Oxford Road today released the first podcast rankings based on actual sales results, drawing from $1.6 billion in campaign data across hundreds of advertisers.

The inaugural “ORBIT Top 15 Podcasts Measured by Ad Performance” analyzes 12 months of real campaign outcomes to reveal which shows convert listeners into customers most efficiently. The results contradict the industry’s conventional wisdom about what works.

The top findings:

• Comedy and political podcasts dominate. Despite brand safety concerns that cause many advertisers to avoid these categories, 11 of the top 15 performers are comedy or news/politics/government shows. Controversial content drives action.
• Mega-shows like The Joe Rogan Experience are absent from the top 15. Only 3 tier-1 podcasts made the cut, meaning advertisers systematically overpay for household names while smaller shows deliver better returns.
• Critical Role takes the #1 spot. The show where professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons beat out mainstream podcasts by wide margins, proving that passionate niche audiences outperform casual mass audiences. What started in 2012 as friends playing tabletop games in living rooms has become a conversion powerhouse.
• Post-merger analysis shows 30% improvement in client performance year-over-year, validating the scale needed to create reliable benchmarks.

“Every other ranking tells you who has the most listeners,” said Dan Granger, CEO of Oxford Road. “We’re telling you which shows deliver ROI. For 15 years, marketers have been making decisions without this data. That changes today.”

ORBIT (Oxford Road Benchmark Intelligence Tool) is built on the industry’s largest index of podcast advertising performance data. The system measures actual customer acquisition costs, return on ad spend, and sales results from real campaigns. Oxford Road has processed more podcast advertising performance data than any other agency, creating an index that normalizes results across different advertiser goals and verticals.

“Podscribe can tell you who’s advertising. Magellan can estimate spend,” Granger continued. “ORBIT shows you which shows made money and which ones lost it. We factor in what advertisers paid, what they were trying to achieve, and whether the investment paid off. That’s the difference between counting impressions and measuring profit.”

What This Means for Marketers

For performance marketers, ORBIT solves the channel’s longest-standing problem: which shows deliver results beyond reach. The tool enables advertisers to de-risk initial buys, optimize faster, and find high-performing shows before they become expensive. Faith-based podcasts, for instance, rank in the top 20% for performance across verticals, a finding impossible to surface without normalized, goal-based data.

The October rankings include podcasts from across the performance spectrum: established names like The Megyn Kelly Show and The David Pakman Show alongside lesser-known performers like Critical Role and Strict Scrutiny. The common thread is conversion efficiency.

Oxford Road will release new ORBIT rankings monthly, covering categories including genre-specific performance, international markets, emerging shows, and vertical-specific results. Each ranking draws from Oxford Road’s proprietary database of campaign outcomes across podcasting, streaming audio, terrestrial radio, and creator-based video.

The methodology behind ORBIT normalizes performance by comparing each placement against its specific advertiser’s goals, whether that’s target customer acquisition cost, desired return on ad spend, or cost per qualified lead. This allows direct comparison across different campaign types and advertiser objectives, something download-based or survey-based rankings cannot provide.

“The era of buying podcast ads based on download numbers is over,” said Granger. “ORBIT shows you which shows drive performance, before you spend a dollar.”

The full ORBIT Top 15 Podcasts Measured by Ad Performance list and methodology details are available here.

About Oxford Road

Oxford Road is the world’s largest podcast advertising agency, specializing in audio advertising across podcasting, streaming audio, terrestrial radio, and creator-based video. Following its 2024 merger with Veritone One, the agency serves Fortune 500 companies, global publicly held enterprises, B2B brands, and direct-to-consumer businesses, having processed more podcast advertising performance data than any other firm. Recognized as thought leaders by The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Adweek, and Ad Age, Oxford Road continues to drive industry innovation. ORBIT is part of Oxford Road’s WOVN decision-support platform, which includes proprietary tools like Audiolytics® and advanced brand safety solutions.