Podcast Ads Are Having a Moment — Here's Who's Betting Big in September

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Hours of them, usually while driving somewhere new or walking a city I've never seen before. So when I saw podcast ad spending just hit a six-month high, I wanted to know what's behind it.

Turns out, September was a big month for the medium. New numbers from Podscribe show the top 10 podcast advertisers spent a combined $41.1 million last month. That's up 20.9% from August, and it's the strongest showing since March. It also marks the second straight month of growth after a slow July.

Mint Mobile held onto the top spot for the second month running, spending an estimated $5.2 million. Quince stayed at No. 2 with $4.9 million. Interesting thing is, both of those brands actually spent less month-to-month than they had before. They just didn't lose ground because everyone else was shuffling around them.

And the shuffling was dramatic. PrizePicks made the biggest jump of the month, climbing six spots from No. 9 to No. 3. The daily fantasy sports platform boosted its spending 64% to $4.7 million, appearing on 539 shows. Here's the part that caught my eye: 92% of its ads were host-read. Not pre-produced spots — actual hosts talking about the product in their own voice. That's a choice, and it's clearly working, because PrizePicks leapfrogged Shopify and BetterHelp to get there.

Why does that matter? Because it tells you something about trust. Host reads work because listeners feel like they know the person talking. I've caught myself trying a product simply because a host I'd been listening to for months vouched for it. That's not an accident — it's strategy.

Amazon took the opposite path. Ahead of Prime Day, its spending actually dropped 59% to $3.1 million, sliding from fourth to ninth place. Meanwhile Shopify increased spending 5% to $4.5 million and moved up to fourth. BetterHelp rounded out the top five at $4.4 million, down 10%, but still leaning hard on host endorsements — 85% of its ads across 775 shows were host-read, mostly in comedy programming.

Then there's ChatGPT, which is moving fast. It debuted in the top 10 back in August with $3 million in spending. One month later, it jumped to $4 million and climbed to sixth place, reaching over 1,000 shows. Sports was its top genre, which says something about where AI companies think their audience is hanging out.

Sports, actually, was the theme across the board. Seven of the top 10 advertisers leaned into sports programming. But how they bought that inventory varied wildly — PrizePicks used host reads 92% of the time, while ChatGPT used them just 12% of the time. Same strategy, completely different execution.

Podscribe also launched something new this month: a "Rising Advertisers" chart, tracking brands whose spending jumped more than 50% in a single month. And the early results point straight at sports betting and prediction markets. Four of the ten fastest-rising advertisers came from that world, spending a combined $9.8 million.

DraftKings increased spending 109% to $2.4 million. Polymarket, a prediction market platform, increased spending by a staggering 834% to $1.5 million. Kalshi grew 63% to $1.2 million. And then there's Taco Bell, which boosted its podcast spending 7,955% — yes, you read that right — to $1.3 million across 1,021 shows. Somebody at Taco Bell clearly found something that worked and decided to go all in.

Disney, Lowe's, Lingo Kids Grown Up, Airbnb, and Mazda rounded out the rest of the rising list, each finding their own reason to bet bigger on podcasting.

So what does all this mean if you're not running an ad budget? It tells you podcasting isn't a niche experiment anymore. Advertisers are treating it like real estate worth fighting for, especially heading into Q4, historically the biggest spending season of the year.

Next time you're listening to your favorite show and the host starts talking about a product, pay attention. That ad probably wasn't random. Someone ran the numbers, tested the format, and decided your ears were worth millions.

Source: https://www.podcastnewsdaily.com/

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