Market researchers Claritas have released a new report on advertising research which found that across several industry sectors, addition of a podcast campaign lifted conversions more than did non-podcast channels.

Claritas researchers used their "proprietary lift methodology" to analyze the extent to which podcast ads increased conversions for 158 campaigns by 51 advertisers across several industry sectors between January 2018 and July 2020, with an estimated total ad spend of $13.3M:

Methodology involved identifying two groups of consumers - 50,000 per group - who are "identical" in terms of:

• Age
• Household size
• Household income
• Media history
• Geography
• Past behaviors
• Mobile device

One group, the "exposed" group, experienced the podcast ads, while the second "control" group did not.

Researchers then compared the conversion rates and costs per conversion of the 2 groups, and calculated the incremental improvement produced by exposure to the podcast ads,

Results:

• Retail (Average Podcast Campaign Lift of 79%, $3.57 mean cost per conversion)
• B2B (77% lift, $6.29/conversion)
• Consumer Goods (63% lift, $1.03/conversion)
• Pharma (37.1% lift, $0.71/conversion)
• Auto (30.3% lift, $10.69/conversion)
• Telco (25.5% lift, $9.46/conversion)
• Insurance (23.5% lift, $3.26/conversion)

Claritas also published Mean Cost per Conversion figures only for:

• Services $8.19
• Financial $7.94
• Ecommerce $6.03
• Entertainment $3.74
• Consumer Packaged Goods $1.85
• Restaurant $0.55
• Government/NonProfit $0.47

Claritas hasn't provided any comprehensive data on the costs of the 158 podcast campaigns, but they give as an example the results for an auto dealership:

• Spend on podcast campaign: $10,200
• Incremental revenue over 6 months due to podcast campaign: $346,000
• Return per dollar spent: $33.82 (discounted to present value)

Obviously, there are a lot of variables here that can affect the outcome of running a podcast campaign:

• Cost of the campaign
• Effectiveness of the campaign (incremental sales and revenues produced)
• Cost of product sold vs. revenue from sale of product - your margin on the incremental sales
• Externalities that can change the nature of your market

Podcast ad numbers sound promising. But I'd surely want to see some demonstrated results on the part of any podcast ad provider before risking a lot of money on a campaign.