How Privacy-First Data Is Changing Podcast Ads with Emma Raz of NumberEight

How can podcasting move past guesswork to build true, privacy-first audience demographics?

In this episode of PodBiz, Norma Jean Belenky speaks with Emma Raz, Director of Commercial at NumberEight, about the evolution of audience targeting and demographic data in podcasting. Emma shares how number eight was built post-GDPR to move beyond unreliable surveys and household IP tracking, using observed content consumption to deliver precise audience insights for advertisers and creators.

As she puts it: “Limitations often lead to innovation. That’s what paved the way for us to think about data in a different way.”

Here are some insightful moments within the episode:

How programmatic advertising and host-read extensions are reshaping podcast monetizationWhy traditional audience surveys and IP-based matching fall shortBuilding a privacy-first data framework under European GDPR lawsCurrent listener demographic trends, millennial dominance, and true crime subgenresAchieving data parity across audio, streaming, and the new frontier of video podcastingKey career lessons on trust, reputation, and leading lean teams

Emma Raz is the Director of Commercial at NumberEight, an audience intelligence platform specializing in privacy-first contextual and behavioral targeting. With a career background managing high-stakes hardware supply chains in Taiwan and leading business development at AppNext, she joined number eight as its first commercial hire to help scale its technology across digital media and podcasting.

Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmaraz/

Learn more at number eight: https://numbereight.ai/

Episode Chapters

(01:55) Where is the money in podcasting?

(04:29) Niche audience targeting and podcast lookalikes

(07:25) Building audience data in a privacy-first world