Podcasts have become a popular vehicle for delivering content for brands, individuals and others. They’re relatively easy and inexpensive to create and disseminate. Podcasts have also become a vehicle for marketing messages and ads. 
A survey from CivicScience in September of 2019 found that there are some dedicated podcast listeners in the US, with one-third of listeners tuning in daily and one-third listening weekly. The survey also looked at purchasing patterns of podcast listeners and found a difference between the two groups: daily listeners were more likely to have purchased a product after hearing an ad on a podcast than weekly listeners (30% vs. 21%). Only 6% of occasional listeners purchased products after hearing a podcast ad.
Because many podcast ads are read by the podcast host, the endorsement of the products can receive a boost, especially for daily listeners. And when they hear those ads daily, it’s not surprising that these listeners would make more purchases after hearing the ads more frequently than weekly or less frequent listeners.
With over 76 million podcast listeners in the US in 2019 (a number that’s expected to increase to over 85 million by 2023), marketers are using the medium more frequently for ads – especially host-read ads. With podcast listeners consuming 5.5 hours of audio per day (including podcasts, radio and streaming music), podcast ads are becoming more of a target for advertisers.