IAB Podcast Upfront Showcases Audio’s Next Marketing Evolution

The Interactive Advertising Bureau will bring together brands, agencies, and media buyers on Tuesday for the 2025 IAB Podcast Upfront.

Taking place in New York City, the event previews ​​groundbreaking podcast programming, the latest advertising innovations, and how audio storytelling is redefining marketing, with the biggest audio and podcast leaders in tow.

“Look at podcasting as a medium in which you have these incredibly engaged, highly attentive people who are consuming an enormously varied amount of content,” Matt Shapo, director, digital audio and video, IAB, told ADWEEK.

According to Shapo, podcasting is in a “period of enormous flux,” creating several new opportunities for marketers trying to reach engaged audiences and capture the cultural zeitgeist. And the IAB Podcast Upfront is all about making brands a part of the conversation.

To preview the 2025 IAB Podcast Upfront, ADWEEK spoke with Shapo about what to expect, how audio and video podcasting are shaping marketing messages, and the next steps in podcasts delivering outcomes.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

ADWEEK: For those new to the podcasting industry, what is the 2025 IAB Podcast Upfront?

Shapo: The Upfront is about two things. It’s about new content or even existing shows that have some new content that presenters want people to know about. It’s also about how you can better prove the effectiveness of your advertising in this medium. 

On the content side, we have several presenters who are going to come with the new shows that they have for the year. They’re going to come with different creators who can speak about some of the great new shows that they have. In many cases, they’re also talking about established shows and the incredible connections that those shows have built up with their audiences. 

But then on the other side of the coin, you’re going to be hearing from people that not only speak about the power of the creators and the wonderful content coming out of these shows, but also about your ability to measure your effectiveness in the medium, how to find the audiences you’re looking for, how to build the incremental reach that you can find in podcasting, and really how you can plan for 2026 in a way that takes advantage of the extraordinary attention. 

You had previously mentioned that “almost 80% of podcast consumers switch back and forth between audio and video.” Does the audio experience of podcasting continue to lose out as video podcasting becomes the preferred option?

No, one of the reasons that I think that stat that we put out is so interesting is because it demonstrates that, whether it’s audio or video, what matters is the relationship that the consumers of a given podcast have with that podcast host and the relationship that those consumers attach to that podcast content that’s being created. 

It really depends on whatever your use case is at that moment in the day. If it makes sense and you like the idea of seeing the faces of the people talking as they’re doing so, you might fire it up in video form. When you can’t really be looking at the screen, then you’ll just switch back to audio. 

With listeners switching between audio and video, how should brands adapt their storytelling strategies?

One of the things that is being talked about so much in the industry, and I think this is a big part of what you’re going to hear at the Upfront itself, is how do brands figure out the best way to tell the stories they want to tell now that podcasting is a much more 360-degree experience?

You’re seeing a lot of cutdowns happen on social media. You’re seeing a lot of important clips being shared on Instagram and TikTok. The question becomes: How will brands effectively activate across audio and video? [That] is going to be the biggest topic in some ways in 2026. 

How are advertisers rethinking performance metrics as podcasts expand across formats?

Right now, there are still some questions on the part of advertisers about exactly how they assign a relative value to what they might regard as a traditional audio-based RSS dynamically inserted ad on the audio side and a baked-in ad on the video side, which is how a lot of that advertising is happening on the video side now. 

Increasingly, you’re going to start to see sponsorships for the video side of the coin, but we’re going to be working a lot next year on figuring out how to harmonize the measurement, the effectiveness, and the outcomes that you’re getting on both the audio and the video side of the podcast events. 

What creative or technical innovations showcased at the Upfront should advertisers be paying most attention to?

One of the innovations I think you can look for is a granular, detailed measurement that goes down to the episode and show level, making it easier for advertisers to understand their outcomes.

That might be one of the biggest innovations. Another innovation that you’ll hear about, again, is how podcast creators are finding ways to interact with, engage with, and electrify their audiences in the multiple formats that podcasting is now spread across. So my guess is you’ll hear some people talking about innovative brand partnerships that are 360-degree in nature.

What are the podcast trends that advertisers should be watching out for? 

I think you’re going to see an increased acceleration towards the blended approach. You are no longer going to see podcasting as just a host-read medium. It is one that has tremendous reach. It is one where the audiences have grown and matured to the point where you can find the incremental reach that you want and where you can find really deep connections to particular audiences. 

A big trend you will continue to see is people looking from an advertiser standpoint to buy those audiences and not necessarily just to buy those shows. In the time that I’ve been at IAB, one of the big topics of conversation—how do we convince advertisers to look at our full slate of content as something they want to invest in writ large instead of only cherry-picking what they think are the most effective shows because they happen to be the big ones that they’ve all heard of? 

Don’t just buy the shows you know or that you assume are going to give you a great performance because you’ve heard of them. Look at podcasting as a medium in which you have these incredibly engaged, highly attentive people who are consuming an enormously varied amount of content. Don’t just buy the shows, buy the audiences.