Last Updated on July 8, 2025 by Daniel Einhorn
Brand new listeners are flocking to podcasts daily, and popularity is at an all-time high, drawing in millions every month. Global podcast ad spend is expected to exceed $5.2 billion in 2025, with continued growth projected into 2026—highlighting strong advertiser confidence in the medium. At the same time, the global podcast audience has surged, reaching 550 million weekly listeners as of 2024, with another 100 million expected by 2027.
With such broad reach and cultural relevance, podcasts are firmly at their peak. Advertisers have taken notice and are spending accordingly. But selling a diverse inventory and enabling brands to reach the right audience—without traditional identifiers—is no easy feat.
Audience data has long been the foundation of successful advertising. Yet, podcasts have operated without conventional user-level identifiers like mobile IDs or cookies, data that other media formats still heavily rely on. With Predictive Audiences, we can enrich podcast targeting using contextual signals and future-proof our approach to audio advertising.
So, What Is Comscore Predictive Audiences Targeting?
Comscore Predictive Audiences lights up the data path to ideal podcast audiences, making them readily available for campaign targeting and easily available through privacy-friendly contextual signals. Through our partnership with Comscore, Predictive Audiences provides future-proof podcast targeting, enabling access to hundreds of audiences across numerous categories, such as TV viewership, commercial signals, gaming habits, location-based behaviors, life stage, and more.
An industry-first, cookie-free targeting capability paired with AdsWizz AI Transcription Technology, Predictive Audiences removes the uncertainty from the signal-light podcast environment by creating a trustworthy and contextually relevant pathway for target audiences. Advertisers and publishers select relevant segments based on TV viewership, over-the-top (OTT) consumption, and consumer behaviors related to automotive purchase data, location data, B2B data, or non-Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) financial data. The AdsWizz platform delivers ads on episodes that include topics for which the target audience has a high affinity.
As an Advertiser, What Do I Get Out of This, Exactly?
Let’s say you’re building a campaign for an automotive company to boost sales for one of their high-end models. You can refine your targeting by choosing the brand you’re advertising from over 50 automotive brands available with Predictive Audiences, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche. Behind the scenes, Predictive Audiences identifies listeners interested in automotive brands and maps their behaviors and interests to well-defined content preferences. As a result, AdsWizz’s platform delivers ads on podcast episodes that focus on content that interests your target audience.
And if I’m a Publisher, How Can I Leverage These Tools?
Our Inventory Forecast tool can predict available inventory based on the selected Predictive Audiences segments. The intricate forecasting algorithm considers such audio-specific metrics as ad-break duration, the maximum number of ads in an ad break, and potential ad clashing. We run estimates on the likely number of available impressions. You can use our Custom Reports tool to see how your Predictive Audiences segments have performed. Using the Predictive Audiences (Targeted) dimension, the report will return the number of audio impressions delivered for each targeted segment.
So, in a Nutshell…
Recap:
- Advertisers/resellers struggle to reach audiences in a scaled manner within podcasts because they are signal-light.
- Advertisers are becoming increasingly concerned about consumer privacy and any perception that their data usage may be in violation.
- Predictive Audience segments allow advertisers and resellers to reach over 300+ audiences without relying on traditional identifiers.
- Predictive Audiences are privacy-friendly, powered by context, not user identifiers.
- Benefits for resellers and publishers – maximize revenue, increase podcast discoverability, and expand reach.
- Benefits for advertisers – expand reach, improve episode-level targeting, boost ad relevancy.
If you are an AdsWizz partner and would like to learn more, please click here.
If you are not an AdsWizz partner and would like to get in touch with us, please visit the Contact Us page.
To read more about SiriusXM and Comscore bringing Comscore Predictive Audiences to AdsWizz, click here.
by Daniel Einhorn, Senior Manager, Content Marketing
