The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Advertising and Sponsorship
By pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump)
According to research by Podcast Insights, there are more than 2 million active podcasts and counting.
As a marketer for a small to mid-sized business, you might be interested in podcast sponsorship, but not know where to start. Mainly because there are so many podcasts to choose from. How do you know which podcasts your target audience is listening to?
To help you determine what ad strategy is right for you and where to put your podcast dollars, I spoke to HubSpot’s podcasting team and did some additional research to comprise a list of helpful strategies for finding, vetting, and advertising on a podcast that aligns with your brand.
Podcast Advertising Terminology
Tips for Finding and Sponsoring Podcasts
Navigating Podcast Sponsorship
Podcast Advertising Terminology
Before we discuss the ins and outs of podcast advertising, let’s review the terminology you need to know before reaching out to podcast hosts and networks.
- CPM Rate: CPM stands for “cost per mille.” The CPM represents a flat standard rate advertisers pay for every 1,000 impressions.
- Host-Read Ad: a pre-recorded ad that is voiced by the host(s) of the podcast.
- Dynamic Insertion: the use of software to automatically insert ads into pre-existing podcast audio. These ads can be easily changed across a podcast’s entire catalog without making changes to the original audio file.
- Programmatic Ad: pre-recorded advertisements that do not feature the original host of the podcast. Programmatic ads are typically deployed using dynamic insertion.
- Pre-Roll Ad: an ad placed at the beginning of a podcast episode.
- Mid-Roll Ad: an ad placed near the middle of a podcast episode.
- Post-Roll Ad: an ad placed at the end of a podcast episode.
- CTA: Call to action; unique URLs and discount codes are typically included in podcast CTAs to measure the performance of an ad’s effectiveness on a particular podcast.
- Downloads: how many times a podcast episode has been downloaded from a podcast hosting site. The most common metric to determine the impressions/listens of a podcast.
- Live-Read Ad: an ad that is performed live during a podcast episode, as opposed to being scripted and edited or dynamically inserted into the episode.
Now that you’re familiar with the necessary terminology, let’s discuss how to find and sponsor podcasts.
1. Consider podcast demographics.
While different types of TV shows might attract different audiences or demographics, the podcast demographics don’t change drastically from show to show, according to HubSpot’s former Podcast Manager Sam Balter.
Balter explained that the podcast audience demographic, which is generally made up of “affluent educated millennials” is a “good audience for brands pretty much regardless of what show you’re on.”
Why is the podcast audience so good? Because of their age, income, and education level, this particular group of people is old enough to make purchasing decisions and has enough income …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
