Veritonic, the industry’s comprehensive audio analytics and research platform, partnered with Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, to bring new data to market around the commonalities – and divergence – of audio creative on podcast ads served programmatically. 

In addition to identifying these global overlaps and points of differences, the goal of the research was also to help media buyers identify strong tactics and best practices in programmatic podcast advertising across three key media markets: the US, Australia and New Zealand, and EMEA.

Together the companies sourced and and analyzed podcast ads transacted programmatically with Acast and spanning various verticals including: automotive, tourism, retail, healthcare, entertainment, and more. They then identified the common threads and differences in the creative executions by region by examining themes like ad length, number of voiceovers, gender of voiceovers, use of sound effects, call to action placements, and more.

“As an industry there is still a lot of myth-busting to do around programmatic ad buying. At Acast, we firmly believe that programmatic advertising should not be a rigid experience for the media buyer, podcast host, and certainly not the listener,” said Elli Dimitroulakos, Global Head of Ad Innovation at Acast. “Podcast advertising is effective because it’s a seamless part of the listening experience and that shouldn’t change based on how a transaction occurs. Programmatic ads can – and should – have creative elements that enhance the listener experience and brand relationships.”

According to the research, across all markets the majority of ads were a minimum of 30 seconds in length. This was the most predominant in the US and EMEA regions which resulted in 80% and 73% of the examined ads, respectively. The Australia and New Zealand market trailed slightly behind with 56% of programmatic ads running at least 30 seconds long. The remaining 44% in the market were 15 seconds in length.

All three markets also reflected similarities in the use of single voices for the voiceover content. The US led the way with 86% of programmatic ads in the study using a single voice for the voiceover. EMEA and Australia and New Zealand were most similar with 66% and 68% of programmatic ads using a single voice for the voiceover, respectively.

However, when it came to gender detection in voiceover content, dissimilarities across the market presented themselves. In the US, half of ads analyzed featured a female voiceover, 47% of ads feature a male voiceover, and the remaining 3% featuring both male and female voiceover. 

In near equal numbers, the three regions all used sound effects in slightly less than the majority of programmatic ads, indicating that this may be a newly emerging trend in the space. According to the study, sound

effects including birds chirping, phones ringing, engines revving, and more were used on 40% of programmatic ads from the US, 38% from Australia and New Zealand, and 33% in EMEA.

“Hope is not a strategy; it’s no longer enough for a brand to create an audio asset and simply hope it will move the needle,” said Scott Simonelli, CEO of Veritonic. “Having confidence that your marketing efforts and investments will pay off is crucial, especially in today’s economy. With audio reaching more than 214M adults in the U.S. monthly and having a 36% higher impact on memory than video, marketers need to be leveraging creative testing solutions like the Veritonic platform to ensure they are putting their best audio creative forward, regardless of how the ad itself is purchased or served.”