Acast,  the world’s most valuable podcast marketplace, is announcing is announcing the launch of Acast+ Access. This technology gives any company with an existing paid subscription offering the ability to add exclusive podcast benefits. 

New research shows that there is a significant, lucrative opportunity for publishers and other companies to integrate podcasts into their current subscriptions. According to a recent Acast survey, more than a quarter of consumers (27%) would be more likely to sign up for a subscription if they also received podcast benefits as part of that subscription. More than a fifth of consumers (21%) would be willing to pay even more to get the added podcast benefits.

With the launch of Acast+ Access, companies with existing membership offerings – including news publishers, media organizations, streaming services, and more – can now integrate podcast benefits into the paywall they already use for their subscribers. 

Ross Adams, CEO at Acast, said: “Acast+ Access is a game-changer for companies that want to increase their overall subscription revenue and make their offering even more attractive to consumers. As more and more audiences seek premium podcast content, our technology allows providers to easily meet that need and deepen their relationship with their customers. And for companies not already incorporating podcasts into their subscription strategy, this is one of the easiest ways to rally new subscribers immediately.”

Yasmin Bassi, Senior Product Manager at Acast, said: “With Acast+ Access is a game-changer for companies the most powerful, centralized solution for all their podcast needs – allowing them to manage podcast advertising, distribution, and and subscriptions seamlessly in one single, easy-to-use platform. It isn’t only a great thing for publishers, but for the audiences, who can sign up to a company’s subscription effortlessly and immediately access subscriber-only podcasts on their app of choice.”

Acast+ Access allows companies to upgrade their current content (e.g. paywalled episodes, extended episodes, full series), personalized intros and outs, archived content, early access to content, and more. Subscriber can then access those benefits on their podcast app in listening platform of choice, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, the web, and any other platform that supports private RSS feeds.

Steve Lanham – Head of Podcasts at History Hit said: “History Hit has always aimed to make history more accessible in the digital age, and podcasts are a huge part of the mission. Through Acast+ Access, we can offer listeners more of the audio they love, giving them additional access to fascinating stories and interviews from the world’s leading historians and experts.”

Acast+ Access is based on an earlier iteration of the company’s technology of a similar name (“Acast Access”). It has been rebuilt to now allow clients to offer even more podcast benefits developed through the Acast+ technology, such as ad-free listening and early access to content, and access to bolstered analytics. Acast earns a fee for each private podcast feed activated by the client’s paying subscribers.

Acast+ Access is available now. Companies looking to learn more or use the technology can sign up by visiting https://go.acast.com/access.

 

Acast launches a UK consortium dedicated to advancing the podcasting industry, promoting trusted audio journalism and encouraging healthy debate.

Publishers in Podcasting (PiP) is the very first membership consortium of its kind. Bringing together some of the most influential publishers in the UK, the purpose is to use members’ collective experience and trust to progress the podcast industry for common good. By sharing information, experience and expertise, the consortium will aim to continue further the power of the podcasting industry for publishers, advertisers and listeners alike.

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast platform, has a long history of working closely with household-name publishers. Since 2014, the company has hosted and monetised global publishing powerhouses, including podcast networks from The Economist, The Guardian, and the BBC. With such a pedigree of premium publishers, Acast provides advertisers access to the highest-quality content, the most financially-secure audiences, with the most significant scale, through the most relevant stories.

Alongside Acast, members of Publishers in Podcasting will be; The Economist, The FT, The Guardian, News Broadcasting and Tortoise Media. This core membership will be the foundation for Publishers in Podcasting, with the scope to expand as the consortium, develops.

The consortium will aim to share ideas, celebrate success, overcome challenges and develop standards across the publishing podcast industry in the UK. One of the most extensive outputs from publisher podcast networks is news podcasts. There is a growing demand for trusted news sources, and this has led to an increase in the popularity of news podcasts. Acast has seen an 18% growth in listens across UK publishers in the last two years, and 1 in five news podcast listeners say they use podcasts as their primary news source. One of the first topics the consortium will approach is how to continue that growth.

Alexandra Fuller, Senior Partnerships Manager for Publishers, Acast: “For the first time, the UK’s biggest publisher podcast networks are coming together alongside Acast to discuss the biggest topics in podcasting. This is a seminal moment and proves that the power of podcasting can bring leaders together to outline the next steps for growth in our industry. We’ll aim to meet each challenge collectively and work together to further establish podcasting as one of the most trusted news sources for listeners and advertisers.”

For more information on getting involved, visit Publishers In Podcasting or Advertise.Acast.com

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, is pleased to announce updates to its sales team in Australia and New Zealand.

To address the increased and evolving demand of the AUNZ podcast sales market, former Group Sales Leads Kate Digby, Teresa Ly, and Brice Crosswell have been promoted to Group Business Directors. Their teams are responsible for bringing global advertisers to the Acast Marketplace and delivering high-impact, integrated branded content partnerships, utilizing the latest ad-tech and programmatic advertising.

Additionally, Ciaran Tobin has been promoted to Key Account Director, Independent Agencies from his previous role as Senior Account Manager. Ciaran and his future team will service the increased demand Acast is seeing from independent agencies nationally.

“We are so pleased to promote Kate, Teresa, Bryce, and Ciaran to their new roles. They are hands down some of the most knowledgable, creative and hardest workers in podcasting,” said Henrik Isaksson, Managing Director for Acast in Australia and New Zealand. “Acast’s ad techie best in class – and the momentum of our local team is incredible to see. We believe in promoting talent from within and reimagining organizational roles to meet market demand. The promotions in the team will enable us to further expand our offering to podcasters, publishers and advertisers and support wider development as podcast advertisers increase demand for innovative and seamless solutions in our region.”

