Will Podcast 'Golden Age' Unlock Brand Advertising Budgets? Slate Introducing Podcast Network Panoply

http://adage.com/article/digital/podcast-golden-age-unlock-brand-advertising-budgets/297299/

http://adage.com/article/digital/podcast-golden-age-unlock-brand-advertising-budgets/297299/

Since the first airing of “Serial”, a podcast that describes a 1999 crime, it has racked up nearly 72 million downloads. US podcast consumption has risen, partly due to this podcast, 18% between spring and fall of 2014, according to Edison Research. Americans are consuming 21 million hours of podcasts daily.

This has been hailed by the New York magazine as the “great podcast renaissance”.

Before “Serial”, podcast ad spending was forecast to remain at a mere $34 million annually through 2016, and 80% of these ads prompt listeners to visit a website or call an 800 toll-free number. There is a resurgence of interest in podcast advertising, as content makers improve the quality and quantity of podcast material.

According to the Adage article, this renewed interest could inspire brand advertisers to devote a bigger portion of their budget to podcasting. This shift is expected to fuel greater demand for media companies as well as celebrities to meet the demand. Companies that build podcasting networks would also benefit, such as PodcastOne, which aggregates and sells ads against more than 200 podcasts. Slate is also announcing the launch of Panoply, its own podcasting network.

Slate produces 15 podcasts with a monthly download of 6.5 million, and is aiming to produce podcasts for other media companies. Ads will be the monetization vehicle for these podcasts.

Despite the renewed interest in podcasts, there are concerns that keep advertisers on the wary side. First is the audience size. Podcasts do not attract the large audiences that advertisers target. Consumer data is also difficult to obtain, such as demographics about the audience.

Google Puts Ads in Its App Store to Court Mobile App Marketers

http://adage.com/article/digital/google-putting-ads-app-store-s-search-results/297315/

According to an Adage report, Google is going to start exploring ways to monetize its mobile app store by displaying ads as part of the search results in the Google Play app store. The ad will be labeled in yellow. In many ways it is similar to how Google search currently functions. This is expected to yield another way for users to find relevant apps available through paid search. Says Jerry Dischler, Google’s VP-product management for AdWords.

Google hasn’t released any details around the pricing model of this new mobile app store search ads, whether ads will be priced based on per-click, per-install, per view, or other basis. Google’s move is a sign of the rising importance of app publishers as an important advertising segment. Makers of such “freemium” game apps as Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, like King Digital and Machine Zone, have all advertised in the Super Bowl this year.

The new mobile app search app model may be a new way for Google to recoup some of the costs it has spent promoting its app developers, as the company has driven hundreds of millions of downloads through Google-sold ads promoting the apps. In the past 12 months, Google has paid $7B to developers through app store sales.

 

Google is not the only online ad seller to monetize the app search customer base. Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo all offer their own ad products to increase downloads for app developers. To help it consolidate its product, Google recently acquired Toro, a company that specialized in Facebook ads.