Spotify’s Q1 Earnings, Podcasters to Cover UK Election, & More

Marketers Vastly Understate The Sales Effect Of Creative And Significantly Overestimate The Impact Of Targeting by Pierre Bouvard

For five years Cumulus Media and Westwood One’s Audio Active Group have commissioned Advertiser Perceptions to do an annual survey of brands and media agencies, focusing on the sale contribution of five factors that impact advertising effectiveness: brand, creative, reach, recency, and targeting. As addressed in the headline, one key finding is that creative is underestimated. The 2024 Advertiser Perceptions study found creative only ranked 19% as a sales driver for marketers and media agencies, while a study of almost 450 ad campaigns by NCSolutions finds the real-world impact is 49%. [Source]

Podcasters Tapped for UK General Election Coverage

This Sunday Matt Deegan shared a new announcement from Channel 4 Head of News and Current Affairs Louisa Compton on X. According to Compton, C4’s coverage of the upcoming general election will include The News Agents host Emily Maitlis. In addition, Deegan notes the other two big networks (ITV and the BBC) have political podcasters confirmed for their own election night coverage. [Source]

The State of Podcast Agencies 2024

CoHost has surveyed 42 podcast agencies gathered with a variety of methods, including agency lists, the Quill and CoHost network, and cold outreach. Key findings include 83% of respondent agencies using the download as their top metric to measure client success. Agency resourcing is a consistent issue, with 67% of agencies having less than ten employees. Word of mouth and referrals acquire the most customers for surveyed agencies, scoring 88% and 81% respectively. [Source]

Spotify Surges on Swing to Profit, Boost in Paid Subscribers by Ashely Carman

Once again it’s earning call time, and Spotify’s Q1 report is here. The streamer reports paid subscribers increased 14% year-over-year to 239 million, in line with analyst estimates collected by Bloomberg. Overall users, including free plans, increased to 615 million, falling short of the predictions they would reach 617.9. Total revenue is up 20%, reaching €3.6 billion with a net income of €197. The report says 25% of users with access to the new audiobook feature have pressed play on a book at least once. [Source]

Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce Are Both Winners at 2024 Webby Awards by Paul Grein

The 2024 Webby Award winners are now public and quite a few podcasters took home awards this year. Julia Louis-Dreyfus secured Podcast of the Year with Wiser Than Me. The Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences has awarded Podcast Company of the Year to iHeartMedia for accruing 12 wins and a further 20 nominations across the 2024 Webbys. And as the headline notes, Taylor Swift took home a social media collaboration award instead of her boyfriend, NFL player Travis Kelce and his brother Jason won Best Co-Hosts, Features (Podcasts) for their show New Heights. [Source]

…as for the rest of the news: