• by Ray Schultz , November 16, 2023

Podcast advertisers are becoming a tool that will enable cookie-free audience targeting, the providers say. 

The new solution is the result of a partnership between podcast producer Acast and  Proximic by Comscore. It is designed to drive “scale and efficiency despite the continual loss of access to persistent identifiers,” says Lee Blickstein, VP Targeting Solutions at Proximic by Comscore. 

Acast advertisers can now use Proximic by Comscore’s Predictive Audiences to reach listeners based on behavioral, privacy-compliant contextual signals, Acast says. 

Predictive Audiences facilitates targeting based on personas, TV viewership, gaming habits, retail purchases and other behaviors, delivered contextually, it adds. 

The arrangement covers Acast’s 100,000+ podcasts in 15 markets worldwide. 

“On a global scale, this partnership is significant in further improving addressability throughout the entire podcasting landscape,” says Elli Dimitroulakos, global head of ad innovation at Acast. 

Blickstein adds, “The podcast advertising industry has experienced rapid growth in recent years, but has been challenged to harness its full potential largely because innovations in ad tech still lagged behind more traditional media forms.”