The Power of Sound: Digital Audio Advertising by the Numbers

Audio has long been considered an intimate medium, with a trusted voice delivering a one-to-one experience for listeners. But digital innovation has transformed the way audio is perceived as an entertainment platform, and revolutionized consumers’ daily interactions with it.

Where once the only control audiences had over audio was the ability to change the radio station or pop in a new tape or CD (or LP), digital audio now gives listeners seemingly endless choices—all at the touch of a button or tap of a screen. People today use digital audio to soundtrack their lives, flowing in and out of audio experiences that reflect who they are, what they’re doing, and how they’re feeling in the moment—whether it’s workout time, focus time, party time, bedtime, or downtime.

Perhaps no other channel offers the opportunity for authenticity, connection, and flexibility in the way that audio does. And this, in a nutshell, is why brands are increasingly inserting themselves into the audio conversation. The emergence of audio as a mainstay in media plans, alongside developments within the space (including concepts like sonic branding and voice interactivity, as well as new innovations powered by AI), is a top digital advertising trend to watch as teams look ahead to 2025. But what consumer listening habits can marketers tap into to drive performance? Just how effective are audio ads, really? (Hint: very.) And where exactly are consumers tuning in? (Hint: everywhere.) Here, we’ve compiled a collection of stats that answer all these questions and more, helping advertisers separate the signal from the static noise and craft audio strategies set up to make a buzz.

The Digital Audio Advertising Market Is Building Momentum

A perfect storm of circumstance and opportunity is propelling digital audio into the marketing spotlight. Younger generations are drawn to formats like streaming online music and listening to podcasts, likely due to the convenience, personalization, and on-demand access they offer. Brands are embracing the idea of advertising on a cost-effective channel where they can command share of voice, amongst many other benefits. And technology like AI is enhancing the way audiences discover and engage with audio content, making it more seamlessly integrated into daily life and personalized to individual listeners. It’s a medium that has oft been underutilized in advertising—but that’s changing.

• This year, more than 75% of the US population will listen to digital audio at least once per month. Among younger audiences (ages 12-34), that percentage jumps to 90%.
• Over 154 million US listeners currently pay for a streaming audio subscription. This number will continue to inch up in the years ahead, reaching 165 million users in 2028.
• The average US adult has been listening to more than an hour of digital audio per day since 2019, and in 2025, listeners are forecast to tune in for almost an hour and a half per day.
• US digital audio ad and subscription revenue is projected to climb 10.9% in 2024 to $20.72 billion. Experts believe that by 2028, that number could surpass $25.5 billion.
• US ad spend on digital audio services like Spotify and Pandora is anticipated to reach $7.55 billion in 2025, with YOY growth slated to stay at 5% or more through 2027.

Podcasting Has Reached Mainstream Status

Over the last couple of years, few stories in digital media have been more compelling than the rise of the podcast. After a blitz of spending and high-profile acquisitions, the podcast market appears to finally be slowing down, but the podcast advertising market is an entirely different story, with the medium still largely underleveraged and undervalued. Listenership is still consistently rising and technology continues to add more layers of contextual targeting and flexibility to podcast advertising, signaling more opportunities for brands on the horizon.

• In 2025, an estimated 140.9 million people in the US will listen to podcasts monthly. That’s a total of 60.9% of digital audio listeners, up from 59.2% in 2024.
• The average time spent listening to podcasts in the US is 25.5 minutes per day. Among daily podcast listeners, however, that amount is way higher: These listeners report tuning in for over 104 minutes each day.
• Spotify is the biggest US podcast platform today, with 43.1 million listeners. That’s more than 14 million more than Apple Podcasts, whose growth has flatlined while Spotify projects double-digit growth through 2028.
• US podcast listeners tune in for a variety of reasons, with being entertained, learning, and having something to listen to while doing something else garnering the top three spots.
• US podcast ad spending is on course to hit $2.55 billion in 2025. That figure represents over a third of digital audio services ad spending.
• Programmatic continues to account for an increasing portion of total podcast ad spending—in 2020, it was 3.3%, but by 2026 it is projected to hit 10%.
• New research has found that podcast advertising delivers 4.9 times the return on investment and, compared to average media, is 34% more cost effective in driving brand awareness.
• The most successful podcast ads for generating website visits? Pre-roll spots, which generate about 5% more website visits than those in the middle of an episode (i.e. mid-roll) and about 39% more than post-roll ads.

Digital Audio Advertising Primes Consumers for Brand Engagement

Cutting through the metaphorical noise has always been a major challenge for brands as they compete to connect with audiences, and that challenge keeps growing as attention spans shrink. In audio advertising, though, marketers have a powerful ally in the battle for engagement—an outlet that can dynamically link ideas and narratives to help create an emotional association between the brand’s message and the listener.

