Mastering the Engagement Game: How brands are winning with podcast ads

Forget the hard sell and flashy visuals. In this digital age consumers crave authenticity and connection. Attention-grabbing advertisement is the new battleground for brands. Podcast advertising, a marketing game-changer, can quietly revolutionize how brands reach their target audience.

As a medium, podcasting offers unique opportunities for brands to forge deeper connections with listeners, fostering brand loyalty and driving engagement in remarkably refreshing ways.

Stats speak louder, too. A recent report by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) in collaboration with PwC shows a surge in digital ad spending, particularly for podcasting, which saw a whopping 23% year-on-year increase. This trend highlights the need for advertisers to shift their focus to capitalize on the high engagement offered by emerging tools like podcasting.

Stakeholders reckon that podcast advertising has the potential to transform traditional marketing strategies, offering unique opportunities for brands to engage with audiences in a more meaningful way.

Podcasts are for an evolved and highly engaged audience. Its opt-in and the power rests with the consumer on the choice of content, observes Agith George Kuruvilla, Co-founder & CBO, Ideabrews. “Unlike traditional audio (largely radio), where it's ‘one-to-many’, here it is more personalised and direct, offering brands a wide range of content to choose from (not just music) to place their ads. Besides genres, it offers measurability and consumption metrics that are extremely important for a brand,” says Kuruvilla.

Given the high listener engagement with podcasts, how can advertisers leverage this medium not just to generate brand awareness but also drive targeted conversions and sales?

Podcasts have become increasingly popular since the pandemic, and so many options are available, making it an exciting opportunity for brands to advertise, says Aakash Goplani, Account Director, SoCheers.

Goplani, however, believes that simply placing a banner or a call-out during a podcast isn’t enough to build genuine consideration or conversion. He advises brands to smartly select the channel, podcast, guests, and topic to integrate their offerings into the conversation seamlessly.

For instance, Goplani adds, if your target audience is students or aspiring entrepreneurs, podcasts like ‘Barbershop With Shantanu’ or ‘BeerBiceps’ featuring guests like Dipender Goyal or Radhika Gupta could be great places to consider for integrations.

Unlike traditional advertising channels most of which feel enforced on the viewers, podcasts are much more engaging and form deeper connections with the listeners, points out Darshil Shah, Director, ChtrSocial.

Brands have the unique opportunity to align with relevant podcast themes and personalities, making it more relatable choice for the listeners and form a stronger recall, Shah adds.

Amit Doshi, Head, IVM Podcasts at Pratilipi, talks about the laser-focused targeting capabilities of podcasts in delivering engaged messaging. According to Doshi, unlike traditional advertising, where your message might reach a scattered audience, podcasts offer a unique advantage: highly engaged listeners who have actively chosen the content. This self-selection process creates a perfect environment for brands to connect with a specific audience that already aligns with their brand philosophy.

The native magic!

What specific innovations in podcast advertising technology have contributed to its growth and effectiveness, and how are advertisers leveraging these advancements to maximize their campaigns’ impact?

Breaking the flow can be a deal-breaker. The solution? Native advertising!

Stressing the importance of creating native advertising experiences for podcast listeners, Aakash Goplani says that companies can ensure their podcast ads are authentic and integrate seamlessly into the podcast’s content and tone.

“Podcasts thrive on conversations, and nothing interrupts a conversation like an impromptu ad placement, spoiling the experience. The only solution to this problem is smart native placements. By strategically aligning with the right podcast, host, guest, and topic, brands can craft a native ad that feels like a natural extension of the conversation. Listeners are more likely to be engaged, intrigued, and even excited by a seamless integration. They won’t feel the urge to skip or fast-forward; they’ll be eager to hear the brand’s offering within the podcast’s context. This approach fosters trust and brand loyalty, making native advertising a powerful tool for podcast marketing,” says Goplani.

The best ads are those that don't make the viewers feel they're being marketed to, says Darshil Shah. “Podcast offers such opportunities by subtle integrations in both audio and visual forms. One specific technological advancement that podcasters are seeing is the deeper insights into the analytics of their listeners which platforms like Spotify are constantly improving. This helps brands get a better sense of the listeners' demographics and target the relevant podcasts for plugging their ads into,” Shah adds.

The ability to target ads in podcasting is relatively new, but has had a sea change in terms of how brands can target the deployment of their inventory, says Amit Doshi. Additionally, he adds, podcasts are excellent vehicles for brand-building from a content lens, and many brands are taking advantage of that.

