According to research firm WARC, the podcast market has been experiencing rapid growth and this trend is estimated to continue. From 2013 to 2018, podcast ad spend has increased 1,344%. It is estimated that by 2022, total podcast adspend will reach $1.6B and will make up 4.5% of all audio advertising market share.
Total Podcast Advertising Revenue in 2018
2018 saw a 46.9% increase in podcast advertising spend reaching $649.8 MM. It is estimated that 2019 will grow 36.2% YoY and reach $885MM. Some of the top podcast advertisers so far within 2019 are ZipRecruiter, Geico, Indeed, Squarespace, SimpliSafe, Quip, Robinhood, Zenni Optical, Madison Reed, Casper, Skillshare, ThirdLove, Care/of, Stamps.com, and Progressive.
According to Magellan, 56% of the brands on the IAB list have not advertised on podcasts yet.
Advertisers are flocking to podcasts for a variety of reasons. According to Nielson:
- High Brand Recall — 440% increase in brand recall compared to display advertising
- Purchase Behaviour — 61% of the listeners are more likely to purchase the advertised product when they hear it on a podcast compared to 56% when they don’t hear the ad.
- Audio Consumption — 80% of listeners listen to most or all of the podcast episode.
Total Number of Podcasts and Episodes in 2019
How many podcasts are there? So far, effective May 1, 2019, there are roughly 700,000 unique podcasts and over 29MM episodes. This equates to approximately 1.3B audio minutes of content.
Total Podcast Listeners in 2019
According to Edison Research, there were approximately 144MM US listeners that have at least listened to a podcast.
Over the last month, roughly 32% of the US population, or 90MM people listened to a podcast. Last week, it is estimated the 62MM people within the US listened to a podcast.
On average, a listener within the US listened to 7 podcasts last week.
The Demographics of Podcast Listeners Within the US
- 45% of monthly US podcast listeners have household income over $75K. This is compared to 35% for the total population.
- 27% of US podcast listeners have a 4-year college degree compared to 19% fo the total US population.
- 40% of US listeners are between the age of 12–24.
- 39% of US listeners are between the age of 25–54.
