The podcast boom is hitting a messy reality for CMOs

Podcasting's growth story is facing a CMO actuality check.

Cluttered, repetitive ad breaks and a deficiency of accordant measure standards are factors giving several marketers intermission concerning continuing to spill budgets into podcasts. That's according to a new study from the podcasting ad agency Oxford Road, which was shared exclusively alongside CMO Insider.

More than fractional (57%) of the marketers Oxford Road polled stated measure gaps were holding rear their podcasting investments. For brands alongside annual media budgets of $100 myriad or more, 90% stated measure was a top concern.

"The visibility side, the attribution flank — they're the two a bit of a mess, frankly," stated Oxford Road EVP Giles Martin, referring to how marketers measure podcast audiences and measure the achievement of their campaigns.

The podcast market operates throughout multiple platforms, from RSS feeds to Spotify, Apple, and increasingly YouTube. Each has its own spectators metric: downloads, streams, or views, which are calculated differently.

Attribution is fair as fragmented, alongside marketers relying on an imperfect mix of promo codes, pixels, geo-testing, and media mix modeling to gauge what worked.

"It makes it harder for advertisers to buy, it makes it harder for sellers to sell, and it can create it harder for creators to get the prosperity they deserve," Martin said.

That could go several of the way toward explaining why 40% of marketers in the study stated another channels provision a improved come back on funding than podcast ads.

More ads, additional problems

Growth in the podcast promotion market appears to be slowing.

While 40% of the marketers surveyed by Oxford Road anticipated expanding their podcast and audio budgets in 2027, this was downward from the 59% of brands that stated they risen those budgets this year. That tracks alongside another industry spending forecasts. EMARKETER expects US advertisers to expend $3.76 milliard on podcasts next year, up 10.4% twelvemonth complete year, but a slowdown from the 16.8% annual growth it estimates for 2026.

"There's a important disconnect between spectators notice and promotion investment," stated Patrick Dolan, caput of display and audio at the media agency The7Stars.

The pitch to advertisers is that podcasts recommendation extremely busy audiences who are selecting the shows they desire to hear to, frequently about particular topics that align fine alongside brands' endeavor objectives. Host-read ads can recommendation an added flat of connection.

"A fine presenter peruse appears akin direction from a friend," stated Byron Tassoni-Resch, CEO of the achievement promotion agency WeDiscover.

Yet for several marketers, podcast ad breaks have evolved to rotate into too messy. More than 40% of the marketers polled by Oxford Road cited the "advertising environment" as a logic they were putting off podcast investments. Marketers stated they were concerned concerning expanding ad loads, ad repetition, and another quality-control issues, specified as inauthentic, "ho-hum" host-read ads, or equal ads that cut off mid-sentence.

Oxford Road's study was according to a July study that polled 41 marketers, a collection it stated represents $400 myriad to $500 myriad of podcast ad spend, including three of the top 10 podcast spenders.

Marketers need a multi-pronged podcast strategy

Media buyers stated marketers need to clasp a additional advanced method to extract greater value from their podcast investments. Martin of Oxford Road stated brands should regard treating podcasts as a deeper, multi-format partnership, combining presenter says alongside creator social posts, short-form video, newsletters, and, anywhere useful, lower-cost pre-recorded podcast ads that build attain and brand recall.

The7Stars' Dolan stated that bolder approaches to podcast plans create a "true value exchange" between the podcast creator and the advertiser and foster a additional authentic partnership.

"These additional long-term approaches halt the short-term, high-frequency 'standard' peruse that lacks the enthusiasm we search from our podcast creators," Dolan said.

Media buyers made a akin case for measurement, anywhere combining distinct methods is the finest approach.

"Brands buy podcasts akin TV, but they measure them akin search," stated WeDiscover's Tassoni-Resch. Relying on promo codes alone, for example, is an imperfect discipline since it lone counts the group who recall them. A podcast ad power have helped run a sale, but it frequently doesn't get credit for it.

Tassoni-Resch recommends brand-lift studies to display how awareness changes following a brand is mentioned on a podcast. Marketers should additionally merge methods specified as holdout tests and media mix modeling to display how podcasts are additive to hunt and social ad spending, he said.

"When CMOs can see this value, they allocate additional to enhance the communication and measure the channel," Tassoni-Resch said. "Good measure turns a one-off podcast test into a long-term partnership."

The podcast industry is pushing for unified standards to location fragmented metrics throughout audio and video platforms. Last year, Oxford Road convened the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting, a collection of industry executives throughout podcast platforms and media owners, advertisers, agencies, publishers, and endowment and measure firms. This year, it released the "AMP Accords," calling for a worldwide definition of a podcast, standardized cross-platform belief metrics, and a accordant method to promotion attribution.

"There's so much ambiguity here," Martin of Oxford Road said. "We need a small bit additional clarity in conditions of what it is, how you figure the exposures, and afterward how you measure the ROI."