How to Launch Podcast Ads that Convert for DTC Brands 🎙️
A guide to launching podcast ads for DTC brands
Executive summary
Podcast ad programs can be a profitable source of customer acquisition for DTC brands, but they can also be a waste of money if bought poorly.
This guide aims to help improve the odds of an initial podcast ad test.
Table of contents
The step by step guide for launching podcast ads
Define your goals
Identify your target audience
Research podcasts
Plan and negotiate
Finalize pre-launch checklist
Setup measurement
Optimize and iterate
The step by step guide for launching podcast ads
Define your goals
The first step is to outline the goals of your podcast campaign:
What’s your objective? (e.g., brand awareness, driving website traffic, or sales).
What’s your budget? Consider both internal resource and placement costs.
Target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA): If you’re aiming for performance metrics, calculate your CAC or CPA goals (e.g., staying within ~$100 CAC for new customer acquisition).
What’s your success criteria? (e.g., what metrics will determine success and by when do you need to see results)
Every brand will be different, but it's important to define these goals ahead of time and get the proper alignment from leadership.
For example, podcasts typically take longer to see results than a typical digital ad campaign. This means that you may need to wait ~2-3 months before you can properly get a read on a single show's performance.
If your brand is not ready to take on the increased ad costs in the near term as you learn more about what shows are working or not, then you may want to explore another ad channel that has a tighter feedback loop.
However, if you have buy-in on the goals and the patience to test and learn, then you can greatly improve the odds of getting a successful podcast program up and running before you’ve even launched.
Key risk area for consideration:
I’ve seen podcast programs fail to get off the ground because they underestimated the time it takes to see results.
You can leverage more upper funnel metrics in the interim (like website visits, increases in direct traffic and brand surveys) to help you show early signs of success as the program ramps up.
Identify your target audience
The next step is to identify your target audience.
You don’t need to do extensive customer research to begin podcast advertising, but you should have a general idea of who your target audience is before working on partner selection.
Audience demographics
Does your brand skew male or female?
How old are they?
Where are they geographically located?
What’s their education and income level?
Interests and behaviors
What content are they already consuming?
What Reddit and/or Facebook group communities do they participate in?
Who do they look to for helping them make purchasing decisions?
What other products like yours are they already buying?
What does their lifestyle look like?
If you don’t have this information, then you can pretty quickly spin up a typeform questionnaire and survey your existing customers via an email campaign.
This information is key because it will act as the basis for the kinds of shows that you go after for your initial testing. You want to align your target audience with the show's audience that you are advertising on as much as possible.
For example, if your brand skews male, is based in the US and is interested in health and wellness, then you will want to partner with folks like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia.
Key risk area for consideration:
I’ve seen shows underperform when their target audience was not highly aligned with the show's audience.
For example, if your brand only sells products in the US, then you want to avoid partners who’s audience over index internationally. You can ask shows for these details during the negotiation phase.
Research podcasts
There are 3 primary ways to begin researching podcasts:
Manually using internal team resources and tools like Podscribe and Podchaser
Through agency partners or consultants who already have a roster of shows they work with and a general understanding of which shows perform well
Through ad networks like Spotify, iHeart Radio (avoid them) and AudioBoom
You should take your goals and target audience information to begin creating a list of potential partners to test. You can do this in a Google Sheet for low cost.
Podscribe is a helpful podcasting tool to see show size, other brand advertisers, and the length of time certain brands have been working with a show.
It’s typically a good sign if you see a long ad history on shows with brands that are similar to yours in terms of category (health and wellness, tech, fintech, etc) and campaign goals (sales, brand awareness, etc.)
Podchaser is a helpful tool for getting the contact details from the shows to reach out to them directly.
You can then augment your efforts and your initial list by working with an agency/consultant or an ad network.
I prefer to work with agencies when I can as they are usually network agnostic and will help you put together a show list that maps more closely to your target audience.
The downside of working with agencies is that they usually charge a percentage of media fee, which increases your campaign costs.
The benefit of them is they can expedite the whole testing process while educating your team on how the channel works.
Key risk area for consideration:
I would typically avoid going straight to an ad network or self-serve platform like Spotify or iHeart Radio for initial testing.
These are big companies who pitch mostly dynamic ad insertions (more on that below) as an easy alternative to Meta campaigns, but the placements that you will get from these placements are much lower quality than working directly with the hosts (or their managers) for baked in ad reads or episodic buys.
The real alpha and feature of podcast buying is that it is still a fragmented market.
Your best shows will be found in finding the arbitrage in a show's rates and their growing audience.
This is harder to do with dynamic ad buys through large networks.
The counter here is that dynamic / programmatic ad buys are becoming more common, which makes finding true baked in buys harder to find. They can work, but you should discount programmatic CPM rates by ~30% to account for the expected lower performance.
