With the growing audience and number of podcasts, the opportunity to advertise in both audio and video podcasts is increasing. But at this point the advertising is limited because advertisers don’t understand the medium and how to find specific podcasts to buy. iSPOT spoke with Mark McCrery, CEO and co-founder of Podtrac, a large podcast advertising network, to get a better understanding of the medium and gauge the potential for growth.
iSPOT: How fast is the number of podcasts and the podcast audience growing?
McCrery: There are 80,000 podcasts today, an increase of 20,000 from a year ago. We’ve seen a lot of growth in independent content producers developing audio and video podcasts and also established media companies distributing podcasts through RSS feeds. Media companies are increasing the number of feeds they have. NPR has over 60 different podcasts, ESPN has about 20 and independent podcasters like Leo Laporte have many too. Podcasters are experimenting and once they see the audience popularity, they are developing several. If we look at audience size, the number of podcast listeners and viewers from our last national online survey was 22 million who listened or watched podcasts.
iSPOT: How many podcasts accept advertising and how can an advertiser select a podcast if there are so many?
McCrery: Of the 80,000, a certain number fit into the podtrader category. Many individuals who produce podcasts do a few episodes and then stop. It’s similar to what the blogosphere has experienced. Podcasts have the same phenomenon occurring, because it’s a large time commitment, especially producing video podcasts.
Advertisers have been unable to find podcasts matching their targets, so we developed an online Media Planning Service that we launched two weeks ago. It enables advertisers to find targets through podcasts. They log on and do advance searches by demographic, age, income, gender or the number of people in a household. Then they can search on content, for instance if they want to reach males 18-34 in technology broadcasts or 18-49 year olds in health podcasts. We also have a content rating system so advertisers have predictability about whether the podcast is appropriate for all audiences or a more mature audience. You can also search for audio or video podcasts. Most advertisers are not as sensitive between audio and video, they are more interested in the relationship podcasters are building with their audience. They get a list of podcasts that match their criteria and a summary of how many can be reached on a weekly basis. The demographic data is based on our audience survey of over 70,000. It provides agencies with the planning tool they need.
iSPOT: For advertisers that are using podcasts, what kinds of ads do they play?
McCrery: The ad formats we have are :10 to :15 audio ads within the first 90 seconds of an audio podcast and :30 audio ads later in the podcast. For video podcasts, we do :10 video ads in two placements within a podcast. It depends on the length of the podcast as to how many messages go into them.
iSPOT: Is there one advertiser per podcast?
McCrery: It can be more than one. Most podcasts don’t have ads in them yet because advertisers are still getting comfortable with podcast advertising and haven’t had the tools to do targeting to find audiences. When we do place ads in podcasts, some advertisers are interested in being the only advertiser, and we can provide that option. Some advertisers have been open to more than one if it’s a long podcast. For Leo Laporte’s thisWEEKinTECH, we had Visa, Showtime and Dell in the same podcast, which was an hour long.
iSPOT: What kind of issues are involved in inserting ads in podcasts?
McCrery: Getting ads in podcasts is more of a feature than a benefit for advertisers. They don’t really care how ads get in, they just want to make sure they’re delivered. There are multiple ways for it to happen. The podcasters can put the ads in themselves and since they’re technology professionals it’s very easy. Automatic insertion systems are also used. There are various auto technologies out there and they place ads, usually pre-roll or post-roll ads.
iSPOT: Have you used them?
McCrery: We have used them, but we generally leave it up to the podcaster to decide how the ads will be placed and we verify all the insertions.
iSPOT: Isn’t it your responsibility as an ad network to insert the ads?
McCrery: It’s our responsibility to make sure the ads are inserted.
iSPOT: What kind of reporting abilities do you have?
McCrery: We track how many times the podcast was downloaded. We report on the number of downloads and on top of that we look at U.S. versus international downloads. Most advertisers in the U.S. want to reach a U.S. audience. Some podcasts have 50 to 80 percent U.S.; it varies by podcast. We also count multiple downloads as single downloads. Unique U.S. downloads is the metric that we are charging ads based on.
iSPOT: How does pricing work? Do advertisers pay on a CPM basis?
McCrery: Yes, generally the pay CPM, it varies by buy, but most of the time it’s $50 per thousand for U.S. downloads. There are opportunities for advertisers to do very targeted specific buys where the price could be higher.
iSPOT: Are the majority of podcast advertisers radio advertisers and is podcast a replacement for radio advertising?
McCrery: We’re getting interest from all types of advertisers. Some have a lot of radio experience and appreciate the audio delivery. There’s also some interest from online agencies and emerging media agencies.
iSPOT: How do you see podcast advertising developing over the next year?
McCrery: The number of podcasts is increasing every day, so by year’s end we should be up 30 percent. It’s the YouTube phenomenon. There’s a lot of independent video content creators developing clips and posting them on YouTube. They’re having some success and getting lots of views, so they develop more clips and continue to post them. We reach out to them to get them to register a podcast as an ongoing media asset they can own without relying on a specific site for their audience. An example is a sketch comedy artist who records the Don’t Be That Guy pods. His one minute clips played on YouTube and he registered with iTunes and was a top pick. So we worked with him to incorporate advertising into his podcasts. A Warner Brothers campaign is running now.
