The Podnews Report Card 2025 Results by James Cridland
Every year Podnews asks the public for their thoughts on podcast platforms, both on what they’re doing well and what could be improved on. In-app promotion and lack of editorial curation was a common theme, with Apple Podcasts perceived as a place primarily putting big names and studios in recommendations. There also is a desire for YouTube’s algorithm-based recommendations to be supplemented by editorial curation from a team of real people. Another recurring topic in feedback expressed a deep desire for universal standards in podcasting. Most major platforms track slightly different stats in different ways that makes it impossible to get a holistic view of a podcast’s overall performance. While steps have been taken to bolster ‘a download’ as a metric, many platforms still have bespoke definitions that makes ‘a download’ different compared to the platform next door. The results of the report card have been made available to platforms with the over 700 user comments anonymized, but given country codes to provide global context. According to Cridland’s debut presentation at Evolutions by Podcast Movement, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Spotify have all expressed interest in being sent the full data.
IAB – Affiliate and partnership marketing increasing
The IAB Australia Affiliate and Partnership Marketing Report finds that sector has been growing. The report is built from a survey of 74 relevant industry participants and 66 publisher or partner industry participants. 89% of Australian advertisers and agencies surveyed saying they intend to maintain or increase their investment in affiliate and partnership marketing. 60% say A&P marketing will be even more important for their business in the coming months of a shaky economic climate.
Every six months Digiday+ Research surveys publisher professionals. The latest edition finds that while direct-sold ads are still the top revenue source this year, other streams are gaining importance as publishers diversify. Among those, subscriptions and live events are gaining traction. Behind direct-sold, branded content, and programmatic ads, subscriptions are now in the top five with 24% of respondents saying they get a large or very large portion of income from them. In fifth place is live events, with 23%.
Why podcasts are playing a bigger role in brands’ creator strategies by Gillian Follett
AdAge covers the growing frequency of brands and podcasts entering into deals a little more in-depth than the standard host-read ad break. Sponsored segments are becoming more common, such as Perplexity’s sponsored segments on The Right Time with Bomani Jones Podcast and The Ben Shapiro Show. The Fantasy Footballers podcast told AdAge they’ve had a noticeable uptick in brands specifically requesting branded content segments instead of traditional ads, such as Raising Cains’ chicken sponsoring a segment looking at up-and-coming football players dubbed Raising Caine’s Rising Stars. Brands are recognizing the benefits and possibilities of working closer with podcasts by becoming part of the show itself. A tactic with a long history of benefits. After all, Red Skelton was working “Tide is kind to your hands” into sponsored comedy sketches back in 1961.
Spotify Unveils New Advertising Tools at First Advance Event by Caitlin Huston
At their Advance event, Spotify debuted a new programmatic offering called Spotify Ad Exchange. In addition, they’ve also revealed a generative AI tool for making ad creative called Spotify Gen AI Ads, which will enable users to make scripts and voiceover in Spotify’s Ad Manager. According to AdWeek’s coverage, the SAX is currently integrated with The Trade Desk and DV360, and will soon also be available through Yahoo’s DSP, Adform, and others.
As for the rest of the news…
- Triton Digital announced they are adding survey-based listener rankings to the existing U.S. Podcast Ranker. In addition to the usual monthly ranker based on downloads tracked by Triton Digital, every quarter that will be supplemented with a nationally-representative survey that includes all publishers and podcasts.
- Yesterday at Evolutions by Podcast Movement, Oxford Road debuted a trailer for What’s a Podcast: The Revolution Redefined, a three-part series exploring “the identity crisis, evolution, and future of podcasting.” The series features interviews with industry vets including Ira Glass, Lex Friedman, and Sounds Profitable’s own Bryan Barletta
- Magellan AI, back in action after their ‘Podgellan AI’ April Fool’s gag, have announced their spend analysis now includes estimated podcast ad spend, which can be filtered by format (programmatic, run-of-network, and direct host-read ads).
