Podcasts have moved beyond the era when true crime first popularised them, now covering almost every niche imaginable, from news and pop culture to health, beauty, wellness and sport.

For brands, this expansion creates opportunities to reach loyal and highly targeted audiences. Some 30% of the UK population listens to podcasts each week, rising to 58% among 15– to 34-year-olds, which is up from 40% in 2019, according to IPA TouchPoints data.

However, ad investment growth remains sluggish. While a net 41% of marketers globally plan to increase spending on podcast advertising in 2025, according to Kantar, interest from advertisers has cooled since a short-lived spike during the pandemic, when year-on-year ad investment growth peaked at 74.8% in 2021, according to WARC Media.

Worldwide podcast ad spend growth is forecast to slow from 13.2% in 2024 to 7.9% in 2025 and 6.5% in 2026.

In the UK, growth has also slowed. Podcast ad spend rose 8% in 2024 to £90m, down from the 23% growth recorded between 2022 and 2023, according to Ofcom. This, however, only accounts for audio podcast ads; the video display category, including video podcast ads, grew strongly, up 20% to £8.3bn.

“It’s still a somewhat emerging platform, so people are in the process of learning about it,” explains Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director.

The Marketing Week Podcast: How can marketers recalibrate before the end of the year?

Despite advertisers’ slow uptake, platforms themselves are doubling down. Spotify reportedly paid $250m (£183m) for exclusive rights to Joe Rogan’s podcast; Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper signed a $125m (£91.7m) deal with SiriusXM; and NFL brothers Travis and Jason Kelce landed a $100m (£73.5m) deal with Amazon. The deals highlight how major platforms are betting big on exclusive, premium content.

Yet, even with this investment in creators and ad tech to appeal to advertisers, platforms are still struggling to find their place among brands. For example, Spotify’s ad-supported revenue fell roughly 1% year on year in Q2 to €453m (£391m), reflecting slow advertiser uptake.

Monzo’s vice-president of marketing and growth, AJ Coyne, believes the potential is being overlooked. “People aren’t acknowledging just how much growth there is in podcasts,” he says. “The growth is massive, and it’s not slowing down. It’s mad that people aren’t talking about it. We’re often investing more in it and also building teams to be able to seize the opportunity.”

Monzo began testing the channel with Spotify last year, as it returned to brand marketing after a five-year hiatus. Since then, it has expanded its podcast partnerships, including sponsorship of The Rest is Money, a Goalhanger podcast, to target small businesses and startups for its Monzo Business brand.

“We’re looking at their audiences, their listening data, their download data, and seeing how we can connect and who’s winning with the segments we want to bring into the business,” he explains.

The initial six-month partnership with The Rest is Money resulted in conversion rates nearly three times above the Spotify EMEA financial services benchmark and app downloads were 22 times above the Spotify EMEA financial services benchmark.

Creator strategy

Advertisers have several options when buying podcast ads, with the two main routes being partnerships with hosts, where they read the ads during recording, or programmatic buying through a demand-side platform (DSP).

However, when deciding where budget for ads should come from, Bubani advises against folding podcast ads into general audio budgets or treating them as a subset of radio. Podcasts require a unique approach that cannot simply be adapted from radio creative, she explains.

“We do advocate, especially with the bigger talents, that [podcast hosts] should be treated like creators. You have to build that relationship. They have to understand your brand,” she says.

‘What can be measured gets done’: How can marketers reframe persistent short-termism?

Website building platform Squarespace has long embraced that creator approach, with podcasts falling under its creator strategy.

“Podcasting is a talent-first media channel,” says Jaclyn Kerames, the brand’s head of creator strategy. “We approach it in the same way we think about other creator industries.”

Squarespace began investing in podcasts in 2009, well ahead of most brands. Founder Anthony Casalena saw the potential early, giving Squarespace a “first-mover advantage”.

As an American brand, Squarespace operates in a larger US podcast landscape, but choosing which hosts to work with is “surprisingly data-driven”, Kerames says. One of its longest-running partnerships is with actor Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, now in its fifth year.

“Dax has been speaking about Squarespace for many years, and can talk about the product’s evolution as we evolve the product,” she explains, noting this gives the partnership “longevity”.

Deep vs broad

Monzo takes a similar approach, with its podcast strategy falling under its brand strategy, however Monzo buys ads both directly and programmatically. Coyne notes that brands can go “deep or broad” and Monzo is doing both.

“We’ve gone broad with multiple partnerships, multiple podcasts, multiple host reads, and then we’ve gone deep with a couple,” he explains, adding that going deep generates significantly higher ROI.

Working with trusted hosts, he adds, allows Monzo to tap into loyal listener bases.

“They can bring their own voice. I don’t think you get that level of authenticity or that level of trust if you do that yourself,” he says.

The bank’s partnerships began as short-term tests with the likes of Louis Theroux, but early results persuaded the team to commit to year-long deals. For example, among Spotify listeners, its initial partnership with the Louis Theroux podcast significantly improved perceptions of ‘helpful’ and ‘straightforward’.

“We invested in short-term partnerships, measured the success of those partnerships, saw really strong ROI and then invested in long-term partnerships. We entered into those partnerships for 12-month deals as a result of seeing those metrics move,” he adds.

