Spotify

Podcast ad revenue in the US cracked $1 billion for the first time last year, due in large part to the rise of dynamic ad insertion (DAI). At $1.4 billion – up 72% from roughly $840 million in 2020 – podcasting is now one of the fastest-growing digital media channels, and it’s growing twice as fast as the internet advertising market as a whole, according to a report on podcast ad revenue released by the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers on Monday.

Without an easy interface for clicking through to purchase, audio and video ads have, until recently, been best suited to upper-funnel brand-awareness campaigns rather than direct response. But now, tried-and-true technologies like retargeted display ads and QR codes are making audio and video formats more actionable.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Shrinking Podcastiverse Podcasting has consolidated dramatically, perhaps even unhealthily, in recent years.  Roughly one year ago, the audio market research firm Edison Research conducted a test to see how many podcast networks an advertiser would need to buy from to cover 50% […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Of Paramount Importance ​​ViacomCBS became “Paramount” on Wednesday, elevating the name of its core streaming service. Paramount Plus is not even a year old yet (it turns one in March), but its subscriber base totals 32.8 million. The broadcaster netted 9.4 million total new […]

Audio advertising is maturing (or going through puberty?): Spotify is the latest platform to weather a content controversy (over Joe Rogan’s misinformation). Meanwhile, competitor SiriusXM is building first-party identifiers. Plus: the quiet Olympics, and why B2B advertisers love the Super Bowl.

Spot Me Some Change Spotify reported quarterly revenues of $2.9 billion, with about $375 million of that coming from its free, ad-supported tier. That’s a nice 75% year-over-year jump for Spotify’s advertising business. The company expects to clear $1 billion in ad revenue at the close of 2021, which will mark the first time it’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Podcast Talk Podcasting has heated up, with big M&A deals in recent years, including Amazon’s acquisition of Wondery for $300 million and Spotify’s $235 million deal for Megaphone. Podcast advertising is forecasted to exceed $2 billion by 2023, according to emarketer, which revised up […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Second Verse, Same As The First? The Federal Trade Commission is trying again to present a convincing antitrust case vs. Facebook after a federal court dismissed its initial lawsuit for failing to prove the social giant runs a monopoly. The FTC on Thursday filed […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Everything Store Adds More Audio Amazon is new to podcasting but it’s moving fast, borrowing from Spotify’s playbook. After scooping up podcast publisher Wondery eight months ago, it’s now signing exclusive distribution and ad deals with buzzy podcasts like SmartLess (hosted by Jason Bateman, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Another IPO The ad tech IPOs keep rolling out. This time it’s Integral Ad Science Holding. The New York-based ad verification and measurement company announced the terms of its IPO on Monday, saying that it plans to raise $240 million by offering 15 million […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Court Date Dun, dun! Cue the “Law & Order” sound effect because the IAB Tech Lab is being taken to court in Germany by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) over what the advocacy group considers an ongoing breach of personal privacy by […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dark Underbelly You know when the opt-in button is, like, way bigger than the opt-out button, or a checkbox is ticked by default? Those are dark patterns, and regulators are starting to take notice. The Federal Trade Commission held an all-day workshop last week […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Another Day, Another Grilling The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is continuing its probe into big tech, and the latest hearing drilled down on competition (or, rather, the lack thereof) in Apple’s App Store and Google Play, The Wall Street Journal reports. The usual […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Violation Rate To demonstrate that it can be effective at finding and removing rule-breaking videos, YouTube will start disclosing a new metric ­called the Violative View Rate. Essentially, it’s the percentage of total views going to videos that run afoul of YouTube’s guidelines before […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Podcast Pie Entercom Communications is throwing its hat into the booming podcast space that is expected to generate more than a $1 billion in advertising revenue this year. The company is set to acquire podcast ad network Podcorn in a deal aimed at helping […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Put It On My Card Cardlytics is planning to acquire cash-back platform Dosh for $275 million. The deal, a mixture of cash and stock, was announced on Monday, which is also when Cardlytics released its Q4 earnings results. Cardlytics IPOed back in 2018, well […]

Podcast monetization is top of mind at Spotify. On Monday, the audio streaming platform introduced the Spotify Audience Network, an audio advertising marketplace where advertisers can reach listeners across ad-supported music, Spotify’s own original and exclusive licensed podcasts and podcasts hosted on Spotify-owned Megaphone and Anchor. Megaphone is the podcast monetization and publishing platform Spotify […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. So Modest Publicis beat market expectations for organic growth in the last quarter of 2020 thanks in large part to its data company Epsilon, which helped the holdco generate modest growth in the US, Reuters reports. Publicis, which bought Epsilon in 2019 for a […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Cookie Drama In the wake of multiple antitrust lawsuits and a US congressional probe, Google’s attempt to get rid of the third-party cookie is attracting regulatory attention, Digiday reports. On Jan. 8, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into whether Chrome’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. U & Me And UID 2.0 Welcome to the Unified ID 2.0 cocktail party, SpotX. The video SSP, which is owned by RTL, is the latest company to sign up in support of UID 2.0, the open source industry initiative originally spearheaded by The […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. New Year, Same Controversies Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: Political ads on Facebook contain misinformation. Well, it’s zero hour before the Jan. 5 Georgia runoff election for control of the Senate, and Republican ads on Facebook related to the race reportedly […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Wondery To Behold Amazon is in talks to buy podcast production network Wondery, reports The Wall Street Journal, at a value of more than $300 million. According to WSJ sources, Wondery predicts its revenue will exceed $40 million in 2020, with 75% of […]

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This week on The Big Story, we talk about measurement. Wait, don’t go. We’re going to dive into the topic of measurement by focusing on two exciting new areas: podcasting and addressable TV. On Tuesday, Spotify bought podcast ad tech company Megaphone (once known as Panoply) for a reported $235 million. The ability to measure […]

GroupM recently promoted veterans Kieley Taylor and Amanda Grant to global head of partnerships and global head of social, respectively, as part a strategic move aimed at strengthening the company’s relationships with Google as well as Amazon, Spotify, Twitter and others. Taylor, previously global head of social, will focus heavily on Google as she designs […]

Spotify is acquiring podcast monetization and publishing platform Megaphone from its parent company, Graham Holdings, in a deal reportedly worth $235 million. The acquisition, announced Tuesday, underscores the streaming audio platform’s ongoing big bet on programmatic and is only the latest in a series of moves Spotify has made to support its growing podcast platform. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Apple Tea Party Publishers are joining Epic’s epic fight against Apple’s app store fees. Digital Content Next (DCN), a publisher trade group, wrote a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook last week asking what it would take for its members to get better […]

  Lack of measurement has long deterred brands from investing heavily in podcasts. Apple, which has dominated podcast listening in the United States for years, has a history of obscuring how many people actually heard an ad after downloading a podcast episode through its player. That left brand advertisers to negotiate for CPMs without knowing […]

After experiencing a slowdown in Q1, ad spend began to rebound at Spotify in June as some markets exited pandemic lockdowns, the company said Wednesday on its Q2 earnings call. Ad spend in April and May were down 25% before inching up to a 10% decline in June. For the quarter, ad-supported revenue increased 11% […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Anti-Antitrust What happens when companies being investigated by the FTC or the DOJ poach staffers for their own defense? Unfortunately, it’s not a hypothetical, writes antitrust economist Hal Singer at The American Prospect. Amazon and Facebook both recently hired staffers from the Senate Judiciary […]