A new way for advertisers to target podcast conversations at individual episode level has been launched by Acast.
Available now, exclusively through the Acast Marketplace, Conversational Targeting will ensure advertising messages are heard across every listening app in an even more relevant context than before.
Hundreds of thousands of individual podcast episodes across the Acast network are continually transcribed and analysed using advanced speech-to-text transcription technology combined with artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Each episode is then categorised according to the industry standard IAB content categorisation taxonomy (v2), ensuring ad campaigns are automatically served against episodes of the highest relevance for their brand message.
Previously, it was only possible to target by category, but now categories as diverse as sports, beauty or politics can be included if the subject matter of that particular episode is directly relevant to the advertiser’s campaign. This will allow advertisers to dramatically increase their reach.
Conversational Targeting offers advertisers greater relevance without targeting individual listeners or using user-based IDs or personal information — maintaining privacy and protecting the listener experience. It’s also good for podcasters, by opening up more of their catalogue for potential advertising and associated revenue.
The ability to target by specific keywords and topics, and by sentiment and emotion is expected to be added to Conversational Targeting soon.
Chris Wistow, Acast’s VP of Advertising Product, said: “We’ve always been proud of Acast’s hard work to innovate the advertising experience, while crucially protecting the valuable listening experience. We have a responsibility — to both our podcasters and their fans — to help the brands we work with find the best, most relevant conversations to be part of, and Conversational Targeting allows us to do exactly that.
“We’re also conscious of the acceleration towards greater user privacy — the need to move beyond individual user-level targeting, and for digital advertising solutions to evolve and innovate for intelligent, privacy-safe, contextual targeting.
“Conversational Targeting helps us and our advertiser partners to get ahead of the game, and to continue to lead the way in podcast advertising globally. And, in turn, that will allow us to spread even more advertising dollars to even more podcasters.”
