Riddle me this: in a new report, eMarketer expects podcast advertising (aka pod-vertising) to grow to $400-million by 2011 from $80-million in 2006. Sure, it’s a drop in the overall bucket but $400-million will still be more a bigger market than blog-vertising, which is expected to be about $300-million in 2010, according to PQ Media.
I know lots of people who read blogs but very few people who listen to podcasts so it strikes me that blog-vertising has much greater growth potential. Maybe eMarketer has become overly enamored with the iPod and the idea that the size of the market (90 million units and counting) will quickly evolve into a fertile advertising platform. Of course, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only 1% of people in the U.S. listen to podcasts on a regular basis.
For many advertisers, blogs should be a natural extension of their online advertising budgets as they become more comfortable with the format and more familiar with the players who offer high-quality content such as b5media…:) With blogs, you can measure the effectiveness of campaigns, you can try different formats and see your advertising in action. With podcasts, this is a much more challenging process, and I find it hard to believe advertisers, who are now using radio, will flock to podcasts.
Maybe I’m missing something that folks such as Robert Scoble envision. Maybe podcasts will be a viable advertising vehicle for advertisers. That said, I think blogs have way more advertising potential but for some reason, research firms such as eMarketer and PQ Media are missing the boat.
Update: Frank Barnako writes that eMarketer believes the growth of podcast advertising will be driven by Google, which will develop a podcast version of AdSense. Chip Griffin remains skeptical about market predictions in extremely young markets. BusinessWeek weighs into the fray today (Feb. 14) with a column that does little to challenge the $400-million prediction.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blogs, podcasts
3 Comments
Mark Thanks for this.
Here at PodTech (I’m an employee) we’re not only doing Audio Podcasting, we’re also doing Video. Swing by podtech.net to take a look.
I think it’s less about the specifics of an syndicated mp3, buy more about on demand niche media.
Not sure I understand your last sentence. Isn’t Forrester specifically talking about podcasts as opposed to niche media such as podcasts and blogs. I “get” video advertising but still don’t understand why eMarketer would think podcasting has more potential and blogs.
Mark,
I agree with you. I think people still don’t see the full potential of blogs as a strong ecosystem. Aggregation is obviously key to get to critical mass for any blog business but at least blogs have clearer measurement methods (vs. podcasts).
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[...] Update:Mark Evans points out the ridiculousness of this prediction, given that the advertising market for blogs is ‘only’ supposed to be $300 million by 2010. Riddle me this: in a new report, eMarketer expects podcast advertising (aka pod-vertising) to grow to $400-million by 2011 from $80-million in 2006. Sure, it’s a drop in the overall bucket but $400-million will still be more a bigger market than blog-vertising, which is expected to be about $300-million in 2010, according to PQ Media. [...]
[...] Will pod-vertising be bigger than blog-vertising? For some reason, PQ Media seems to think so: they believe pod-vertising will hit $400-million by 2011 while blog-vertising will be worth only $300-million by 2010. I have a hard time buying into this forecast because pod-vertising appears to have so little traction while blog-vertising is growing as advertisers become more comfortable about allocating more of their budgets to the Web.(Of course, my thesis not surprising given I work for a blog networking company). Anyway, it got me thinking that maybe there’s another side to the argument so what better way to explore it than to ask someone within the podcasting industry, Leesa Barnes, who put together a guest post for me. (It’s also on her blog). Take it away, Lisa. [...]
[...] you’re off to the races. Use your existing readership to build up the listenership, sell some advertising and sponsorship spots and bang! You’re a senior vice-president (or equivalent for the media [...]