February 2022: Top spenders, movers and shakers in podcast advertising
In addition to our monthly post, we review the previous month's creative, trends, and spend in our market update webinar. Register to join us!
Top Spenders
Top Movers & Shakers
IPVanish VPN
IPVanish VPN’s 349% increase in spend landed them on our top movers & shakers lists for February. Magellan AI first detected the brand in January 2020 but it really started to pick up its spending in April 2021, when it spent over $100k for the first time. Fast forward to last month, IPVanish VPN spent $318k, 25% of its total budget in 2021.
IPVanish VPN targeted sports podcasts like "YOUR WELCOME" with Michael Malice and Football Weekly, with direct response ads that highlighted its privacy features. The ads were primarily placed in a pre-roll position and averaged 60 seconds.
Priceline
Priceline increased its spend from $0 spend in January to spending a little over half a million dollars in February 2022. This appears to follow a trend in the travel industry at large, which increased its spend overall by 112% from January to February. Also of note for Priceline is this is the first year it ever advertised during the month of February, which is typically considered the off-season for travel.
Hear the brand awareness ads in American Scandal and Crime Junkie. The ads are a mix of host-read and produced, primarily in mid-roll positions averaging just over 1 minute in length.
Geely
February marks the most the automotive manufacturer has ever spent in a single month, at a little over $600k. While there are other car companies that have spent more in the space, this is notable for Geely because it shows that every time it comes back to advertising in the podcast space it spends more than it did the time before. We first detected ads for Geely in 2020 where it spent less than $10k.
In its ads Geely is promoting Polestar, its new line of electric vehicles. Advertising on Sports, Society & Culture, and News shows like The Dave Chang Show, The Daily, and The Ryan Russilo Podcast, the brand ran primarily pre-roll host-read ads, averaging around 30s in length.
Methodology
Magellan AI analyzes podcast advertising data from the top 3,000 podcasts in the U.S., as ranked by Apple Podcasts. For parts of this analysis, we relied on Magellan AI’s proprietary model to estimate advertising spend. Our model incorporates a number of factors, including:
- The number of ads and variation in ad load detected for a given episode
- Number of downloads for each episode
- CPM, as reported on select media kits and estimated based on popularity
From time to time we adjust our model based on new inputs and user input.
Magellan AI creates tools that help marketers at brands like SimpliSafe, Wix, and BetterHelp spend intelligently on podcast advertising. Podcast publishers like WNYC and Audioboom use Magellan to track advertisers spending money in the podcast space. Learn More.
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