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Hurray For Advertisers! Podcast Advertising Attribution is Coming

Bryan Karas

September 11, 2018

We’ve talked up podcast advertising a lot and for good reason – the platform has a highly engaged audience that likes to spend money. Podcast hosts have the complete trust of listeners and that’s all you can really ask for as an advertiser…

Despite projected ad spend in the US market to be $659 million by 2020, podcast advertising does have a dark side.  And the lack of measurement and attribution tools is the main reason this medium hasn’t exponentially exploded.

Which is why tracking and measurement was the number one topic discussed at this year’s Podcast Upfront – the annual IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) podcast conference.

The day radio died?

Companies like MidRoll and other podcast ad networks have been able to crush it for smaller direct response brands like Casper, Dollar Shave Club and Squarespace.

The question now is whether podcast advertising will catch on and become a mainstream ad medium that attracts Fortune 500 brands…who make up a large percentage of radio’s $14B ad market.

Bryan Moffet, COO of National Public Media said, “It’s not a passive medium like radio, for example, which can be on in the background. Podcasts are much more likely to be an intentional, foreground experience. Someone tunes in because they want to listen and want to absorb it.”

Tracking marketing metrics and ROI on podcasts is kind of hard…but once the podcast advertising community figures out attribution – which is this year’s number one thing to figure out – we could see a monumental shift from radio ad spend to podcasting…

While you wait…

If you’re looking to start measuring podcast advertising spend now and don’t want to wait for this attribution thingy to finally get figured out there are some things you can do…

The most popular ad type is called “baked in” – this is when a podcast host voices an ad or goes off the cuff to promote a brand sponsoring the episode. This ad type is much less of an unwanted interruption and it seems like a natural extension of the show.

Most podcasts trigger ad impression based on downloads. Baked in ads are considered delivered as soon as its placement within the podcast is downloaded. Dynamic insertion ads – ads that are not spoken by any single host and bounce around from podcast to podcast – are delivered once 100% of the podcast is downloaded.

Then simply use coupon codes or landing pages specific to your podcast ads to track traffic and conversions. Simple enough right?


Case Study: The Interesting Way ZipRecruiter Captured a Podcast Audience’s Attention

ZipRecruiter created a podcast advertising campaign on Seth Godin’s podcast. They were able to capture the attention of one avid podcast listener who swears, “Fast forwarding past podcast ads is as much of a habit as skipping YouTube ads.” Learn how ZipRecruiter did it…


Sh*t You Need to Know

Twitter launches “audio only” broadcast feature on Periscope

Facebook renames Canvas Ads to Instant Experience ads; adds pixel

FB is combining website, app and offline purchase data into one view for advertisers

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About the Author

Bryan Karas

CEO

On a mission to save businesses $100M in wasted marketing spend by 2026. CEO at Playbook Media/ GrowTal, Angel Investor, Startup.

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