NEW YORK—There was a time, in the not too distant past, that podcasts were viewed as a niche media channel driven by special interests and a few technology trailblazers. But times have changed, and today podcasts—and podcast advertising—are moving to the front of the line in some marketers’ budgets and media plans.

Indeed, eMarketer now forecasts that U.S. podcast ad spending will surpass $2 billion next year and $3 billion by 2026. The research firm, in its recent report on this media channel, said podcasts will account for more than one-quarter of digital audio services ad spending in 2022 and will be more than one-third of spending by the end of 2026.

“Most digital audio monetization will come from recorded music for the foreseeable future, but podcasts’ share of the market has grown so much—and will continue to do so—that it cannot be ignored by marketers,” the firm said in a recent post. “Once relegated to experimental budgets, podcasts are becoming a crucial component of multimedia ad campaigns.”

According to eMarketer, more than one-half of advertisers said they are likely to boost their podcast ad budgets this year (the firm cited a poll of 255 U.S. advertisers conducted by Advertiser Perceptions in August 2021). Almost one-half of these advertisers (46 percent) planned to keep their budgets the same, and just 1 percent planned to reduce podcast ad spending.

The survey also showed overall digital budgets were the most common place that advertisers pulled their podcast ad budgets from.

Most advertisers did not have dedicated podcast budgets, eMarketer noted. About half used their digital audio budgets to fund podcast campaigns. As podcast ad spending increases and accounts for a greater share of total audio ad dollars, expect more advertisers to break out podcast-specific budgets.