Oxford Road Uncovers Stunning 25% Gap in Podcast Video Ad Performance

Dec. 18, 2025

Oxford Road and Podscribe announce the surprising results of their latest white paper "Re-Thinking YouTube: Why Your Video Podcast Ads Are Converting 25% Worse Than Audio” – proving that YouTube’s podcasting dominance comes with a heavy cost for brand advertisers.

The study shows that YouTube views are 18-25% less effective than audio downloads at driving purchases. The result is that for every $1M spent on YouTube podcast impressions, brand advertisers   may be losing up to $250k in conversion value.

Dan Granger, CEO of Oxford Road said:

“The shift to video in podcasting has unlocked new audiences for creators and an attractive-looking scale opportunity for marketers. But, there are critical gaps that must be addressed, with podcasting's biggest spenders suggesting in our “What Brands Want” report that YouTube's lack of transparency on performance data is holding back $1B in additional spend. Now, with our latest study, we’re hoping to not only underscore audio’s unique staying power but how video can bring greater value.”

 

The white paper also includes:

• A breakdown of the various factors causing this performance gap
• A 10-step action plan for podcasting advertisers to protect their ROI

The data was sourced from over a thousand campaigns from Oxford Road and Podscribe, in which advertising performance had been tracked by promo code redemption and ‘How-Did-You-Hear-About-Us?’ (HDYHAU) survey responses at checkout. Using this response data, alongside the delivery of ad impressions across audio and YouTube, which varied extensively across the campaigns, to create an apples-to-apples estimate of the effectiveness of ads that appeared in both the audio and YouTube versions of a podcast.