• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, August 22, 2017

Aiming to help advertisers navigate the media landscape around podcasting, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on Tuesday released the IAB Podcast Playbook, a buyer’s guide for podcast advertising.

The IAB said the playbook offers insights into audience demographics, listener behaviors, creative treatments, ad formats, delivery and targeting, ad effectiveness and measurement.

The timing of the playbook aligns with the IAB’s Podcast Upfront event on Sept. 7 in New York City.

IAB research conducted by PwC forecasts that podcast advertising revenues will exceed $220 million in 2017, an 85% jump from $119 million in 2016. Nearly a quarter of the U.S. population over age 12 listens to podcasts on a monthly basis. On average, they subscribe to six podcasts a week.

Here's more data found in the playbook:

--Podcast listeners skew young (44% are under 34), are educated, wealthy, and likely to be business influencers.

--Two-thirds of podcast listeners cite high brand recall and nearly the same number say that podcast ads inspired a purchase.

--Podcast advertising offers both brand and response-driven marketing strategies, and a variety of ad options—from native and host-read ads to dynamically inserted, standardized ad units

“Podcasts create an especially intimate space for listeners to engage with content because these listeners have made an active choice to download or stream,” stated Harry Clark, Executive Vice President, Market Enginuity, and Co-Chair of the IAB Podcast Playbook Working Group, which produced the guide.