YouGov’s “More than meets the ear” report measures the impact of Spoken Content ads
beyond simple listening: trust, recall and the ability to drive real action.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Spoken Content advertising has long faced an attribution problem: listeners skip ads, tune them out, or avoid them altogether, making real engagement difficult to measure. This is the starting point of the report More than meets the ear: U.S. podcast ads report 2026<\/em>, produced by YouGov among more than 1,300 U.S. media consumers between March 13 and April 1, 2026. The findings describe a format that generates real advertising value even alongside low reported attention levels, with insights that extend to Spoken content in Italy and to the Spoken Article inventory distributed by Audioboost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only 8% of listeners say they usually pay attention to Spoken Content ads: 52% typically skip them and another 16% do so “sometimes.” Spoken content stand out at the same time as the least annoying ad format among all those tested: only 25% of respondents find it disruptive, compared with 50% for display ads, 46% for YouTube and other video platform ads, 42% for TV and streaming video, and 36% for social media. Control over skipping clearly lowers perceived irritation, a competitive advantage for a format that operates with partial listener attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n On trust, Spoken contents rank behind TV (19%) and radio (19%), ahead of YouTube (13%), display (7%) and social media (6%), with 14% of listeners saying they trust advertising in this format. The most notable figure concerns distrust: only 38% of listeners say they don’t trust Spoken content ads, compared with 48% for video platform ads and 63% for social media. Among ad formats, host-read ads remain the most credible, cited by 20% of listeners, compared with 5% for pre-recorded brand ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most significant figure for advertising planners concerns conversion. 51% of media consumers took an action after hearing or seeing an ad on podcast, radio or streaming audio: 30% visited the brand’s website, 30% searched online for the brand or product, 21% talked to someone about it, and 16% made a purchase. Spoken content consumers convert at a higher rate than the average audio user: 60% took an action, compared with 54% of music streaming listeners and 53% of radio listeners. The most notable figure concerns habitual ad-skippers: 55% still took a conversion action, a share that rises to 82% among those who skip ads only occasionally. Skipping an ad, then, does not mean being unreachable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The report captures the U.S. market: its figures are not directly transferable to the Italian context in absolute terms. The same study also offers a useful reference point: 56% of Italians listen to or watch Spoken content, a share close to the U.S. figure (54%) and to markets such as France and Singapore (54% each). By logical extension, the mechanisms observed in the U.S. – low reported attention alongside high conversion potential, trust levels above display and social formats, the value of natively-read ads – are consistent with what Audioboost observes across Spoken content and the Spoken Article inventory distributed through Speakup-Article\u2122: intentional listening that drives recall and action even when reported attention is low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n YouGov’s “More than meets the ear” report measures the impact of Spoken Content adsbeyond simple listening: trust, recall and the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-4378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resource-center","category-news","tag-evidenza"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4378"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4388,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378\/revisions\/4388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/audioboost.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Skipped, and still the least annoying<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.audioboost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/28155325\/3-1024x576.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nOne of the most trusted formats in digital<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Conversion happens even among those who skip<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.audioboost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/28155308\/4-1024x576.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat this means for Spoken content in Italy<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.audioboost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/28155338\/2-1024x576.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/h4>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"