Ad Marketplace Gumball Launches New Contextually Relevant 'Adaptive Ads' Powered by AI

Gumball, the award-winning advertising technology platform today announces ‘Adaptive Ads’, an AI-driven ad product that keeps listeners engaged by delivering unique, contextually relevant podcast ad reads for each episode. Adaptive Ads are available to run across inventory on Gumball along with Audioboom, Backyard Ventures and QCODE who have joined as early partners.

The tech behind Adaptive Ads works by considering the similarities between a show’s audience and brand’s target buyer, the specifics of the brand’s ad copy, and the content and tone of a particular episode, to create a script that captures the brand’s requirements while thematically matching the podcast episode it’s being inserted into.

“Adaptive Ads bridge the gap between the relevance of host read ads and the scalability of programmatic ads," says Andrew Pile, Chief Technical Officer of Gumball. “Since Adaptive Ads are created using the content of the show and not the listener’s personal data, they feel topical without invading user privacy. It’s a more effective way to capture one of the unique qualities of host-read advertising without crossing an ethical line.”

These scripts are then turned into AI-voiced ad reads created using high-quality voice models, including compensated voice talent. Each audio file then gets run through Gumball’s ‘Ad Analyzer’ to ensure the ad meets the requirements of the brand. This is the same proven technology Gumball has been using to detect compliance for thousands of host-read ads, including promo codes, talking points, and disclosures. The end result is a campaign with a unique ad read for every episode that can be trusted to be engaging and brand safe.

“At Gumball, our vision has always been to build tools and solutions that enhance the value of the podcasting industry for both creators and brands while never losing sight of the most important part of the value chain: the listener experience,” says Marty Michael, CEO of Gumball. “Adaptive Ads are a natural extension of that vision. It’s physically impossible for a show with hundreds of episodes in its back catalog to record unique ads for each one. With Adaptive Ads, we’re giving creators another powerful monetization tool, improving the listener experience over traditional announcer-read programmatic, and helping brands reach audiences in a more relevant way.”

Adaptive Ads run through a standard VAST tag, which allows Gumball to partner across the industry, regardless of platform. Early test campaigns report evidence of the product quickly becoming a premium alternative to programmatic. “We’ve run both host-read and programmatic podcast ads before, so we were curious how Adaptive Ads would stack up,” says Elsie Kaplan, VP of Partnerships at Adopter Media. ‘The results honestly blew us away. This campaign for Graza performed right in line with our host-read efforts, but with the ease and scale of programmatic. It was also fun to see what the AI came up with! It actually gave us a few great taglines.”

For more info or to receive a demo, Advertisers can contact the Gumball sales team at advertising@gumball.fm. For shows interested in running Adaptive Ads, reach out to partnerships@gumball.fm.

About Gumball

Gumball is the marketplace for advertisers to buy host-read ads directly from podcasters and YouTubers. The platform enables advertisers to easily book impactful advertising campaigns through a modern and transparent buying process. It was created by the team at Headgum, an acclaimed comedy-centric podcast network established in 2015. To learn more about Gumball and the platform, visit https://gumball.fm.