As Acast continues to grow its share in Australia and New Zealand, the region remains a top priority for the company and its stakeholders. The newly announced positions within the sales team reflect Acast’s ongoing commitment to that growth and to meeting the evolving demands of the market for advertisers and podcasters alike.

 

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, launched Audience Segments on its self-serve advertising platform. The new capability enables advertisers booking campaigns through the self-serve platform to target listeners based on Nielsen Audience Segments across Acast’s more than 92,000 podcasts.

Available now to advertisers in the US, Canada, and Australia, Audience Segments marks Acast’s commitment to democratizing the podcast advertising industry by brining professional-level features to brands of all sizes and levels of the podcast buying experience.

“We built our self-serve advertising platform as a response to the market demand from advertisers and have continued to innovate in ways that keep their needs central to the product,” said Niklas Lagerberg, Product Manager at Acast. 

“We’ve seen not just more advertisers, but more experienced advertisers booking podcast campaigns through the self-serve platform. These seasoned marketers expect the same experience that they receive when working with the Acast sales team: efficient buying and accurate audience targeting at scale. Audience Segments brings this first-class experience to the self-serve platform by enabling more accurate audience targeting at the moment of ad injection.”

Acast introduced its self-serve advertising platform in November of last year and since launch, the platform has continued to expand to fit the needs of its growing client base. Throughout that growth, Acast has worked with advertisers of varying sizes and levels of expertise in podcast advertising to meet needs across the marketing funnel. From small and medium sized businesses eager to increase brand awareness to household name brands leveraging podcasts to drive purchases, Acast’s self-serve advertising platform has proved to be a valuable marketing tool.

One of those brands to leverage Acast’s self-serve advertising platform was Tortoise Media, which booked a campaign to promote their own slate of podcasts across content categories including the Curious Thinkers collection as well as News and Politics.

“As a media brand, we know podcast advertising would be a seamless inclusion to our media mix. What we didn’t know was just how easy Acast’s self-serve platform would be to book the campaign, identify our target audiences, and measure the results,” said Claudia Collins, Head of Marketing and Membership at Tortoise Media. “Even though we were booking our own campaign, the Acast team was there to answer any questions we had so we never felt alone in the process.”

Previously, advertisers booking campaigns through Acast’s self-serve platform could only target podcasts by listener demographics, location, and show content category. Leveraging Nielsen Audience Segments and extensive insights, Acast’s Audience Segments targeting feature provides an extra layer of intelligence to its self-serve platform. This effectively enables brands to target listeners within specific segment categories including Business Leaders, High Income Earners, Tech Enthusiasts, Travelers, Parents, Pet Owners, and more.

Similarly to working with a dedicated sales team, Acast’s self-serve advertising platform allows advertisers to effectively measure their campaign performance at every step of the conversion funnel. Acast works with third party vendors including Podsights, ArtsAI, Claritas, Veritonic, and others to enable pixel-based solutions for impression tracking, verification, brand uplift, attribution, and more.

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, released Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, released new research of frequent podcast listeners throughout the US and Canada.

According to the study, these highly engaged audiences are extremely valuable for advertisers, with 95% of the US podcast listeners saying that they have taken action as a result of podcast advertising. Of those US respondents who said they frequently listen to podcast ads, 97% have taken action following exposure to a podcast ad. Among Canadian listeners, 88% of responders said they have taken action as a result of podcast advertising, and 91% of frequent listeners reported the same.

As podcast advertising continues to grow globally, the U.S market alone is slated to eclipse $4 billion in value by next year Concurrently, recent Acast research discovered that 65% of US marketers expect to increase their marketing spend on podcasts and, when considering marketers who have previously purchased podcast ads, 83% expect to increase their spend on the medium year-on-year. As advertisers continue to increase their investments in podcasts, understanding the audiences that drive action is necessary to seeing the greatest return on they ad spend.

“With tightened media budget this year, buyers need to be putting their dollars into the attention economy if they want to see any kind of return on their investments, Podcasts have the most highly engaged audiences of any medium out there, making them the most dominant force in the attention economy,” said Acast Director of Sales and Brand Partnerships in the U.S. Christiana Brenton. “This new Acast research is key for advertisers to understand the purchase behaviors of these highly valuable podcast audiences across North America.”

Driving this effectiveness of these highly engaged audiences is the intimate relationship formed between podcasters and their listeners. According to the research, 82% of US podcast listeners and 66% of Canadian podcast listeners agree that listening to ads is a way to support their favorite podcasters. The study also found that listeners who said their favorite podcasters feel like their friends, which was 77% of US respondents and 55% of Canadian respondents, are far more likely to listen to ads all of the time.

“The podcast advertising industry is continuing to experience growth as media buyers better recognize the effectiveness of the medium for their brand message. Understanding the unique relationship between podcast audiences and the content they consume through research and insights like this is vital to the success of advertisers in the space,” said Acast Managing Director, Canada, Heather Gordon.

These relationships also extend beyond podcasts and into other forms of media. In this study, 82% of US podcast listeners and 67% of Canadian listeners said they follow a podcaster in social media, creating more opportunities for brands to engage with these audiences.

This news comes on the heels of Acast’s announcement to launch https://acast.com/blog/jessi-cruickshank-announces-debut-podcast-phone-a-friend-with-acast Canadian media personality Jessi Cruickshank’s debut podcast Phone a Friend with Jessi Cruikshank. At launch, Cruikshank’s podcast will feature celebrity guests including Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy and major brand partners like Peloton.