Matt Shapo & Jason Adamski of IAB - Where the Money is in Podcasting, Download vs. Play Metrics, AMP Accords, and Omnichannel Measurement
Matt Shapo (Senior Director of the Measurement Center at IAB) and Jason Adamski (Director of Audio at IAB) sit down with PodBiz co-hosts Norma Jean Belenky and John Kiernan at the IAB offices in New York City. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB, https://www.iab.com) is a business organization that develops technical standards, conducts research, and sets guidelines for the digital advertising and marketing industries
In this episode, they break down where advertising dollars are moving in podcasting, the evolving measurement standards between downloads and play/view metrics, how the industry is incorporating the AMP Accords into IAB Tech Lab, YouTube and Spotify's impact on traditional standards, and how podcasting is fitting into omnichannel marketing strategies.
Where is the money in podcasting right now?
“I think it is reasonable to say that we are still looking at an industry that is very heavily weighted towards the bigger shows—the household names that everybody knows. But the money is, I think, increasingly trending towards more of an audience-based mid and long-tail scenario compared to just buying the big shows. There is a critical mass building in terms of programmatic activations happening in the space and the ability to find audiences across a variety of shows. Because measurement is becoming so much more robust, and the ability to understand sentiment and context has become so much stronger, we are now starting to see a shift towards going where the audience is and buying engaged communities.” — Matt Shapo
“Magellan came out with their first-quarter study showing $130 million went to the top ten advertisers in Q1. That shows it's heavily weighted towards those bigger advertisers who skew toward larger shows because that’s how the industry was set up to be bought and sold. The long tail of the podcast industry is really being opened up by programmatic, allowing you to buy audiences without having to buy each little show bit by bit.” — Jason Adamski
What is the distinction between IAB and IAB Tech Lab, and how are podcast measurement standards set?
“In the case specifically of podcast measurement, it's worth clarifying that we're talking about IAB Tech Lab. IAB is an organization designed to help keep the advertising community thriving, and we partner with our sister organization, IAB Tech Lab, which is much more in the weeds in terms of setting standards. This goes all the way back to 2015–2016, when Tech Lab took on the responsibility of trying to establish the download standard that remains the underlying currency of the medium.” — Matt Shapo
“The Podcast Technical Guideline working group was established in 2015 and established the download as the standard. Over the summer, we released version 2.3 of that standard, and now we are talking about iterating on that to kick off version 3.0. The impetus for starting that discussion was actually the AMP Accords.” — Jason Adamski
How is podcast measurement shifting as platforms like Spotify and YouTube introduce new metrics?
“YouTube doesn't use the traditional download metric. Apple uses the download metric for both audio and video. Spotify announced over the summer that they're adding a play metric to their internal metrics alongside downloads. We released a report titled 'Podcasts Continue to Evolve When Listeners Become Viewers' to outline how disclosures should work. When you make a podcast buy across four, five, or six platforms, this document shows where you need to disclose different downloads plus other metrics and time-delayed viewing and listening.” — Jason Adamski
“When talking about a download—the underlying currency of the medium—you are talking about something captured literally as downloaded media in a log file stored on a hosting platform. A play is tracked client-side, giving real-time player telemetry. Podcasting started as a download-based medium, but as video consumption grows, we have to learn how to triangulate between download-based traditional audio RSS listening and video/client-side environments.” — Matt Shapo
How is the IAB addressing the AMP Accords and bringing industry players together?
“There’s a saying: 'If you want to move fast, move alone. If you want to go far, go together.' The AMP Accords were created by a small group of people who wanted to move quickly. They realized there was a trade-off between moving quickly and moving far, so they came to us to help merge it over into IAB Tech Lab's Podcast Technical Working Group. We want to have everyone's voice under the tent—buy-side, sell-side, platforms, and measurement companies—so we can have those discussions and move the industry forward together.” — Jason Adamski
What are your professional backgrounds prior to your work at IAB?
“I started in the business 30 years ago as a spot buyer, became a network buyer, and then went to the client side. I was the first media director for Sam Adams, worked at Accenture overseeing a media auditing practice, and served as North American Media Director for companies like Pepsi and Ferrero. For me, it's always been about what's best for the advertiser and the brands.” — Jason Adamski
“I came at it because I am a passionate audio person. Before coming to IAB, I worked for almost 20 years at All Access Music Group reporting news, data, and record promotion for radio and music industries. A big part of my portfolio was explaining the transition from traditional broadcast radio to digital audio and podcasting, understanding programmatic buying, and figuring out how brand advertisers find effectiveness in audio.” — Matt Shapo
What is a common misconception about how the IAB operates?
“A misnomer is that you have to be an IAB board member to have a voice. Anybody can have a voice. We put important topics out for public comment so people across the industry can weigh in and help shape the industry.” — Jason Adamski
“There is an open door for anybody in an impacted industry to give input. IAB is at its best when soliciting and aggregating the wisdom of smart people across media. We also work in partnership across the industry on educational initiatives, agency trainings, leadership summits, and webinars where people can dive deep to improve their day-to-day operations.” — Matt Shapo
What excites you most about the future of podcast advertising?
“Measurement is evolving, and I look forward to digging into that, helping everybody get under the same tent, and having the conversations about where we want to move the industry forward.” — Jason Adamski
“What excites me most is making podcasting all that much more integrated into the omnichannel measurement conversation. The most exciting thing moving forward is that we can now actually bring the evidence of what happens. We can measure the response that consumers have to ads in podcasts at a level that we never could before.” — Matt Shapo
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