Global podcast ad spend is expected to top $5 billion in 2025, according to recent research from WARC.
The report was based on WARC’s dataset of advertising and media intelligence from around the world, as well as third-party research.
The researchers forecast that global podcast ad spend will reach $5.2 billion this year ( up 7.9% year over year) and $5.5 billion in 2026 ( up 6.5%). Although that growth would be significant, it would be a slowdown from the 13.2% year-over-year increase in 2024.
The 7.9% forecast year-over-year growth in global podcast ad spend is lower than the forecast increase for other emerging channels, such as retail media (14.8%), CTV (15.4%) and DOOH (14.9%).
The United States accounts for 45.9% of all global podcast ad spend, the researchers found.
In the US, podcasts are increasingly becoming central to cultural and political discourse. For example, according to Edison Research data as cited by WARC, some 44% of podcast listeners say they sourced US election information from podcasts, ahead of cable TV (34%) and social platforms, such as X (33%).
About the research: The report was based on WARC’s dataset of advertising and media intelligence from around the world, as well as third-party research.
