By Leah Reis-Dennis, Head of Podcasts at Audacy
More than ever before, advertisers are pouring into podcasting. Monthly spend per new advertiser more than doubled in the last year, and podcasting now delivers ROI stronger than social, display, video, or search. [Source: eMarketer and Magellan AI, November 2025; The Podcast Advertising Opportunity, eMarketer, Jan 2026] And yet, much of the advice that brands still rely on when it comes to podcast advertising is built on outdated assumptions from the earlier, scrappier years of podcasting. What once were considered best practices may no longer be advisable.
This isn’t a “podcasting is having a moment” piece—our industry has been having a moment for years now, and shows no signs of slowing down. Audacy’s recent State of Audio: The New Rules of Podcast Advertising is about the unclaimed opportunities within podcasting as we look into 2027 and beyond. So let’s get into it.
The Room Celebrities Can’t Reach
I often hear stats and anecdotes about how much of podcast ad spending is placed across a very small minority of massive hit podcasts—think shows with millions of downloads and views per month. Many brands seem caught up in the idea that bigger audience equals bigger impact. But what about the mid-sized shows hosted by more niche creators who fans are obsessed with? What about a community that comes together to listen or watch a podcast week over week because of a force greater than celebrity, like shared passions, fears, or curiosities? Celebrity podcasts take up a lot of airtime (and I have my favorites, too!), but celebrity reach and genuine audience influence are not one and the same. Advertisers ought to focus not on how large a single audience is, but rather, how deeply an audience connects to a host and to the podcast content. The data here is pretty clear: the strongest conversions don’t necessarily come from the biggest celebrity names. They come from the most trusted expert voices on the topics that matter the most, and often at a lower cost to advertisers.
In fact, Podscribe data shows that advertisers on mid-sized shows see a 22% lower cost per acquisition than advertisers on the largest celebrity-led podcasts. Listeners are also 21% more likely to be influenced by hosts with real topic expertise than by people with large social media followings. [Source: Audacy Power of Influencers 2026 Study, 1000 respondents, Adults 18+] This is a signal that credibility, not reach, is what moves an audience.
Adam McNeil, SVP of Client Services at Adopter Media, has been surfacing this data with his clients: “We actually tend to stay away from a lot of the macro podcasts, because they don’t tend to have as much influence.” He’s specific about why: “As a celebrity gets to a larger and larger status, their connection to their audience gets further and further apart, and so your influence over that audience gets a little bit more diluted.”
We still see media plans that treat audience size as a proxy for value, and that’s not always wrong. Sometimes brands want to paint with a broad brush and cover a lot of surface area (and a lot of different kinds of audiences) in a single campaign. But most brands would be remiss not to closely consider the power of smaller, engaged communities when it comes to leveraging trust and connection and driving conversions.
One Buy, Two Superpowers
When video first entered the podcasting space, many of us worried that video podcasts would cannibalize audio monetization and consumption. Years later, we’ve seen that fear has largely not borne out, and that the push into video has contributed real incremental audience to our industry. Compared to a few years ago, there are meaningfully more podcast listeners, more podcast viewers, and crucially, more consumers who identify as both. In fact, 57% of Americans both watch and listen to podcasts. [Source: The Infinite Dial, Edison Research at SSRS, 2026]
Instead of choosing a favorite format, many consumers simply follow their favorite creator from channel to channel, depending on what consumption method is best suited to the content or is most convenient—whether that means listening to an audio podcast while walking the dog, or watching a video podcast before bed. Video podcast consumption, and video podcast discovery more specifically, may actually be doing the opposite of audio cannibalization: 72% of podcast audio listeners report that they started with a show’s video version before becoming an audio listener. [Source: Edison Research, The Evolving Ear, 2026] Audio and video are doing different jobs: video drives the discovery that gets fans in the door, while audio drives the deep, trusted, screen-free engagement that converts best.
As Christine Hess, Director of Account Strategy at Mynt, points out, video and audio can also deliver entirely different offerings for brands. While audio advertising captures that hyper-engaged listener, video advertising can incorporate visual assets and product placement that haven’t traditionally had a place in podcast advertising. “Podcasts are becoming a hybrid video/audio buy,” Hess says, “not a separate category. And video brought something audio never had: visual ad real estate.”
Know Where to Use AI (and Where to Avoid It)
Few topics spark more debate and discomfort in podcasting than AI. Luckily, the industry doesn’t need to guess on this one—listeners have already told us where to draw the line.
Although weekly podcast consumers generally approve of AI facilitating back-end production efficiencies like basic sound editing, background research, and transcription, listeners and viewers want real, authentic host voices at the helm of their favorite shows. Just 25% of podcast consumers approve of AI-hosted shows, and 62% see AI as at least somewhat of a threat to podcast credibility overall. [Source: Edison Podcast Metrics, Edison Research at SSRS, Q1 2026]
Dan Granger, CEO and Founder of Oxford Road, frames why that credibility matters: “This is an industry that is built on trust and relationship between host and audience in a way that is unique. We should be careful about playing with powerful forces like AI that can erode that trust very quickly.”
When we think about what makes podcast advertising special and unique, words like “trust,” “authenticity,” and “relationship” often come to mind. As an industry, we hold the line on protecting those core values.
Trust: What the Old Playbook Didn’t Measure
We know now that while the old podcast advertising playbook focused on audience size and audio formats, trust – the variable that actually predicts performance—went largely unmeasured.
Seventy-five percent of consumers rank podcast hosts among the most authentic voices recommending a product, compared to 54% of consumers who would say the same for social media influencers. [Source: Podcasters outshine influencers on trust; hybrid audio-video consumption on the rise, Emarketer, Nov 2025] And that authenticity converts: 76% of podcast listeners have purchased a product after hearing an ad from a podcast creator. [Source: Audacy Creator Impact Study; Online study fielded Dec – Feb 2025]
Trust, once built, creates a connection with an audience—whether via audio, video, or both—that’s hard to replicate any other way. That’s why the strongest opportunities for buyers are the podcasts built on deep connections: whether that’s a mid-sized audio show with a ride-or-die audience, or a massive video podcast with a host who carries trust across formats and channels.
We’ve compiled the full research behind trust in podcasting, along with all of the data shared above and even more expert insights from industry leaders into The New Rules of Podcast Advertising.
Get the full playbook here