The growth of podcasts are credited to many factors, creators, regional content, genres, platforms and devices for consumption, says Agith George Kuruvilla.

“Ideabrew Studios is currently well-positioned to place ads across multiple platforms, providing brands with a diverse range of platforms for their content to be consumed. Utilizing audio technology tools like Triton and Megaphone allows for reaching a more credible audience across platforms, thanks to their extensive coverage. This democratizes reach and enhances campaign impact with a content-first approach,” adds Kuruvilla.

Challenges and opportunities

As podcast advertising continues to evolve, advertisers and podcasters face certain challenges. Industry stakeholders may collaborate to further unlock the medium's potential for driving brand awareness and customer engagement.

Darshil Shah points out that one of the biggest challenges podcast as a format still faces is the retention of listeners. “In a world where people's attention spans are reducing day by day, the niche of podcast listeners is still relatively small, and hence, both advertisers and podcasters must innovate constantly to make each moment more engaging for the listeners. Listeners' fatigue is real; there must be a constant effort to avert the same.”

Amit Doshi believes that there’s a fundamental absence of campaigns allocating a budget to podcasting. He shares his perspective that this allocation is crucial for fostering a healthy ecosystem. Rather than facing the current dilemma of deciding whether or not to invest in podcast ads, the focus should shift towards determining which podcasts to allocate a certain percentage of the budget to. This approach would facilitate a more strategic and sustainable engagement with podcast advertising, he adds.

The primary challenge persists in raising awareness about the podcast medium and recognizing its potential to engage with modern audiences effectively, points out Agith George Kuruvilla.

“One has to be a podcast consumer to be passionate and value the medium and experiment. Ideabrew Studios is at the forefront of evangelising the medium and has seen good success with over 100 brands who have taken to advertising on podcasts. Secondly, it is time that media agencies treat audio as a format of advertising rather than the conventional traditional vs digital approach to reach audiences. With more platforms and personalised nature of audio consumption (headphones), it is yet to reach its potential. With technologies like 3D ads, binaural FX, brands can surely leave a big impact on end consumers, ensuring recall and even conversions,” adds Kuruvilla.

The intimate nature

The intimate nature of podcast content consumption influences the effectiveness of advertising within the medium. In this context, what strategies are advertisers employing to authentically integrate their messaging into the podcast experience while respecting audience engagement?

Amit Doshi identifies the challenge stemming from the relatively small but influential podcast audience. Due to the audience size and existing compliance norms in the Indian ad ecosystem, creating truly customized ads for each show and campaign becomes difficult. Instead, Doshi adds, brands often resort to pre-approved creatives, typically designed for radio or streaming platforms. However, podcast ads thrive when they are more conversational and off-the-cuff, a style that few brands are willing to embrace.

Podcast listeners have a special affinity towards the podcasters in particular, says Darshil Shah. This, according to him, helps the brand build trust much better than any other form of advertising. “Guest appearance of the founder that brings the brand story in front of the listeners is one of the effective forms of advertising seen but even other integrations or host narrations have proven for brands to be useful.”

Branded content is a great way to achieve this, opines Agith George Kuruvilla.

“Building communities with content is the key. There is far more to be told by brands using podcasts, and audio ads are just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine a fertiliser brand reaching farmers with content that helps them improve output with a wide range of topics. Subtle branding on the podcasts with an education-first approach will hold the brand in great stead if it solves their problems. In evolved markets, host mentions and product engagements by podcast hosts are key to drive authentic feedback for brands. Audiences value when it comes from creators, courtesy the authority. The spark certainly has started, and the prospects are truly promising,” Kuruvilla concludes.

Innovative measurement and ROI

⁠With traditional metrics like downloads potentially misleading, certain innovative measurement strategies are emerging to accurately gauge the true impact of podcast advertising campaigns, so that advertisers can move beyond download numbers to measure the true effectiveness of podcast ads.

Some innovative ways to measure the effectiveness of the ads would be to map the Google Search Trend before and a few days after the release of the podcast, followed by tracking the website/ e-commerce visits on the product, suggests Aakash Goplani. Additionally, mentioning an exclusive deal or a package in the conversation of the podcast can also indicate the number of people coming from the podcast basis conversions.

⁠Podcast listeners are diverse. And advertisers should strategically choose podcasts to reach their ideal customer base and maximize their return on investment (ROI).

According to Aakash Goplani, when deciding on placements, it is important to consider two key aspects – the guest and the podcast’s topic. If the brand’s target audience shares interests with either the topic or the guest’s following, the placement will have a higher chance of converting, he adds.