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Understanding who listens to podcasts, and their profile and listening behaviour, is a key factor in making the decision to invest in podcast advertising or sponsorship. Each podcast has a unique target audience and by working with experts, like the team at Audiomy, you can identify the best podcasts, and strategy, to reach your desired target group.
Across all markets we see a lot of similarities amongst the listener profile of podcasts. Most research is based in the US, but there have been many recent studies in Germany, and across the rest of the DACH, to enable us to understand the nuances specific to this region.
Broadly speaking, podcast listeners are younger, more affluent, better educated and open to new ideas versus the general population. Specifically, this rapid growth has opened up a whole new market for businesses and brands to reach outside of traditional media channels.
Although The Infinite Dial hasn’t been done in Germany since 2019, it is believed that the German podcast market is around 4 years behind the US and the recent studies from Audio Monitor and YouGov support this.
The audience who has had consistent growth in recent years is the 35-54 yr group. In the US, 55% of 12-34 yr olds and 51% of 35-54 yr olds are monthly podcast listeners6. This penetration into the audiences is only marginally ahead of the most comparable age bands in Germany where 46% of 14-29 year olds and 40% of 30-49 year olds are monthly listeners of podcasts7.
Across all age ranges though, we are also seeing a shift where the growth is coming from. Despite the overall podcast listeners consuming more, and more, podcast content, the true growth in the sector is coming from the ‘lighter’ listeners…….and this is accelerating overall listener reach in the sector making it appealing for more advertisers.
Light = 1-3x/month; Medium = 4-9x/month; Heavy = 10+/month.
The greatest audience in the DACH region is in Germany where 45% of Germans listen to a podcast every week10. These podcast listeners can be differentiated into two target groups: the ‘Podheads’ (14 percent of all Germans) listen to podcasts for more than five hours per week and the ‘light podders’ (30 percent of the total population), who listen to podcasts for up to five hours per week.
The podcast listenership is made up of 54% men and 46% women, with the majority (86%) between 15 and 49 years old. In general, podcast listeners can be characterised as loyal and inquisitive. They listen in the most popular genres on politics and society (47%), science and technology (38%) and health (36%)11. The average monthly net household income is €3,0005.
Plus, the longer listeners have been listening, the more intense their usage behaviour is….. of the 28% who have listened for over 4 years, 72% listen to podcasts every day5.
In Austria and Switzerland, the podcast audience is also continually growing with 39% of the population as regular podcast listeners. This rises to 57% amongst 15-29 yr olds and 44% amongst 30-49 year olds12.
Source: Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights’ Podcast Download – Spring 2021 Report13
In conclusion, podcast listeners are younger, more affluent, better educated and open to new ideas versus the general population. This opens up an opportunity to reach these otherwise difficult to reach listeners through a very intimate medium.
At Audiomy, we are a fully independent, podcast media agency with access to the entire German-language podcast advertising market. Our approach to building your strategy and identifying podcasts puts your needs at the heart of the solution.
We are podcast advertising experts…..working with a client list of over 100 brands to produce their advertising campaigns and deliver an incredible 40M audio impressions.
We work with you from briefing to strategy, delivery and campaign reporting. Making it easier for you to benefit from the power of podcasting.
Book a meeting with Audiomy today to understand how German-language podcasts can meet your needs.