Partner selection guidance
Media buyers should prioritize the following attributes in partner selection:
Host read ad reads with a personal endorsement > non-host read ads
Baked-in ads (also known as integrated, hard coded or embedded ads) > dynamic ad insertion (DAI) ads
Mid-roll ad placements > Pre-roll and Post-roll ad placements
Whitelisting rights to leverage hosts name, image, and likeness (NIL) on custom landing pages, social posts and/or in paid ads
CPM’s < $30 (CPM guardrails are category dependent and will need to be found through testing)
Simulcast shows with a YouTube presence > shows with no YouTube presence
The more of the above attributes that you can lock in the better it will be for campaign performance. I’ve created a definition list in the appendix that goes into more detail of each of these.
Key risk area for consideration:
I’ve rarely seen podcast ads work in regards to the sales and CAC objective (IE: direct response ads) that do not have a baked in, host read ads with a personal endorsement and custom landing page.
The caveat here and case for dynamic ad insertion is if you are working more on brand awareness basis and looking for increased reach. This may make sense during times of a product or feature launch for example.
Also, they can work if the CPM’s are low enough (IE: 30% lower than embedded or episodic buys)
Locking in most of these attributes takes more work to set up and they are harder to find, but it’s worth the effort if you are looking to generate sales directly from the ad reads.
Plan and negotiate
Once you have your target list of shows, then you will enter the negotiation phase.
If you are working with hosts directly or through an agency to buy host read ads (preferred method), then you should be able to negotiate each show’s rates individually.
If you are working through a programmatic ad platform like Spotify, then you are paying for placements based on the CPM’s of the platform. This is how Meta and Google’s ad buying works.
For now, let’s focus on host read ads as those are the more performant of the two.
Your key levers for negotiating host read ad reads will be the CPM’s and total # of ad reads. You can usually get a lower CPM rate if you book a higher number of shows.
For example:
Initial show proposal: $10k/episode for 4 shows at $40 CPM
Your brand’s counter: $6k/episode for 6 shows at $24 CPM
Final Negotiated Rate: $8k per episode for $32 CPM
In this example, we were able to drop the CPM by $8 by agreeing to more episodes for the campaign's duration. You can download the above calculator here.
This does bring up the total campaign cost (from $40k to $48k), but you’ve basically secured a free episode and then some through this process.
Instead of trying to get 6 episodes at $60k total with the original CPM rate of $40, you’ve landed 6 episodes for $48k total at the negotiated CPM rate of $32.
This usually works because shows want to partner with brands for the long term. It’s easier for them to give a little on CPM, then it is to go through the work to find another advertiser to fill those extra spots.
If the show you are negotiating with isn’t willing to be flexible on rates, then it may be a sign that they will be a tough partner to work with later on if performance is below targets.
A good show will try to help your performance by giving you a value add spot, changing the ad placement or the ad read, and/or by throwing in a free social or newsletter post. More on that in the optimize and iterate section below.
Key risk area for consideration:
The key risk areas in negotiations includes:
Paying to high of a CPM on untested show (paying >$x CPM’s)
You will eventually learn what CPM’s work best for your category and goals. Once you do, then you will have some guardrails to use for show assessment to quickly understand “how expensive” a show is.
For example, brands with a higher LTV can usually afford a higher CPM.
Overcommitting to a high total campaign cost (~6 month or longer deals)
I would recommend staying between 4 - 6 episodes per show for an initial test, which is usually a 3 months agreement.
Not having an opt out agreement
You should try to push for a 30 day opt out clause in your contract agreement that way you can exit the partnership early if performance is way off targets.
Finalize pre-launch checklist
I typically recommend brands take a very active approach to partnerships and work with each show individually during the setup.
I haven’t found much success with non-host read ads that are blasted across a network.
The host's personal endorsements are key for getting podcast ads to work and the extra time it takes to set up the show for success will be worth it when the results start coming in.
This prelaunch setup includes favorable, negotiated CPM rates (from above), gifted products for the host to leverage in their personal endorsement of the ad read, ad script guidance that includes your brands key value propositions and custom landing page builds to support measurement (more on that below) and conversion rate performance.
Here’s what you will need for each:
Ability to gift product to the host to generate personalized ad reads
Ability to generate talking points for the host to be used as a guide for the ad script
Talking points should include:
Brand name mentioned early in the read
2-3 value props called out up front
A section for the host’s personal endorsement
You will want this section to be the longest part of the ad read if possible.
Strong call-to-action (CTA) that includes a custom promo code for the show and vanity URL
Custom landing page tailored to host
Key risk area for consideration:
Launching ads to generic landing page without featuring the show host is likely to lead to lower campaign performance.
Setup measurement
There are a few ways that you can measure and track podcast performance:
Podcast pixel: this is a pixel that you place on your website similar to Meta’s conversion pixel and it’s the closest to digital campaign tracking.
