Reading list: podcasts & podcast advertising

Amanda Song

3 min readJan 11, 2020

An astonishing data point:

From 2017 to 2018, podcast ad revenue grew more than 50%, and is expected to hit $1B next year.

Here’s a collection of links I found interesting when taking a deep dive into the current state of podcast advertising.

I. Overview of podcasts as a medium

How people experience audio, from Spotify

Stream of Context

Multi-device users stream Spotify for 2.5 hours per day, 1, which means we're constantly learning about how people…

www.spotifyforbrands.com

Podcast ecosystem from a16z

Investing in the Podcast Ecosystem in 2019

As new tech platforms hit scale, we on the consumer team have been closely watching the future of media and the…

a16z.com

II. Podcast advertising

Challenges: Podcast measure guidelines from the IAB

Podcast Measurement Guidelines

Podcasting has been growing at a phenomenal pace over the last few years, with ad revenues expected to reach over $220…

www.iab.com

How to advertise on podcasts

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/27/cracking-the-code-on-podcast-advertising-for-customer-acquisition

Midroll - The world's largest podcast advertising network

Listeners Buy Productsfrom Podcast Ads 61% of Midroll podcast listeners say that they bought something after hearing an…

www.midroll.com

FY 2018 study of podcast ad revenue

II (a). Dynamic ad insertion

Players:

PodBean,
Megaphone
Art19

Dynamic Podcasting Promos May Finally Be Nearing a Tipping Point

Podcasting pioneer Panoply took media watchers by surprise last fall when the Slate-born network shut down the entirety…

www.adweek.com

Dynamic Ad Insertion for Podcasts: Are They Right For Your Show?

If you sell ads for your podcast or you've begun pitching potential sponsors, you've probably heard of dynamic ad…

castos.com

On Dovetail: PRX's Ad Insertion Product - PRX

Dovetail is an audio publishing system built from the ground up to serve leading podcasts. PRX, the award-winning…

blog.prx.org

II (b). Ad blockers for podcasts

Key player: Ad Block Radio, open-source, and uses machine learning and “acoustic fingerprints” to identify segments of audios which maybe ads

How it works

Designing an audio adblocker for radio and podcasts

tl;dr: Adblock Radio detects audio ads with machine-learning and Shazam-like techniques. The core engine is open…

www.adblockradio.com

As a perceptual ad blocker

Adblock Radio is a perceptual ad blocker

Adblock Radio belongs to the family of next-generation ad blockers, so called "perceptual" as they consider content in…

www.adblockradio.com

Github repo

adblockradio/adblockradio

A library to block ads on live radio streams and podcasts. Machine learning meets Shazam. Engine of AdblockRadio.com…

github.com

III. Miscellaneous / Reference

Open source podcast clients:

CPod
AntennaPod
gPodder

CPod: An Open Source, Cross-platform Podcast App - It's FOSS

Podcasts are a great way to be entertained and informed. In fact, I listen to about ten different podcasts covering…

itsfoss.com

AntennaPod

RSS and Atom Feeds Password protected feeds and episodes. OPML Import and Export For saving all of your subscriptions…

antennapod.org

Get started with gPodder, an open source podcast client

There seems to be a mad rush at the beginning of every year to find ways to be more productive. New Year's resolutions…

opensource.com

Apple podcast support

Podcaster Support

iTunes Connect Resources and Help for books, movies, music, podcasts, and TV. Find your answers quickly by searching…

itunespartner.apple.com

Other interesting players

Knowable

Comprehensive, podcast-style audio courses for curious minds.

knowable.fyi