If listening to podcasts is part of your daily routine and has been for a while, you will know what I’m talking about when I say that the medium is getting more commercialised. No, it’s not just a figment of your imagination, there are indeed more advertisements in each podcast episode now than ever.
In Oxford Road’s newest report, The Danger of Rising PodLoad, they found that podcast ad load has increased by 39% in the past three years, and that the average ad load for the top 50 shows currently sits at 10.2%. If you do the math, that’s 6 minutes and 20 seconds of ads within an hour-long episode. If we assume that most ads are 30 seconds long (as suggested by Magellan AI), this means that every 60-minute long episode has about 13 ads packed into it.
The increased average ad loads spans across most (if not all) genres — from the educational science and news genre to the entertaining society and culture, true crime, and comedy genres.
This begs the question – what does this mean for advertisers? And is there anything we can and/or should do about it?
Should I be concerned about this uptick?
To a certain extent, yes. The purpose of ads is to help companies generate sales, but more ads doesn’t always guarantee more sales. Once ad load exceeds the optimal rate, both visitor rates and purchase rates start to see a concerning dip.
Visitor rates increase up till about 5% ad load. After which, it can fall by up to 25%. Similarly, purchase rates peak at roughly 6% ad load, and thereafter sees a 10% decline. It’s important to note that the increase in ad load post-6% also comes with a 31% increase in cost-per-point (CPP). This means that any ads that contribute to a more than 6% ad load are considered less effective and less cost-efficient.
This observation worsens when you realise that the listening experience is saturated with ad campaigns for regular loyal listeners, be it multiple ads playing one after another, or hearing the same ad repeated on the same episode. This is known as stacking and double spotting, and if committed, harms your visitor rate by 41% and 59% respectively.
Even a slight increase in frequency of exposure to a single campaign from one to two drops the visitor rate and purchase rate by more than half.
But it’s not just about the numbers. It is a no-brainer that ads reduce the intimacy of the listening experience that is so unique and characteristic of podcasts in the first place. Imagine you’re hanging out with a dear friend, deep in conversation about topics that matter to you, before said friend breaks the flow by trying to sell you a product or brand. I personally can’t say I would appreciate that either.
So yes, maybe more ads is not a cause for celebration.
No, don’t worry about it just yet.
Surprisingly, and contrary to the above research, listeners are pretty okay with the amount of ads. 31% of listeners surveyed generally don’t mind the ads, with 42% finding them slightly annoying but still tolerable.
This is most likely because, in comparison, consumers are overwhelmed with more ads on other media channels like television, streaming, and radio. More than half of consumers (55%, to be exact) think that there are an appropriate amount of advertisements on podcasts right now. That’s higher than every other media channel out there. So, for the most part, consumers seem to be relatively satisfied with the ad load on podcasts.
The podcasting space remains an extremely viable advertising pathway with huge performance potential, when done right, of course. About 60% of respondents from Inside Radio’s survey were found to make a purchase after listening to an advertisement about it. Even if a purchase was not made, they still visited the brand’s website and social media, or talked to family and friends about it.
Is there anything I can/should be doing?
Well, there’s a few adjustments you can make as a podcast advertiser to make the overall listening experience more enjoyable for listeners, even with a few ads inserted.
1. 6% is the way to go.
The most obvious step is to choose podcasts that maintain a reasonable ad load, ideally at 6% (right before visitor and purchase rates decline). This ensures that listeners don’t leave with a negative perception of both the brand and the podcast show, and that they don’t end up pressing the ‘skip’ button. If you really want to push it, 10% is the maximum.
2. Oxford Clock
Let me introduce to you the Oxford Clock. The main principle is to spread out when listeners are exposed to ads in an episode, and how long they are exposed to them for. You can break it down into what we more commonly know as pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads.
A minute of pre-roll ads before the episode plays, two 2-minute slots of mid-roll ads, with a minute of post-roll ads to end off the hour long episode. For 30-minute episodes, apply the same concept but divided in half — 30 second pre-roll and post-roll ads, and two 1-minute slots of mid-roll ads.
This will also help to reduce the stacking and double spotting issues that tank your stats. Ultimately, the aim of the Oxford Clock is to enhance the listening experience for consumers, while balancing the inclusion of sponsorships and ad campaigns.
3. Keep ads relatable.
Let’s put it this way — if you’re a listener of Andrew Huberman’s Huberman Lab podcast, you’re more likely to be interested in ads that promote products or experiences regarding health and wellness. (Think supplement pills, gym memberships, fitness watches, meditation courses, etc.) In the same vein, you’re more likely to skip ads from McDonald’s, Amazon, or Verizon. Not because the services that these brands provide isn’t useful, but because it’s not valuable to you.
What you have to keep in mind while scouting for podcasts to strike a partnership with is — who is your target audience, and does it align with their current audience?
An easy way to figure out who your audience is (and consequently, make your ads relatable to said audience) is with PodSeeker’s podcast search. Use the filters to sift through all the countless podcasts out there and find the podcast with right demographic of listener you’re looking for.
4. Personalise your ads.
Put yourself in the shoes of your listener. Listening to the same ad from the same sponsor repeated with the exact same script, multiple times within the same hour, with no variations whatsoever, is understandably frustrating. What more if they hear the same ad in a different podcast show that they’re listening to. Your ad and your brand becomes something that they can’t escape or run away from.
It’s so important to make the audience want to listen to your ad.
A great example of a good, personalised ad that will get your audience talking is the JOLLY YouTube channel (Yes, I’m aware they’re not a podcast show, stick with me for a second!). This British lifestyle and vlog channel is no stranger to decently personalised ads that make you want to keep watching; they often choose to film their ad segments in the same location as their filming location, or reference moments in the video that you had just watched. This makes each ad read fit so seamlessly into the viewing experience, and enhances the perception of their sponsors and of the JOLLY brand as a whole.
The ad that takes the cake is the song that they made for their sponsor, NordVPN (you read that right). It is an insanely hilarious and absurd one minute that not only plays into Ollie’s comic persona that watchers know and love, but also manages to hit all the talking points that NordVPN provided. The comments section on the video is a testament to how effective this is — virtually every comment is praising the team’s creativity, humour, and effort.
I’m not expecting you to ask your podcast hosts to produce an entire song, but going the extra mile to make each ad read fit seamlessly into your content is definitely worth it.
In Conclusion
More ads is simply part of the natural course of the rise of any new media form. Now that we’re seeing the first signs of potential over-commercialisation, it’s important that we know how to react to it.
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