Advertisers reaching consumers on podcasts

So how do media buyers do their homework on the podcast medium?  Now researchers have a new tool.  Podtrac introduced a free online service that shows advertisers audience information for audio and video podcasts.   They can detail demographics, size, and other characteristics. 

Podtrac is a matchmaker, connecting 5,000 of the top podcasters to advertisers, including data for all podcasts in their service.  It indexes its data to information in Mediamark Research’s Survey of the American Consumer.

Podtrac’s chief executive and co-founder Mark McCrery says his company will give advertisers enough data to make good choices in about this relatively new medium.   McCrery says, “We want to grow the market for podcast advertising.”   Of course advertisers want the same information they get from traditional media.

Advertisers need to be enabled to prove the quality of their audience.  Jonathan Cobb,  CEO and founder of Kiptronic, a startup that places ads within audio and video podcasts, says marketers have been hesitant to embrace a medium that can’t verify it audience.   “There is no way for somebody who is jogging and listening to a podcast at the gym to click on an ad,” Cobb notes.

But television and radio do not provide click-through rates either.  Advertisers have grown to trust the date, or is it ‘ignore’ the inconsistencies and gaping holes in the provability index.