Streaming audio and podcasts are already a consumer staple. But advertisers still spend relatively little of their budgets on podcast and streaming music ads, while programmatic workflows and automation are yet to close the gap between ad spend and audience engagement.
Today, digital audio represents about 30% of media consumption for the average American adult, according to research by GWI, the consumer insights platform formerly known as GlobalWebIndex. But audio attracts 3% of annual US ad spend, according to eMarketer. Those numbers were cited (multiple times) by Taylor Ash, VP of inventory partnerships at The Trade Desk, during an audio-focused Open Forum event hosted by the company in New York City on Tuesday.
Because of that disparity between consumption and ad demand, “no digital media earns fewer ad dollars per hour spent than digital audio,” added Catie Birmingham, TTD’s senior manager of research and insights.
But despite major programmatic platforms like The Trade Desk throwing their support behind streaming audio – and TTD predicting back in 2024 that the imbalance between audio ad spend and engagement would soon reverse itself due to greater programmatic adoption – buyers have been stubborn to invest more in the channel.
