Podcasting Is Ready for Bigger Slice of Ad Budgets: IAB’s Jason Adamski
Podcast advertising has graduated from an experimental line item to a core part of the media plan, according to Jason Adamski, director of the Media Center at IAB. Now the industry must prove it can measure all those hosts, videos and mattress ads without counting the same audience twice.
In an interview with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan ahead of the IAB Podcast Upfront on Sept. 16, Adamski said podcast ad revenue increased from about $106 million in 2015 to $2.9 billion in 2025.
“A decade of pure growth shows that it’s moved from niche to core,” Adamski said.
Buyers prepare to do more than listen
Podcasting is growing about 17.6% year over year, Adamski said, citing the PwC-IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Buyers have also changed how they approach the medium.
Instead of matching brands primarily with particular hosts or genres, marketers increasingly want the reach, addressability and full-funnel results associated with other forms of digital advertising. The charming host with the devoted following can stay, but somebody will eventually ask for a spreadsheet.
Adamski said marketers attending the IAB Podcast Upfront should be ready to act in three areas. They need to plan across audio and video, demand clearer data from publishers and invest more money in the medium.
“I think buyers should be moving more money into podcasting,” Adamski said.
Publishers should be prepared to provide consistent show titles, platform names and accurate information about where ads appear within podcasts, he added. That means buyers should know more than whether an ad ran somewhere between the opening banter and an unexpectedly detailed discussion of a meal-delivery service.
Video complicates the podcast picture
The definition of a podcast is getting blurrier as creators put more programming on camera. Adamski said 71% of creators now produce video podcasts, forcing the industry to think about the format as both audio and video.
“I think that really forces the conversation from audio to audio and video,” Adamski said.
IAB is developing definitions and structures to bridge different measurement standards for the two formats. The goal is to prevent impressions from being counted twice or disappearing entirely when people toggle between watching and listening.
“We wanna make sure that the impressions aren’t double-counted or not counted at all,” Adamski said.
The organization will address the issue in its “Podcasts Continue to Evolve” paper, which is scheduled to be presented during the 2026 IAB Podcast Upfront. Adamski said the paper proposes disclosures designed to help close the measurement gap between audio and video.
Audio wants full-funnel credit
Podcasting also has some catching up to do with social media, display advertising and connected television. Adamski said audio was slower to adopt pixel-based attribution, dynamic ad insertion and identity frameworks.
Publishers now have household IP data and impression-level information that can support marketers’ attribution models, he said. IAB’s “Power of Audio Data” paper presents case studies showing that podcast advertising can influence outcomes throughout the funnel.
Those effects range from greater awareness at the top to stronger purchase intent at the bottom. In other words, podcast advertising would like marketers to know that it can do more than make listeners vaguely familiar with a brand after hearing its name during a true-crime investigation.
“It appears we’re at that point right now, that podcasts should be a portion of the core media buy,” Adamski said.
Podcast advertising has graduated from an experimental line item to a core part of the media plan, according to Jason Adamski, director of the Media Center at IAB. Now the industry must prove it can measure all those hosts, videos and mattress ads without counting the same audience twice.
In an interview with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan ahead of the IAB Podcast Upfront on Sept. 16, Adamski said podcast ad revenue increased from about $106 million in 2015 to $2.9 billion in 2025.
“A decade of pure growth shows that it’s moved from niche to core,” Adamski said.
Buyers prepare to do more than listen
Podcasting is growing about 17.6% year over year, Adamski said, citing the PwC-IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Buyers have also changed how they approach the medium.
Instead of matching brands primarily with particular hosts or genres, marketers increasingly want the reach, addressability and full-funnel results associated with other forms of digital advertising. The charming host with the devoted following can stay, but somebody will eventually ask for a spreadsheet.
Adamski said marketers attending the IAB Podcast Upfront should be ready to act in three areas. They need to plan across audio and video, demand clearer data from publishers and invest more money in the medium.
“I think buyers should be moving more money into podcasting,” Adamski said.
Publishers should be prepared to provide consistent show titles, platform names and accurate information about where ads appear within podcasts, he added. That means buyers should know more than whether an ad ran somewhere between the opening banter and an unexpectedly detailed discussion of a meal-delivery service.
Video complicates the podcast picture
The definition of a podcast is getting blurrier as creators put more programming on camera. Adamski said 71% of creators now produce video podcasts, forcing the industry to think about the format as both audio and video.
“I think that really forces the conversation from audio to audio and video,” Adamski said.
IAB is developing definitions and structures to bridge different measurement standards for the two formats. The goal is to prevent impressions from being counted twice or disappearing entirely when people toggle between watching and listening.
“We wanna make sure that the impressions aren’t double-counted or not counted at all,” Adamski said.
The organization will address the issue in its “Podcasts Continue to Evolve” paper, which is scheduled to be presented during the 2026 IAB Podcast Upfront. Adamski said the paper proposes disclosures designed to help close the measurement gap between audio and video.
Audio wants full-funnel credit
Podcasting also has some catching up to do with social media, display advertising and connected television. Adamski said audio was slower to adopt pixel-based attribution, dynamic ad insertion and identity frameworks.
Publishers now have household IP data and impression-level information that can support marketers’ attribution models, he said. IAB’s “Power of Audio Data” paper presents case studies showing that podcast advertising can influence outcomes throughout the funnel.
Those effects range from greater awareness at the top to stronger purchase intent at the bottom. In other words, podcast advertising would like marketers to know that it can do more than make listeners vaguely familiar with a brand after hearing its name during a true-crime investigation.
“It appears we’re at that point right now, that podcasts should be a portion of the core media buy,” Adamski said.
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