As the brand plans to go “deeper” in podcasts, Coyne admits a key challenge of the process is that it’s resource-heavy, demanding a lot of time among team members to research and reach out to hosts and coordinate ad buying.

“I feel that whole approach could be a lot easier – it’s high investment, high time,” he explains.

We’re not saying podcast advertising is useless. It just has to be for the right brand, the right channel and the right audience – and at the right point in the life cycle.

Chris Busher, Holy Moly

Despite lagging investment, podcasts are proving their value as an advertising channel. Kantar Media Reactions 2024 research finds consumers globally view podcast ads as trustworthy, relevant and useful. They are also playing a growing role in shaping brand perceptions.

According to the research, podcasts can boost purchase intent by 1.7 times, aided awareness by 2.1 times and brand favourability by 2.7 times.

Back in 2022, only 14% of podcast listeners agreed that podcast ads improved their view of a brand, according to Kantar Media TGI. By 2025, that figure had risen to 26%.

Now, podcasts are entering the next era, with more shows including video. This opens up fresh opportunities for brands to tap into both creators’ and their own visual assets.

“All podcasts are now also recording video alongside it if they can,” explains Bubani, “When we looked at 10 or so ads in a recent meta-analysis, 60% of the ads were better performing if they had a digital picture or video element.”

“There are more and more formats. So brands also have to consider these upcoming formats and how to incorporate photos or video.”

Video marketing spend up 20% last year as advertisers shift focus 

Publishers and platforms are moving quickly to capture a slice of the booming online video ad market. YouTube has emerged as the world’s largest podcast platform, with viewers watching more than 400 million hours of podcasts per month on TV screens in 2024, according to Alphabet. Spotify reports more than 250 million users have streamed a video podcast on its platform.

As brands grow more sophisticated in including creator content into media plans, video could help podcasting break out of its audio bubble and push ad investment growth closer to other, more established channels.

Still, Bubani cautions against leaning too heavily on visuals. “You can’t put critical information in the visual part of a podcast ad,” she says.

Some brands are also moving beyond ads to create their own shows. Vodafone Business, for example, has partnered with Steven Bartlett’s FlightStory Studios to launch Business.connected – a monthly social-first podcast and content series aimed at supporting UK SMEs.

Meanwhile, Waitrose’s Dish podcast with Nick Grimshaw and Michelin-starred chef Angela Hartnett has just returned for its eighth season. Around 40% of those who listen to the podcast are under 30, which goes against the stereotype of the Waitrose shopper skewing older.

Channel 4 has gone further still, becoming the first broadcaster to bring video programming to Spotify. Content from its digital-first brand Channel 4.0, including Minor Issues, Hear Me Out and Secret Sauce, is now distributed on Spotify’s apps.

Reasons for not investing

So why wouldn’t a brand invest in podcasts? For one, buying podcasts can be difficult, as buyers can work with the publisher of a show like The Rest is Money or deal with distributors like Spotify. The diverse ecosystem creates measurement challenges that may be dampening spend on podcasts.

Meanwhile, not all advertisers are convinced podcasts are the right fit. For some brands, depending on their stage in the life cycle, the medium may not deliver. That’s the case for dip brand Holy Moly.

“It was something we actually did look at — could this be an interesting part of the mix? But when we dug into it, we just couldn’t justify the high CPMs,” explains marketing boss Chris Busher.

Dips are a mass-market product with 64% household penetration and Holy Moly currently sits at 25% awareness among dip buyers, therefore its key focus is driving awareness.

“Podcasts are niche, fragmented, and low-reach, but super targeted,” he explains.

Podcast CPMs in the UK average £15–£35, five to 10 times more expensive than out-of-home or digital video, he claims.

“High-ticket items, in the tens of pounds, can justify that CPM and acquisition cost,” Busher says. “But for FMCG, where you’re making pence per unit, we just can’t quantify or justify it. Where we’d rather overinvest is in actually trialling the product.”

Podcasts aren’t ruled out forever, however. Busher says once Holy Moly’s awareness climbs above 60%, the brand would reconsider. At that stage, ad wastage becomes more of a concern, making targeted formats like podcasts more appealing.

“When we move into consideration and reappraisal, that’s when highly contextualised, rich media formats like podcasts could really play a role,” he explains. “It’s also when we’d likely be resegmenting and taking a more scientific approach with our consumer base.”

He stresses that the channel isn’t irrelevant, just not right for every brand at every stage. “We’re not saying podcast advertising is useless. It just has to be for the right brand, the right channel and the right audience – and at the right point in the life cycle.”

Measurement

For advertisers, measurement remains one of the biggest challenges in podcasting. Coyne believes there’s an opportunity for more consistent metrics across the industry.

“There’s a big opportunity for a shared metric. We rely heavily on our own research and data,” he says. “There’s a bigger opportunity in ROI if Spotify could provide that across multi-platform and multi-podcast audio.

“It’s easier on the programmatic side, but much harder with host-read partnerships, to do that on a level outside of the podcast.”

Squarespace takes a more direct approach, assessing podcast views with a measurable approach.

“Measurement is more limited than in other channels,” says Kerames.

The brand uses creator-level coupon codes that give listeners discounts while attributing revenue back to specific shows.

“We know it’s not just coming from podcasts, but specifically coming from a creator. When you check out at Squarespace, we also have a survey, and people can type in the name of the creator and give them credit for the subscription.”