Podcast Advertising

Podcast sponsorship experts ADOPTER Media's Glenn Rubenstein and Athletic Greens' Martha Gallant discuss the benefits of sponsoring independent podcasts. (Live from the X Fronts) GR: I'm Glenn Rubenstein from the podcast advertising agency ADOPTER Media. I am here today to talk with Martha Gallant, the Senior Director of Audio Partnerships at Athletic Greens. How are things going at Athletic Greens with audio partnerships? MG: Always a good time. We're busy. We've got a lot of fun stuff going on. GR: To start with, we're going to dive in and talk about the different challenges brands face the different approaches to podcast advertising, but really focus on independent podcasts since they are so front and center at the X Fronts. What do you love about working with independent podcasters? MG: Independent podcasters are - in a lot of ways - our bread and butter, and we love kind of having access to the actual hosts and working really closely with them. Everything we do is based on a true partnership, product placement, and people who want to see our business succeed as much as we want to see their succeed. So it's been huge for us. We also love we love working with networks we enjoy. All kinds of different partnerships, but we love the smaller people, because it's a lot more collaborative. We can get creative about the partnerships. But it has to be a a deeper partnership and a little bit less transactional to really grow together. GR: Absolutely. And I think that's the thing that's really important for advertisers to keep in mind. You're here because you've heard such great things about podcast advertising. But you really have to look at the context of what you've heard about. And when you look at the huge success stories in this business, whether it's going back to Squarespace, Blue Apron, Helix Sleep -- all the brands that are so synonymous with podcast advertising -- you really have to look at the types of ads that got them to where they are and got them the results that they were looking for. And at the same time, the medium has evolved so much. Over recent years, then now there are so many different ways to place ads. New advertisers know that podcast advertising works. They've heard the stories, they want to try it, but they almost don't understand the process to get the effective result they're looking for. MG: Things have changed a lot. The podcast business has changed a lot and the demand is really high for inventory here. So you need to be a little bit more creative than those quick wins that people had five years ago. GR: I think that's really the key. Our podcast advertising agency, we work with over a dozen brands. We're placing about 20 million dollars in podcast ads this year. And what's amazing is every advertiser starts with a phone call to our agency, talking about what they want to do in this space. And a lot of times they're already frustrated all these different ways of buying ads (which is why they call us). The landscape has evolved beyond what they were expecting. They know that traditionally a host reads an ad, gives an endorsement of the product, tells a great compelling story, and somewhere along the way that translates into sales. Hopefully we can demystify some of this process today in how independent podcasts preserve that process. We love all of our independent and network partners. We work with a lot of them, but when brands really want that hands-on experience, you want that endorsement. You want that true partnership and a deeper integration than dealing simply trying to scale across 500 or a thousand different podcasts. Now, a series of transactions can be part of your audio strategy as well. But for that old school approach, it's very much alive and kicking with independent podcasters. How do you look at core demographics and targets and subject matter when you're evaluating your media mix? MG: No media partnership is off the table,

This is a deep dive into DesignCrowd and the long-tail success they've had with podcast sponsorships. It's an example of the results you can achieve with sponsoring podcasts. As the founder of a podcast advertising agency-and someone who has worked on hundreds of campaigns-I can tell you that most podcast sponsorships prioritize short-term results. As sponsors grow in this space, however, they start to recognize the incredible value of the long tail. No Podcast Advertising Case Study is Complete without the "Long Tail" What does "long tail" mean? It means the staying power of a podcast ad and its ability to drive long-term return on investment (ROI). Beyond immediate results, a single podcast sponsorship can continue to generate new business for weeks and months after its release. Statistically, most podcasts get the majority of their listens in the first week. Podcast advertising rates are often based on downloads and streams in the first 30 days of release. When you look beyond that time period, it's easy to see the huge bonus those additional listens can be for sponsors. This additional ROI can be due to a few different scenarios. For instance: Listeners hear an older episode and the ad at a later date. Or listeners recall the podcast sponsor when a relevant need arises. We recently spoke with Kevin Bradford, Content Marketing Manager at DesignCrowd. DesignCrowd is a crowdsourced graphic design platform, primarily aimed at businesses and entrepreneurs. This interview is a podcast advertising case study about the power of the long tail, which is a key part of DesignCrowd's podcast advertising strategy. Podcast Advertising Case Study Disclaimers As with all podcast advertising case studies, DesignCrowd's experience is unique (and your results may vary). Our podcast advertising agency, ADOPTER Media, has done business with DesignCrowd on a few of their podcast ad campaigns. Without further adieu, here's our conversation. Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:46 - 18.4MB) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS Glenn Rubenstein from ADOPTER Media talks to Kevin Bradford from DesignCrowd Glenn Rubenstein: Kevin, thanks for joining me. To start with, for those who don't know, what is DesignCrowd? Kevin Bradford: Yeah, well, thanks for having me, Glenn. DesignCrowd is an online website that allows customers, small businesses, entrepreneurs to outsource or crowdsource custom logo, web, and graphic design from designers all around the world. So, if you're a small business and you need a new logo you can submit a brief to DesignCrowd. We will send that brief out to our community of 550,000 designers and within days you'll have a whole selection of other logos and designs that you can choose from, any project receives between 60 and 100 different designs, and you select the best one and put that forward for payment for the design. You get the logo and the designer gets paid-wherever they are in the world. DesignCrowd's Podcast Advertising Strategy Glenn: How big a part of the overall DesignCrowd marketing is podcast advertising? Kevin: Podcast advertising is a relatively new part of our marketing campaign. We've been doing it just coming up to a year now and it's been a massive learning curve for us, but it's become an important part of our whole marketing strategy. And obviously one of the key things is making sure it incorporates into a lot of the other things you do. So, whether that's email campaigns or other social media advertising, it all has to work together to get your message across, engage the right audience and reach as many people as possible. How DesignCrowd Got Started Sponsoring Podcasts (and what they've learned) Glenn: You mentioned the learning curve. What do you feel that you've learned from your first year of running podcast advertising campaigns? Kevin: A huge amount.

