Podcast ad revenue growth slowed last year but still outpaced digital advertising overall

Podcasting had a banner year in 2021, when ad revenue in the US jumped 72% to cross the $1 billion mark. But, as marketer physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton taught us, what goes up must come down…or at least slow down.

In its seventh annual US Podcast Advertising Revenue study, the IAB reported that podcast ad revenue increased by 26% from $1.4 billion in 2021 to $1.8 billion in 2022. That demonstrated “resilience” given the macroeconomic climate, and outpaced the overall digital ad market, which grew 11% year over year, according to the IAB. Still, in last year’s report, the IAB said it expected podcast ad revenue to surpass $2 billion in 2022.

Old news: News is no longer the podcast content genre that generates the largest share of ad revenue, a blow for the category that’s held the top spot since 2018.

• Sports, society and culture, and comedy podcasts all surpassed news.
• News podcasts, which represented a 19% share of ad revenue in 2021, fell to 12% in 2022. Sports podcasts increased their share from 11% to 15%, society and culture pods increased from 12% to 14%, and comedy pods ticked up from 13% to 14%.
• The shift was partly attributable to engagement with news slowing in 2022, according to the IAB.

Another look: Q4 typically represents the largest share of podcast ad revenue each year. That held true in 2022, but its share decreased from years prior, which “reflects the overall deceleration in ad spend as the year progressed,” per the report.

• Q4 saw 29% of ad revenue last year, compared to a 34% share in 2021 and a 35% share in 2020.
• Q3 and Q2 represented 25% of 2022 revenue each, and Q1 accounted for 21%.

Related, unrelated: As for Q1 of this year, podcast ad spend was up 44% year over year, Darrick Li, VP of sales at Standard Media Index, told Marketing Brew. SMI sources data from major holding companies and leading independent agencies.

Look ahead: Podcast ad revenue is on track to double between 2022 and 2025, reaching almost $4 billion. Last year, the IAB predicted the industry would surpass $4 billion in ad revenue by the end of 2024.

+1: The IAB broke out programmatic’s share of total ad revenue last year (it was 1.7% in 2021 and 2.2% in 2020). This year, the org wrote that “programmatic buying is expected to grow in response to advertiser demand for contextual audience targeting,” but didn’t provide an updated number for 2022. It is, however, releasing a part two of the report for the first time this October, which will incorporate 2023 findings.