Acast launches podcast episode-level conversational targeting advertising capability

Independent podcast company Acast has launched new Conversational Targeting capabilities for advertisers. Available now, exclusively through the Acast Marketplace, Conversational Targeting allows brands to
target podcast conversations at individual episode level, across every listening app out there — ensuring their messages are heard in even more relevant context than ever before.

Using advanced speech-to-text transcription technology combined with artificial intelligence and natural language processing, Acast is continually transcribing and analysing hundreds of thousands of individual podcast episodes across its network of shows. Each episode is then categorised according to the industry-standard IAB content categorisation taxonomy (v2), ensuring ad campaigns are automatically served against episodes of the highest relevance for their brand message.

Until now, it was only possible to target by category at show level, and each episode was effectively categorised and labeled in the same way. Now, advertisers can dramatically expand their reach, and might appear on podcasts covering categories as diverse as sports, beauty or politics — all because the subject matter of that particular episode is directly relevant to their campaign.