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Thought Leadership November 2025: ORBIT Rankings and Insights on the Top 15 Performing Comedy Podcasts

ORBIT ranks podcasts by actual advertiser performance, not exposure or vanity metrics. Built on real campaign data across 500+ advertisers managing $1.6 Billion+ in annual spend.

 

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Comedy’s #1 in advertiser investment. But ROI shows some funny business.

 

November 2025 ORBIT Rankings

Below are the Top 15 Performing Comedy Podcasts, ranked by advertiser results over the past 12 months.
These are the shows that consistently outperformed benchmarks and delivered measurable ROI.

Top 15 Performing Comedy Podcasts - November 2025

November 2025 ORBIT Insights

  • Laughter, Not the Best Medicine: Comedy claims the most ad spend, but as a genre, performance is in the bottom tier. So why the outsized investment? It may be due to brand safety concerns, where Comedy appears to be a safer option for scaling over, say, Politics and Government. Stop treating Comedy as a safe default. It’s a sophisticated category that requires real expertise.

  • The Best vs. The Rest: While the genre is soft overall, the top 15 Comedy podcasts boast elite-tier performance. These shows represent distinct comedy styles and formats, from advice to game shows. The takeaway? There are no guarantees in Comedy performance, but there are plenty of ways to turn funny into money.

  • Category Matters: Not all Comedy advertisers are created equal. High-spend categories, like gambling and shopping, actually underperform, while premium lifestyle brands excel. The lesson: comedy can offer a great ROI as long as there’s audience fit and you don’t overspend.

  • The Summer Slump: Scaling Comedy spend? Take the Summer off. In 3 of the last 4 complete years (2021, 2023, 2024), Q3 performance was weakest. Instead, use Q2/Q3 learning, testing, and incremental optimization, then scale in Q1, where performance has historically been best.

Unlock past ORBIT insights

 

How ORBIT Works (And Why It’s Different)

ORBIT normalizes performance across different advertiser goals—whether that’s target CAC, desired ROAS, or cost per qualified lead. This allows direct comparison across campaign types, something download-based rankings can’t provide.

The difference:
Many tracking tools tell you who’s advertising and estimate spend, count ad occurrences, or measure downloads and reach.

ORBIT shows which podcasts made money and which ones didn’t.
We factor in what advertisers paid, what they were trying to achieve, how it was measured, including survey-based attribution data, and whether the investment delivered ROI. That’s the difference between counting impressions and measuring profit.

Our methodology:

  • Minimum 3 distinct advertisers per show
  • Minimum 3 paid drops per advertiser
  • At least 50% of placements must exceed advertiser goals
  • 12-month rolling analysis updated monthly
  • Attribution-normalized across pixels, codes, URLs, and modeling

 

For Chief Audio Officers

ORBIT eliminates guesswork from podcast planning:

  • De-risk initial buys by seeing which shows have proven track records with similar advertisers
  • Optimize faster with normalized performance data across attribution models
  • Find hidden gems before they become expensive tier-1 shows
  • Break category assumptions with data that shows where your customers actually listen
  • Scale with confidence, knowing which placements consistently deliver ROI

The era of buying podcast ads based on download numbers is over. ORBIT shows you which shows drive performance, before you spend a dollar.

“This is what happened when real companies spent real money. If you want to know which podcasts work, start here.”
— Dan Granger, CEO, Oxford Road

 

Subscribe to The Influencer for monthly ORBIT updates

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ORBIT: The Oxford Road Benchmark Intelligence Tool

Here’s What $1.6 Billion in Performance Data Actually Reveals.

The first podcast rankings based on ROI, not downloads. Built on real campaign results from hundreds of advertisers.

 

After more than a decade of development, Oxford Road is unveiling ORBIT: a first-of-its-kind Benchmark Intelligence Tool built on real campaign outcomes from across the industry.

ORBIT aggregates over $1.6 billion in verified podcast spend, across hundreds of advertisers and 120+ genres, then normalizes it into one question: What actually worked?

It doesn’t tell you which podcasts are popular. It tells you which ones drive ROI. Which ones convert. Which ones are worth the check you’re about to write.

October 2025 ORBIT Rankings

Below are the Top 15 Performing Podcasts in October 2025, ranked by advertiser results over the previous 12 months.
These are the shows that consistently outperformed benchmarks and delivered measurable ROI.

What ORBIT Reveals

  • Big reach ≠ big results: Joe Rogan and most tier-1 mega-shows didn’t crack the Top 15. Only 3 of the top performers (20%) are household-name podcasts. Advertisers systematically overpay for reach while ignoring shows that deliver better returns.

  • Comedy and politics dominate. 11 of the top 15 performers are comedy or news/politics shows—the exact categories many advertisers deliberately avoid due to brand safety concerns. Controversial content, when aligned with brand values, drives action.

  • Stop buying your own industry. We tested it: Tech companies don’t perform better on tech podcasts. Finance brands don’t win on business shows. There’s no statistically significant lift from matching your industry to your genre. Your customers listen to the same shows everyone else does: comedy, true crime, politics. The genre silo is costing you discoveries.

  • Faith-based shows overperform. Religious podcasts, particularly Christianity-focused content, rank in the top 6 genres for consistent ROI across multiple verticals—a finding impossible to surface without normalized, goal-based data

See the Top 15 Performing Comedy Podcasts from November 2025

 

How ORBIT Works (And Why It’s Different)

ORBIT normalizes performance across different advertiser goals—whether that’s target CAC, desired ROAS, or cost per qualified lead. This allows direct comparison across campaign types, something download-based rankings can’t provide.

The difference:
Many tracking tools tell you who’s advertising and estimate spend, count ad occurrences, or measure downloads and reach

ORBIT shows which podcasts made money and which ones didn’t.
We factor in what advertisers paid, what they were trying to achieve, how it was measured, including survey-based attribution data, and whether the investment delivered ROI. That’s the difference between counting impressions and measuring profit.

Our methodology:

  • Minimum 3 distinct advertisers per show
  • Minimum 3 paid drops per advertiser
  • At least 50% of placements must exceed advertiser goals
  • 12-month rolling analysis updated monthly
  • Attribution-normalized across pixels, codes, URLs, and modeling

 

For Chief Audio Officers

ORBIT eliminates guesswork from podcast planning:

  • De-risk initial buys by seeing which shows have proven track records with similar advertisers
  • Optimize faster with normalized performance data across attribution models
  • Find hidden gems before they become expensive tier-1 shows
  • Break category assumptions with data that shows where your customers actually listen
  • Scale with confidence, knowing which placements consistently deliver ROI

The era of buying podcast ads based on download numbers is over. ORBIT shows you which shows drive performance, before you spend a dollar.

“This is what happened when real companies spent real money. If you want to know which podcasts work, start here.”
— Dan Granger, CEO, Oxford Road

 

Subscribe to The Influencer for monthly ORBIT updates

george costanza