• Audio ads have been shown to garner 50% more audience attention per impression than key benchmarks across other channels like TV, social, video, and display.
• Podcast advertising boasts an aided recall rate of 71% for brand awareness, notably higher than the 50% rate among those not exposed to an ad.
• Fifty-three percent of smart speaker owners who have heard an ad on their device say they’re likely to respond to it.
• Sixty-eight percent of weekly podcast listeners hear all or some of their episodes’ commercials, with only 17% skipping them all.
• Just under half of US weekly podcast listeners say they have purchased a product as a result of a sponsorship or advertisement on a podcast they regularly listen to.

Steady (but Slowing) Growth for the Streaming Sector

The streaming audio ecosystem is dominated by a few key brands. Spotify is the top dog in the market, one of the most widely used digital products in the US and a powerful presence in broader culture. But the likes of Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, SiriusXM (parent company of Pandora), and iHeartMedia all retain a huge presence in digital audio. Fluctuating economic conditions and price increases at several streaming services over the last several years (including Apple Music, YouTube Premium, and Spotify) are colliding to ease some of the breakneck growth from the past several years.

Additionally, unlike video streaming, there isn’t much incentive for listeners to use—let alone pay for—multiple audio streaming platform subscriptions. The nature of licensing agreements dictates that subscription providers broadly offer the same audio catalog. Their features also overlap significantly (on-demand listening, custom radio, playlist tools, etc.), making it harder to entice audiences to add additional subscriptions for their digital listening.

• In 2025, over a third of US internet users (105.8 million people) will listen to Spotify every month. That’s nearly 10% more than it was five years ago, and thanks to some steady growth, Spotify’s US monthly listener base is projected to reach 111.6 million in 2028.
• Apple Music, on the other hand, is forecast to grow more slowly, reaching 41.3 million monthly listeners in 2025—a YOY increase of only 700,000 users—and creeping up to 43.3 million in 2028.
• Amazon Music will have an estimated 54.2 million listeners in 2025, up from 51.9 million in 2023, but from there it’s projected to gain fewer than one million new listeners through 2026. This slow growth sits in contrast to Amazon Music’s pre-pandemic years, when it more than doubled the size of its audience between 2016 and 2019.
• Unlike Spotify and Amazon music, Pandora is experiencing a dip in monthly listenership: While the platform accounts for 44.6 million listeners in 2024, it is forecast to have only 39.8 million in 2028.
• Finally, iHeartRadio is experiencing steady growth. Where their listenership in 2024 amounts to 49.4 million listeners each month, that amount is predicted to surpass 58 million in 2028.

AI Offers New Opportunities in Digital Audio

Across the entire digital advertising ecosystem, AI—and particularly generative AI—has been making waves. More than 87% of marketers believe AI will radically transform digital advertising in the next few years, and its potential in the digital audio space is particularly exciting. Already, this powerful technology is changing how advertisers approach audio ads, allowing for more personalized and dynamic ad experiences. By leveraging AI, brands can craft tailored messages—often in real time—that resonate with individual listeners, enhancing engagement and driving better outcomes across podcast and streaming platforms.

• Seventy-three percent of digital audio listeners say they’re open to hearing ads if the tone aligns with what they’re doing. Emerging AI tools make it possible to create thousands of variations of an ad to meet the individual needs of different listeners in an efficient and cost-effective way.
• AI can also be used to assess the mood of what a specific person is listening to, so they can be served an ad that better aligns with their listening experience.
• Synthetic voice tools could allow teams to replicate specific human voices to generate thousands of ad variations, at scale, to maintain the human touch that is so valuable for placements like podcast ads. For instance, a podcast host could record a single variation of an ad and then give permission for a team to use AI-powered technology to create many variations of that ad based on their initial recording.
• AI can be used to analyze datasets—such as transcripts of podcast content—to identify key themes, topics, and sentiments to be used for contextual targeting. This can help teams create highly relevant ad placements based on what listeners are engaging with in real time.
• A recent study found that AI-generated audio ads that were personalized based on listeners led to an increase in brand favorability by 22%.

Wrapping Up: Audio Advertising by the Numbers

Digital audio is ubiquitous and unique, offering a soundtrack to people’s daily lives through playlists, podcasts, and streaming services. Brands looking to build strong, lasting connections with their audiences have a significant opportunity to meaningfully engage with target audiences in these spaces.

Advertisers already have a plethora of tools at their disposal to help inform and execute strategies that lean into consumer listening habits. And with emerging AI-powered innovations, such as personalized audio ads and dynamic creative optimization, the future of audio advertising is looking even more exciting. If these numbers and emerging innovations are any indication, the audio advertising revolution is only just getting started.

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Want more insights on the power and potential of this channel and how it can impact your media plan? Check out our Audio Advertising Guide.