DraftKings makes the top podcast advertisers list for the first time

More than 8,000 brands have advertised on podcasts. Get a heads-up when new brands test podcasts as a marketing channel for the first time: learn more.

3 min readNov 22, 2019

Spotlight: DraftKings

In May 2018 the supreme court lifted a federal ban on sports gambling, which led to 18 states legalizing sports gambling with more states expected to vote on similar legislation in the coming year. Fantasy-sports game companies have been looking to capitalize on this, and we are seeing some evidence of this now that the NFL season has begun. Most notably, DraftKings has ranked on our top 15 podcast advertisers list for the first time. We detected 7X the number of ads in September compared to August.

DraftKings, a direct response advertiser, ran host read ads promoting their multi-million dollar cash prizes each week on 18 different shows. You can listen to some examples for each of the following podcasts: The Dan Bongino Show, Sports Wars, and Le Batard & Friends — STUpodity.

Spotlight: Geico

Geico is no stranger to our top 15 podcast advertisers list, in fact, it previously ranked #1 for the first time in July 2019. In September it ranked #1 once again, but should there be an asterisk(*) placed next to its name?

There is no doubt that Geico is a big advertiser on podcasts, but it is worth noting that it advertises on radio as well. Some radio programs rebroadcast their shows (including ads) as podcasts which begs the question: should those ads count as well? We wondered at a glance how it would affect the top podcast advertisers rankings. It turns out that if we removed shows that are radio rebroadcasts, we would have seen 59% less Geico ads in September. This would have places Geico 2nd on our list behind ZipRecruiter.

Geico, a brand awareness advertiser, ran ads with their ubiquitous pitch “15 minutes could save you 15% or more…” on 28 different shows. You can listen to some examples for each of the following podcasts; The Stephen A. Smith Show, Adam Carolla Show, and The Paul Finebaum Show.

September 2019

Magellan identified 2,126 brands or products on the top 2,000 during the month, the top 15 are listed below. Click to play a sample mid-roll or pre-roll ad for each advertiser:

Methodology

Every week, Magellan samples episodes from 2,000 shows that rank in the Top Podcasts view available through Apple Podcasts in the US. This sample includes up to seven episodes from shows that published new episodes in September 2019.

The brands listed above were ranked by the number of individual pre- and mid-roll ads that appeared in our sample. Podcasts advertising on other podcasts, foundations, and those advertising on only one show were excluded from the sample.

Magellan AI creates tools that help marketers at brands like SimpliSafe, Wix, and ThredUP spend intelligently on podcast advertising. Podcast publishers like WNYC and Audioboom use Magellan to track advertisers spending money in the podcast space. Learn More.
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