Podscribe has an out of the box pixel that you can install for example, but it requires that the shows that you are working with also have the tracking setup on their end
Custom discount code: this is a unique discount code for each partner that you work with
Vanity or custom URL: a custom domain name that is easy to remember and can redirect users to a website.
URL parameters: these are additional parameters that you can ad to the end of your custom landing page URL that allow you to easily see campaign performance in GA4 or other analytics platforms
Post-purchase survey: this is fired as a survey question after a customer submits a purchase where it asks them “How did you hear about us?”
At a minimum, I recommend using custom discount codes for tracking orders and sales metrics for each partner that you are placing ads with.
Ideally, you will have custom discount codes, custom landing pages and have the post-purchase survey setup to fully track performance.
The post-purchase survey is a helpful safeguard for customers who bought from the ad read, but failed to visit the landing page or use the code.
I haven’t used podcast pixels much, but it doesn’t hurt to set that up as another level of tracking if you can.
Key risk area for consideration:
Podcast ads are hard to track.
They are more top of the funnel than your typical Meta or Google campaigns and they often don’t result in hard click sales (at least initially).
By having multiple tracking methods setup, you set yourself up for the highest chance of tracking all the sales a potential podcast test is driving.
Optimize and iterate
Podcast ad optimizations move slower than a typical digital ad campaign, but you do have some levers to pull if performance is below expectations.
Those include:
Changing the ad read: sometimes an initial ad read misses the mark in terms of connecting with the target audience. You usually can work with the host to revise the script to make it more aligned with what the audience expects to hear and/or more direct response focused.
Getting a free value add spot: sometimes the audience may need to hear the ad a few more times before they are ready to pull the trigger on a purchase. You can usually work with the host to get a free ad spot to see if it improves performance before cancelling a show.
Targeting a different kind of guest: sometimes the shows your ad is airing on are on guests that are not super relevant for your brand. You can usually work with the host and get on upcoming shows where you think your target audience is more likely to tune in.
Summary
Buying podcast ads is hard, but that is the feature of the medium and not a bug.
If done well, then you can build a great 9 figure DTC brand off the back of a strong show list (see AG1, Helix, Manscaped, etc.).
My general approach for getting a podcast program to work includes working with shows that:
Have audiences that are highly aligned to your target demographic
Are willing to do host read ads with a personal endorsement
Selling baked in ad spots in mid-roll placements
Have simulcast spots also airing on YouTube
Allow you to build custom landing pages to leverage their name, image and likeness for improved conversion rates and tracking
And most importantly, the teams that are running these programs need to be willing to be patient and iterate on their show list, ad scripts and measurement methodologies as they find what works best for them.
Appendix
Definitions list
What are the Types of Podcast Ads?¹
Pre-Roll: Ads that are usually 15-30 seconds long and run before or after the show’s intro.
Mid-Roll: Ads that are 30-60 seconds and are inserted around the midpoint of an episode.
Post-Roll: Ads that are 15-30 seconds and run at the end of the show.
How are Podcast Ads Placed on Shows?¹
Baked in ads: also known as integrated, hard-coded, or embedded ads, are a permanent part of a podcast episode's audio file. They are added to the podcast during recording and remain there as long as the episode is available.
Dynamic ad insertion (DAI): leverages pre-produced ads (host or non-host read) and uses server-side ad technology to insert audio ads into live linear programming on-demand based on a myriad of factors including geo and audience-based targets.
What are the Types of Podcast Ad Reads?¹
Host Read: Live Read or ads that are pre-recorded by the host
Non-Host Read: Ads that are read by someone other than the host and pre-recorded. Also called, “voiced-over” ads.
Value ad spots: these are basically “free” spots that shows grant advertisers if performance is slower than expected
360 deals or multi-media deals: these are deals where you negotiate for more than the podcast placements
You may put a package together where you want 4x podcast reads, 2x newsletters and 1x social posts.
The benefits of these deals is that you can usually negotiate a lower total campaign CPM rate. I’ve also seen these deals work the best as it hits the target audience across different (and often more clickable) ad placements.
30 day opt out clause: a clause in the contract that allows you to exit the deal early if performance is well below targets
Simulcast shows: Show has a strong YouTube presence where they post their ad reads in addition to their podcast reads
Vanity URL: a custom domain name that is easy to remember and can redirect users to a website. They are also known as branded URLs or custom URLs.
Whitelisting: when a creator gives a brand permission to run ads on their social media accounts or using their name, image and likeness (NIL) across brand assets
Sources
¹Ultimate Guide to Podcast Advertising in 2024
²Podcast Ad Script Template & Examples
Mid-Roll Podcast Ads Outperform: New Data Shows 35% Higher Engagement Rates
