Oxford Road has released new findings showing that mental health podcasts consistently outperform fitness shows in advertising performance.
Results are based on real sales data from podcast campaigns run over the past year.
The study underpins the launch of the ORBIT Top 15 Performing Self-Improvement Podcasts, a new ranking drawn from more than $1.6 billion in campaign data across over 500 advertisers, analysing actual customer acquisition and sales results rather than audience estimates.
Oxford Road analysed twelve months of campaign outcomes from leading self-improvement podcasts, including shows focused on health and fitness, mental health, professional development, and consumer-facing health science, to understand how New Year advertising trends translate into long-term performance.
The findings suggest that while advertisers traditionally flood fitness podcasts with gym and diet advertising in January, mental health content delivers more sustained results, with performance continuing through February and March and providing stronger returns across the first quarter.
Oxford Road says mental health podcasts are significantly more stable than fitness shows, which were found to be eight times more volatile, swinging between strong results and poor outcomes, making mental health content a more reliable foundation for advertisers planning early-year campaigns.
The analysis also highlights the importance of volume during the first quarter, with advertisers able to reach listeners multiple times across different self-improvement podcasts, increasing frequency and enabling faster optimisation compared to other periods of the year.
Dan Granger, Chief Executive Officer of Oxford Road, says: “The performance sustains well beyond January. This isn’t just a New Year’s resolution pop. It’s an always-on category that’s reliable for performance.”
The data was surfaced using ORBIT, Oxford Road’s Benchmark Intelligence Tool, which measures real-world performance including customer acquisition costs, return on ad spend, and sales outcomes across podcast, streaming audio, terrestrial radio, and creator-led video campaigns.
Oxford Road says it will release new ORBIT rankings each month, covering genre performance, international markets, emerging shows, and vertical-specific results, using its proprietary database to help advertisers make more confident audio investment decisions.
The full “ORBIT Top 15 Performing Self-Improvement Podcasts” list and methodology details are available here.
