By using advanced speech-to-text transcription technology combined with artificial intelligence and Natural language processing (NPL), Acast is continually transcribing and analyzing hundreds of thousands of individual podcast episodes across its network of shows. Each episode is then categorized to ensure ad campaigns are automatically served against episodes of the highest relevance for their message.

Until now, it was only possible to place ads that were targeted around the theme, or category, of a whole podcast series — which meant each individual episode was effectively categorized and labeled in the same way. Today, thanks to Conversational Targeting, advertisers can target those individual podcast episodes and the specific conversations podcasters are having on them.

For example, a food delivery service can target individual episodes of a podcast where the hosts discuss what they’re having for dinner, or their love of cooking — even if that happens to be a podcast from a quite different genre. Podcasts and their ad inventory were previously tagged only in relation to a full-series genre. So now being able to identify the episode-level context of the conversation actually happening — and that this one covers categories like “food” and “cooking” — highlights new, untapped opportunities for relevant brands.

With consumers savvier than ever when it comes to data privacy, and with media platforms introducing major changes that will make ad targeting more difficult, Conversational Targeting offers advertisers greater relevance without needing to target individual listeners or use personal information — maintaining privacy and protecting the listener experience. 

Furthermore, for podcasters, these new capabilities open up more of their catalog for potential advertising and associated revenue. At launch, Conversational Targeting supports Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Later this year, it will also be made available in Swedish and Norwegian. 

Ross Adams, Acast’s CEO, said: “Conversational Targeting is another major innovation from the Acast Marketplace, bringing advertisers the ability to reach listeners within the most relevant context ever — all while protecting the listener’s privacy. Our mission is to make podcast advertising the best it can possibly be, and this is a big step for us in bringing better targeting solutions for advertisers — as well as helping open up more podcasters’ catalogs for ad revenue, so they can keep on making the shows their listeners love.”