This is a podcast advertising case study about DesignCrowd and the success they've had sponsoring podcasts. It's also an example of the longer-term (or "long tail") results you can achieve with podcast ads. As the founder of a podcast advertising agency--and someone who has worked on hundreds of campaigns--I can tell you that most podcast sponsorships prioritize short-term results. As sponsors grow in this space, however, they start to recognize the incredible value of the long tail. No...

In my podcast advertising book, I discuss the first podcast sponsorship I ever heard, which was the ManGrate ads on the Adam Carolla Show in 2010. In this episode, we're going to get the story behind that ad campaign. I recently had the chance to chat with Evan McConnell, inventor of the ManGrate grill enhancement system. Our discussion was really interesting, and a fantastic opportunity to get the perspective of a veteran podcast advertiser. In this interview, we discuss how the ManGrate started to advertise on podcasts, the results they achieved, and the challenges of running year's worth of marketing campaigns across multiple podcasts... Have questions or ideas for future episodes? I give out my podcast advertising agency email address within the episode, and I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for listening, Glenn Rubenstein ADOPTER Media MY PODCAST ADVERTISING INTERVIEW WITH EVAN MCCONNELL 00:03 GLENN RUBENSTEIN My name is Glenn Rubenstein. This is Podcast Advertising. Welcome to the first episode. 00:11 GLENN I think it's fitting to start where it all began, for me at least, and that's what the ManGrate grill enhancement system. Now if you've read my book, you know that this was the first podcast ad I ever heard on the Adam Carolla Show back in 2010. In this episode, we're going to get the story behind those ads. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Evan MacConnell, the inventor of the ManGrate. Our discussion was really interesting, and it was a rare opportunity to get the perspective of an experienced podcast sponsor. In this interview, we discuss the story behind the ManGrate and how those podcast ads came to be. We also talk about the results they achieved and the challenges of running years worth of campaigns. So without further ado, here's the interview. 00:56 GLENN Evan, thanks so much for joining me. So, let me see if I remember the story. You were tearing down or renovating a steakhouse- you discovered these cast iron grill grates. And after some research figured out that that was the key to unlocking the steakhouse flavor. Did I remember that story correctly? 01:14 EVAN MCCONNELL Yeah. Many many years before, I had to open a restaurant-nightclub that used to be a steakhouse and removed one of the state grills and it had a large commercial cast iron grates on it, that I just took home and threw on top of my backyard barbecue. They weren't really well designed for that application because they were actually very hard to clean, so they weren't as effective as I'd like. My son just bought a house and was getting a grill and he just wanted to see where he could get something like that. You know, he saw what a difference it made. So, he suggested we ought to design something that was specifically designed for backyard barbecues that would be easier to clean and be a size that would sit on most barbecues and that's that was the sort of the idea. 02:09 GLENN So back in 2010, podcasting was still relatively young and very few companies had even discovered podcast advertising. How did you have the idea to advertise on Adam Carolla's podcast? 02:23 EVAN A friend of mine worked at a radio station but hadn't had a radio show, and he was exploring the whole podcast universe as it was just starting to emerge. I hired him to be a marketing director for ManGrates. He suggested that you know Adam Carolla and others might be the good outlets for us to start promoting ManGrates, and he got me in touch, I got in touch with Adam. In fact, I got him on the phone while I was driving down the road and I think Adam's driving the road, we both pulled up off the side of the road and talked for a while as I explained what we were doing. And Adam loved the concept and I love the idea of really getting an endorsement because this is the type of product that isn't commonly available. So, I thought it really needed some explanation.

My name is Glenn Rubenstein. I'm the author of Podcast Advertising Works: How to Turn Engaged Audiences Into Loyal Customers. I'm also the founder of the ADOPTER Media podcast advertising agency. I've worked in podcast advertising for over 5 years now. I'm excited at how much the industry has grown--and continues to grow. In fact, Bridge Ratings estimates that over $243 million will be spent on podcast advertising for 2017, on its way to over $500 million for the year 2020. Since I published my book, many people have asked "where's the podcast?" This is Episode 0! In future episodes, we're going to talk with podcast advertisers and podcasters alike about this side of the business. We'll also answer your questions and give you actionable advice about best practices for podcast ads, podcast advertising rates, and more. Please give this teaser episode a listen and email us YOUR questions. (I give out my direct email address at the end of the episode.) Also, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcatcher--and look for our first episode to launch soon. Thanks for listening!