Podcast advertising
In practice, for a UK buyer
The paragraph above is the neutral answer. This is the part a vendor glossary leaves out.
Dynamically inserted advertising is what a programmatic plan buys: targetable, reportable, and removable. Host-read is an endorsement, costs several times more, and cannot be turned off once published. UK self-serve minimums are low — Spotify's Ads Manager starts around £250 a campaign and Acast's self-serve at about $250, on desk research dated 3 August 2026 — while a host-read spot is closer to $5,000. Named-show buying happens through private marketplace deals, which are negotiated rather than clicked.
What this one connects to
Most confusion in media buying comes from two adjacent terms being used interchangeably, so these are the neighbours worth reading next.
Digital audio advertising
Audio advertising delivered through streaming music, digital radio and podcasts, bought by show, genre, publisher segment and daypart. Distinct from broadcast radio in that individual impressions are counted and targeting is applied per listener session.
Private marketplace (PMP)
A negotiated arrangement in which a publisher makes specific inventory available to specific buyers at agreed terms, transacted programmatically through a deal identifier rather than in the open auction.
Attribution
Assigning credit for an outcome to the advertising touchpoints that preceded it, according to a rule the advertiser chose. A description of correlation in a conversion path, not a demonstration that the advertising caused anything.
More on channels and formats
The seven things you can actually buy, and the words the sellers use for them.
45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live. You describe one audience and watch it compile into seven targeting specifications, each with the score for how much of the definition survived.
Talk it through