respondents discovering new podcasts through Facebook and 43% through Instagram. Twitter (20%), LinkedIn (9%), and TikTok (39%) also played a role.

Ad personalization is important to podcast listeners with 80% preferring personalized ads in their podcasts. Nearly 20% of respondents seek highly personalized ads, tailored directly to their individual interests and listening habits.

Contrary to the belief that host-read ads are most effective, the AMA survey found that 38% of listeners favour pre-recorded ads – short commercial messages recorded by someone other than the podcast host and typically last 15 to 30 seconds. Under one-third (31%) of listeners prefer host-read sponsorship ads, while another 31% prefer branded content. Regarding ad placement within a podcast, 42% of respondents prefer pre-roll ads at the start of the podcast, one-third favour mid-roll ads, and one-quarter are inclined towards post-roll ads at the end.

Ad relevance is also a key driver in listener response. A combined 42% of respondents find podcast ads either very relevant (15%) or somewhat relevant (27%) and that relevance has led to actual purchases.

With 15% of podcast listeners saying they never miss an episode and one-third identifying as regular listeners, AMA believes there is potential risk of ad fatigue, particularly for regular listeners who might encounter the same ad repeatedly.

AMA was founded in 2015 in New York and London. The company specializes in delivering customized, data-driven dynamic ads on audio platforms.