Today in the Business of Podcasting
Strong online sales show Black Friday was an ‘omnichannel event’ by Alex Vuocolo
This year’s Black Friday skewed heavily from its in-person doorbuster sale roots, with a Deloitte representative forecasting primarily-online Black Friday purchases as the new normal. Deloitte also found “buy now, pay later” financing hit an all-time high this Cyber Monday with $940 million spent, representing a 42.5% year-over-year increase. A Black Friday survey run by Deloitte found half of millennial respondents were willing to go to a store between midnight at 7am for Black Friday deals, while other age demographics averaged 31% interest. The post-Thanksgiving sale blitz is evolving into an omnichannel affair, a perfect fit for podcast advertising. [Source]
Ad revenue is growing faster than expected, per analyst by Ryan Barwick
Industry analyst and former Group M executive Brian Wieser forecasts ad revenue (excluding political ad spend) will grow 5.9% this year, nearly 1% more than a previous prediction in September. He has also updated his prediction for next year from 4.3% ad revenue growth to 5.2%. This new forecast takes into account expected holiday shopping increases for 2023, estimated to hit 3 to 4% growth by the National Retail Federation. Not as high as numbers from 2020 or 2021, but still on par with pre-pandemic averages. [Source]
Digiday+ Research: Publishers’ programmatic revenue didn’t shake out the way they’d hoped, but it’s still a bright spot
A Digiday+ Research survey of over 300 publisher professionals finds programmatic ad revenue didn’t reach expectations this year. 45% of respondents said in Q1 that building their programmatic business would be a large focus of the next six months, but by Q3 only 28% of publishers say a large portion of revenue came from programmatic ads. A downsize from 38% in Q1. That said, while publishers aren’t experiencing a programmatic boom, they are seeing profit. 87% of respondents say at least a “very small portion” of their revenue is from programmatic ads, an increase of 2% from Q1. As Digiday frames it: the percentage of publishers who make a profit from programmatic ads has been trending upwards since the beginning of 2022. More deals are happening and more profit is being made. [Source]
How audience-first creative is amplifying audio and video campaigns for 2024 by Alex Donics
Spotify global director of demand marketing, Alex Donics, covers the strengths of using strong, relevant ad creative. Something proven particularly effective in the world of audio. A recent Magna and Vox Media study found 75% of respondents cited podcast hosts as the most influential figures driving purchase decisions. Brand effect and brand lift research from Nielsen and Kantar from this year finds audio and vision campaigns drive 7% higher awareness and consideration than the two components on their own. A combination prominent in the upcoming Sound You Can See study, which will look at consumer perceptions of podcasts on video. [Source]
…as for the rest of the news: The trailer and IndieGoGo campaign for Age of Audio: A Tale of Modern Audio Storytelling are now live (spoiler alert: Sounds Profitable’s own Tom Webster makes an appearance), Magellan AI has published their October 2023 top movers and shakers in podcast advertising, and AdExchanger proposes programmatic CTV is in its ‘consolidation phase’ (a phase podcasting has already experienced and matured from).
