• by Fern Siegel , February 9, 2023

A new study from Acast found 95% of American podcast listeners responded after hearing a podcast ad. In Canada, 88% of listeners reported the same result.

Those are key findings for advertisers, since Forbes estimates the U.S. podcast ad market will surpass $4 billion value next year. Acast found 65% of U.S. marketers will increase market spend on the medium.

Triton Digital reports, year-over-year, podcast downloads increased by 20% in 2022, Last year, each listener downloaded an average of 3.8 hours of content each week, an increase from 2.7 hours in 2021. U.S. marketers said they expect the share of podcast advertising bought programmatically to nearly triple by 2027, per Acast.

That’s why it’s helpful to understand purchase behavior of this demographic, which feels listening to ads helps support their favorite podcasters. A majority of those polled also follow podcasters on social media, creating additional options for brand engagement.

“The podcast advertising industry is continuing to experience growth as media buyers better recognize the effectiveness of the medium for their brand message. Understanding the unique relationship between podcast audiences and the content they consume through research and insights like this is vital to the success of advertisers in the space,” said Heather Gordon, Acast managing director, Canada.

Acast hosts nearly 88,000 podcasts, claiming 430 million listens every month. It conducted the current research with 1,200 podcast listeners in 2022. Half resided in the U.S. and half in Canada.