87 per cent of media buyers used ads within streaming services in 2018, according to the latest IAB Audio Advertising State of the Nation Report.

The report covers broadcast radio, streaming digital audio, DAB+ and podcasts, and has support from 13 different media and technology companies, as well as industry body Commercial Radio Australia.

The major finding showed that 87 per cent of agencies used streaming audio advertising in 2018, and that brand advertisers embraced podcast advertising in 2018 in Australia.

According to the findings, streaming audio was regularly bought by more than six out of 10 media buyers through 2018, while more than eight out of ten media buyers bought streaming audio.

Podcast advertising showed a sizeable increase, with 20 per cent of media buyers regularly buying podcast advertising in 2018, as opposed to 14 per cent in 2017.

A further 4 in 10 buyers experimented with podcast ads in 2018, while 28 per cent are looking to try for the first time in 2019.

Agencies are increasingly using programmatic buying for audio, showing a slight boost in the last 12 months, and expectations are that this number will grow from 37 per cent to 47 per cent in 2019.

70 per cent of media buyers intend to invest in cross-platform (broadcast and digital) opportunities from radio networks, and though 75 per cent of agencies are either planning and/or buying their radio and streaming audio inventory through a joint team, the 25 per cent of agencies that still have separate functions for this has remained the same since the last wave of research 12 months ago.

IAB CEO Gai Le Roy commented: “Streaming audio is now cemented as part of the commercial media market and we are pleased to release the third wave of this important industry audio research to help the audio market thrive in 2019.

“IAB will continue to invest in research projects such as this to provide the market with objective market-wide data”.

IAB audio council co-chair and Triton Digital director of market development Richard Palmer said: “With 13.8m Australians streaming audio content on their digital devices in December 2018, the media community is continuing to increase their investment in streaming ad opportunities as well as starting to embrace the commercial opportunities that podcasting is bringing to the market”.

Thirteen organisations participated in this project including ABC, ARN, Commercial Radio Australia, Eardrum, Macquarie Media Limited, Nova Entertainment, Omny Studio, Rubicon Project, Southern Cross Austereo, Spotify, The Trade Desk, Acast, Triton Digital and Whooshkaa.

The research was conducted by Hoop Group in December 2018.