The Danger of Rising PodLoad: How Increasing Clutter Erodes Podcast Advertising Value

For every podcast ad you’ve bought, there’s a hidden variable that swings performance in double-digit percentages. It’s time to talk about that.

This week, in a ground-breaking episode of the Media Roundtable, we reveal our newest report, The Danger of Rising PodLoad: How Increasing Clutter Erodes Podcast Advertising Value. This industry-first case study on ad loads and performance answers the question that every CAO wants to know:

“What’s the right amount of ads for a podcast?”

Giles Martin (EVP, Strategy & Insights, Oxford Road) joins Pete Birsinger (CEO & Founder, Podscribe) onstage at our recent CAO Summit to present the PodLoad Report. Oxford Road partners with Podscribe to analyze 1.7 Billion podcast impressions across 1800+ shows, tying ad loads to real performance for 159 brands.
Here’s what we found:

“If the ad load of an episode goes from 5% to 15%, you can reasonably expect a 30-40% drop-off in conversion rate.”

  • Ad Load Matters ⚖️- Ad load: the percentage of ads in every podcast. 10 minutes of ads in a 100 minute podcast? Ad load is 10%. When shows go past 6% ad load, performance starts to dip. Your Cost Per Purchase will be around 12% worse when ad loads hit 10%. When ad loads hit 15%? It’s 31% worse.

  • What’s At Stake 😬 - Compared to other channels, podcast ads are well tolerated, for now, anyway. Nearly half of listeners enjoy or don’t mind podcast ads. Less than 10% of listeners find ads intolerable. Plus 28% of listeners watch/listen to all of the ads, the high mark for all media surveyed. This is the secret sauce of podcasting. But increasing ad loads can erode podcasting trust–and effectiveness.

  • Starting the Oxford Clock ⏳- Ad load for shows and publishers vary widely. That’s why we propose a standard breakdown of an optimized podcasting hour. Presenting the Oxford Clock. It features a 10% ad load, emphasizing live reads and balancing listener, host, network, and brand needs. Have a show going beyond 10% ad load? Time to start asking for a discount.

    For insights that’ll change the way you buy podcast ads, check out the full episode and click here to dive into the PodLoad Report.

Bianca Gorodinsky