Acast have launched Smart Recommendations – an AI search engine that allows advertisers to describe who they wish to reach, making campaign planning faster, smarter and more effective.
Using OpenAI’s LLM technology, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and Acast data, Smart Recommendations can turn a prompt like “I want to reach women in Australia interested in investing” into a curated list of high-fit podcasts. It’s designed to surface the right shows, faster.
Smart Recommendations is the first release from Acast Intelligence, a new core capability toward using AI to enhance its product suite for both creators and advertisers.
Matt MacDonald, Chief Product Officer for Acast said:
“The podcast landscape is vast, and finding the perfect audience can be time-consuming and challenging. Smart Recommendations solves this by harnessing the power of Acast’s decade of proprietary data combined with Podchaser’s insights, and providing a ‘second brain’ for advertisers. This empowers them to discover hidden gems and connect with ideal audiences with unprecedented speed and precision. It’s about moving beyond guesswork to truly understand and reach the right audiences.”
Smart Recommendations is available to advertisers launching campaigns via Acast’s ad platform and Acast’s internal sales teams worldwide.
Key features include:
• Natural language prompts: Advertisers can simply describe their target audience in plain language.
• Advanced semantic search: The system understands the intent behind a query, including context and related concepts. It can extrapolate from a prompt and apply a deeper level of nuance.
• Rich show insights: Recommendations are based on deep analysis of podcast content, audience demographics, engagement, tone, and style.
• Transparent recommendations: Every suggestion is accompanied by detailed explanations of why it was chosen, helping advertisers make informed decisions.
Over 200 campaign briefs have utilised the tool in testing, with a significant reduction in planning time, up to 92% in some cases. 80% of ad buyers also found previously unconsidered podcasts for their campaigns. Early indicators from shows with under 50,000 weekly listens show a significant uplift, including a 14% increase in median purchase rate and a 35% increase in median visit rate, according to Podscribe data.
Henrik Isaksson, Regional Managing Director for Acast ANZ, said:
“The launch of Smart Recommendations is a perfect example of our relentless pursuit of valuable podcast audiences in Australia and the use cases are nearly endless. Simplifying the buying process for advertisers has long been our mission and we’re uniquely positioned to offer this at scale across our entire content slate.”
More information can be found here: https://advertise.acast.com/smart-recommendations