On today's episode, we discuss Spotify's Q4 performance and what it tells us about how the audio streaming giant is changing. Then for "In Other News," we talk about what the biggest threat to Spotify's podcasting dominance will be and a new way to improve the accuracy of audio ads. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Peter Vahle.

Spotify adds clickable ads to its advertising lineup: The audio streaming company aims to transform podcast advertising with visual and interactive experiences.

As digital audio consumption increases, the advertising market in Canada is developing rapidly to reach new listeners.

Podcast listening keeps making gains, and the medium is becoming a bigger part of marketers’ audio strategies.

By 2020, however, the shift from downloading to streaming podcasts began to take hold. Enter: Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI) by Spotify. 2020–Present: Upleveling industry standards with SAI. So, how does SAI work? Similar to DAI, a listener presses play on a podcast episode that has empty ad slots ready for ad insertion.

We forecast that US podcast ad spending will surpass $2 billion next year and $3 billion by 2026. Podcasts will account for over a quarter of digital audio services ad spending in 2022 and will be more than a third of spending by the end of 2026.

Podcasting finds favor with brand advertisers: US ad spending on podcasts is growing at double-digit rates and will pass $2 billion in 2023.

About two-thirds of the US population ages 12 and older listens to digital audio at least once per week, up 5 percentage points from 2021. Over the past decade, that share has grown by 38 percentage points, making the weekly listenership now 192 million strong.

In 2021, social audio app Clubhouse registered a total of 6.7 million downloads in the US. About 42% of those downloads occurred during Q1 2021, when the app received extraordinary media buzz. But as established platforms created copycat features, Clubhouse’s downloads decreased.

This is helping the streaming giant capitalize on the podcast ad boom, which is seeing digital audio budgets shift to these shows. In 2022, podcasts will account for 27.4% of US digital audio services ad spending, at $1.73 billion, and come 2024, they’ll make up 34.2%, at $2.56 billion. More like this:. Report: AI in Customer Experience.

Canada’s digital audio audience is growing faster than any other digital medium we track in the country, including digital video viewers and social media users. This year, digital audio will match terrestrial radio in listenership and exceed it in engagement, according to our forecasts.