Should B2B marketers consider audio and podcast ads? Your complete guide
Podcasts come in different formats, each serving a unique purpose. Here’s a breakdown of key types, along with some of the most popular examples:
- Discipline-Focused Podcasts
These cover professional topics like marketing, B2B strategy, and sustainability, often aligning with specific job functions.
🔹 Example: The B2B Marketing Podcast – Deep dives into B2B trends, ABM, and demand gen.
🔹 Example: Sustainababble – A witty look at sustainability challenges.
- Sector-Led Podcasts
These focus on industry-specific insights, discussing how sectors evolve and adapt to trends.
🔹 Example: The Future of Retail Podcast – Conversations with retail leaders about innovation and change.
🔹 Example: Energy Voice Out Loud – Covering major shifts in the energy industry.
- Skills-Based Podcasts
Designed to help professionals develop key skills like communication, leadership, and public speaking.
🔹 Example: Coaching for Leaders – Leadership insights for managers and executives.
🔹 Example: The Art of Charm – Covers communication, networking, and persuasion.
- Personal Interest Podcasts
Business leaders don’t just listen to business—they tune into topics like finance, well-being, and politics too.
🔹 Example: The Diary of a CEO – Insights from top entrepreneurs and executives.
🔹 Example: The Rest Is Politics – Political analysis with inside perspectives.
- Broad Business Podcasts
Covering macroeconomics, market trends, and global business challenges.
🔹 Example: The Indicator from Planet Money – Quick insights into business and economic trends.
🔹 Example: The FT News Briefing – Daily business and financial news from the Financial Times.
Why B2B Companies Are Launching Podcasts
Many businesses are starting their own podcasts, tapping into their niche audiences. The real value?
✅ Direct access to decision-makers – Podcasts build credibility and long-form engagement.
✅ Content marketing at its best – Repurpose episodes into blogs, social media posts, and reports.
With UK podcast listenership exceeding 11.7 million weekly (source: ofcom.org.uk), B2B brands are taking audio seriously. The number of podcast listeners in the UK is expected to continue to lift, with estimates suggesting over 28 million listeners by 2026 statista.com). As volumes grow B2B audiences become large enough to be targeted.
What to think about when preparing the creative
Our approach has been to update how we approach videos, thinking about using the audio for audio ads. It doesn’t always work without editing, but it does mean you can squeeze even more about of your media. To dot this, we’re following some principles:
Clarity and Simplicity
The message must be sharp, simple and focused. Less details, and instead tick to one strong message in a short and punchy duration, ideally between 30 and 60 seconds.
A Strong Opening
You have just three seconds to hook the listener. Start with a compelling fact, question, or bold statement to spark curiosity. The best openings speak directly to the listener’s pain points, making the ad feel instantly relevant to their work challenges. So, the same challenge as videos for YouTube then!
Authentic, Conversational Tone
Audio ads should sound like real human conversations, not robotic scripts. Keep the language natural and engaging, mirroring how your customers actually speak. A relatable tone makes it easier for listeners to connect with your message. A voiceover artist who can perform not read lines helps massively here.
Storytelling styles
While B2B ads often focus on logic and data, emotion can be just as powerful. Storytelling makes brands more relatable, helping listeners connect on a deeper level. Bring it to life with a depth of contextual sounds.
Thoughtful sound design—including music, voice modulation, and sound effects—can enhance the experience without overpowering the message.
Sonic branding (a signature sound or jingle) is effective, but only if the ad runs frequently enough to become familiar to the audience.
Clear call to Action (CTA)
Every audio ad should guide the listener toward a specific next step. Whether it’s visiting a website, booking a demo, or following on LinkedIn, the CTA should be simple, direct, and easy to remember.
Where can you place audio ads? Programmatic display and Spotify’s native advertising
Here’s our recommended approach based on their targeting capabilities.
StackAdapt: Hyper-Targeted Audience, Less Control Over Placement
Using StackAdapt, you can precisely target users based on contact and company match, ensuring that our ads reach a highly relevant, pre-qualified audience. This approach is ideal for an ABM (Account-Based Marketing) strategy, as it enables us to focus on specific companies and job titles. It does mean your ads may show up in some unusual content.
However, placement control is limited—while we can prioritise podcasts over music or digital radio, we cannot dictate specific podcast categories (e.g., sustainability-focused content). We’ve had success as an agency doing this.
Spotify: More Placement Control, Broader Targeting
Spotify’s native ad platform allows us to ensure ads are served exclusively on podcasts rather than music. However, the contextual targeting options are broad, with only predefined topic categories available (e.g., business and finance, science, technology, careers, etc.). This means we cannot target niche subjects like sustainability with full precision.
Recommended Approach
- Leverage StackAdapt for highly targeted ABM campaigns, ensuring that ads reach decision-makers at key accounts, even if placement control is limited.
- Use Spotify where broader contextual placement is acceptable, ensuring ads are served only on podcasts but within general business-related categories.
- Explore direct partnerships with select podcasts – similar to trade media buying – to achieve precise placement on niche sustainability-focused content where necessary.
Audio channels are growing. Time for a new frontier of B2B marketing?
