75% of Australian advertisers now embracing podcasts

75% of media buyers in Australia are now embracing podcasts as of the end of 2019, with that number up from 63% on the prior year.

IAB’s Audio Advertising State of the Nation Report was released at the IAB Australia Audio Summit today, and also found that brand awareness is the main driver for the audio market growth.

This was particularly the case for podcast advertising with 48% of agencies using podcasts primarily for branding, an increase from 35%.

The report also found that 90% of media buyers placing ads in streaming services.

Despite the high uptake, creative was still identified as both one of audio advertising’s greatest strengths and also its greatest challenges, and only 17% of media agencies are consistently tailoring their creative to suit the different audio environments.

In addition, while brand awareness is the number one objective of audio advertising, only one-third of the buy-side are tracking these metrics and only 25% are tracking sales.

Agencies are also more confident in the accuracy of reach, frequency and completion for streaming audio compared with podcasts.

“It’s clear the market has evolved from experimentation into a more strategically driven brand building approach to digital audio advertising, reflecting the growing consumer consumption of audio formats, particularly podcasting,” said CEO of IAB Australia Gai Le Roy.

“We take very seriously our responsibility as the industry body to invest in research that provides the industry with objective market wide data and we’ll continue to push hard to secure valuable insights for marketers and agencies alike.”

Other key headlines highlighted by the report were as follows:

• Nearly two-thirds of media agencies are regularly using streaming digital audio advertising. Call to action spots are most popular format of streaming audio and have increased in usage strongly year on year
• Recorded radio spots are the most popular format, while usage of native audio and branded podcasts have experienced growth with potential for further growth over the next year.
• Advantages of data and targeting continue to drive the adoption of programmatic trading in the audio advertising space and in a challenging ad market, price has increased as an influence. 
• Increasing brand awareness is the key objective for broadcast, streaming and podcast advertising and satisfaction with audio’s ability to meet this objective is high. 

“The benefits of digital audio advertising are now widely understood and the market is clearly embracing the branding potential different formats offer,” said Richard Palmer, co-chair of the IAB Audio Council and director of market development at Triton Digital.

“Over the next twelve months we anticipate the industry will come to understand the need to move from repurposing existing ads and instead look to produce creative campaigns tailored to suit the environment in which it appears.”