Don't Just Use Apple Podcasts To Find Shows To Advertise On. Do This Instead For Better Success.

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[00:00:00] [00:00:00] Heather: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the podcast advertising playbook. I'm your host, Heather Osgood. And on today's show, we're going to be talking about where to find podcasts to advertise on with over a million podcasts. Now on Apple believe last I heard there was like 1.3, maybe 1.4 million podcast, which is a huge number.

[00:00:22] Considering when I started about four and a half years ago, there were only four. 400,000 podcasts. There are lots and lots of options out there. Now, when we look at the number of podcasts, it's important for us to realize that while there are over a million podcasts that are listed out there, not all of them are actively producing podcast episodes.

[00:00:43] Actually most of them are probably not actively producing podcast episodes. So of course that narrows your search down. Quite a bit. Now, there are lots of different ways you could go about finding podcasts to advertise on, or if you were a [00:01:00] podcaster and you're looking to try and find sponsors and advertisers, how do we connect the two of you?

[00:01:05] Right? What is, what is the mechanism out there that is designed for that? Unfortunately, one of the big issues that we still face in podcasts is searchability, right? Something that I feel like people have been talking about now for several years, I've also talked to several companies who have tried to solve this problem and have said, we're going to solve this problem with searchability.

[00:01:27] It's not going to be an issue anymore, but I think that boils down to the fact that all podcasts cast are hosted on different hosting providers. They're distributed on different platforms. And while there is certainly a great number of crossovers. Especially within distribution, most podcasts, if not the 99% of podcasts should be on Apple or iTunes, most podcasts are going to be on something like a Google, Google Play or Spotify, or a Pandora.

[00:01:54] That doesn't mean that they're all there. Right. There are still a lot, lots of missing podcasts. So how do you find [00:02:00] the best podcast and that searchability issue? Is still an issue. My recommendation, if you're an advertiser and you're trying to find out which podcasts would be best for you is to do a couple of quick things.

[00:02:13] So first I would look at the agencies that are available to help you. There are certainly are a number of agencies out there that would be happy to connect you with the advertisers. Those could be companies like Advertise Casts, which has a platform. It might be a company like True Native Media. It might be a company, like Audioboom, or Acast.

[00:02:34] There are lots of different companies out there that can connect you with podcasts, but there are certainly a lot of variation within that as well. And I would say that one of the biggest variations is, are you going to a network or are you going to an agency that is only going to be selling you the podcasts that either they create or represents?

[00:02:57] And that is the case in a lot of [00:03:00] instances for True Native Media, we represent about 60 different podcasts and we sell ads on those podcasts. And so you can't go to other places to find their podcast or buy ads on their podcasts. But also, you can only buy the 60 podcasts that we work with.

[00:03:16] If you came to me and said, Hey, Heather, I'm really interested in getting on Oprah Super Soul Sunday podcast, like, can you help me with that? I would say no because we don't represent the Oprah show.

[00:03:27] I could certainly give you some options that I think would be good. That could be maybe nearly as good as Oprah's show. But I don't have Oprah. So I couldn't tell you, Oprah. And that's the case in a lot of instances, right?

[00:03:41] If you go to Midroll. Midroll is going to show you, sell you their shows that they represent. If you go to Wondery, they're going to sell you their shows that they either create or represent. So each different company has something different to bring to the table. And in a lot of cases, the companies out there that you could work with as an advertiser [00:04:00] are companies that are working specifically with a roster of shows.

[00:04:05] And like I said, sometimes that could be content that they are personally creating. And sometimes it's just representation content.

[00:04:12] In True Native Media's instance, we don't create any content we just represent because we know that there's lots of great content out there that needs to be represented.

[00:04:21] Now you also have companies that are out there and available. Like Ad Results or Vertitone One or Oxford Road or Right Side Up.

[00:04:31] And those are companies that will specifically work with a company, an advertiser and help them place campaigns on podcasts, across lots of different podcasts out there. And they have relationships with hundreds, if not thousands of different podcasts, they've got a really good lay of the land.

[00:04:52] They know all of the podcast players. And I highly recommend considering some of those agencies, if you are at a [00:05:00] place as an advertiser where you're looking to spend a decent amount of money.

[00:05:05] I don't believe you could go to a Veritone One or Ad Results and say, Hey, I've got a $5,000 budget. What can you do with that?

[00:05:12] I really believe that they are looking for people who are going to be spending upwards of a hundred thousand plus on their campaigns in order to work with a company like that. So it will be a bigger commitment and a bigger approach. However, they do have lots of relationships, as I said, and they also have a lot of mechanisms built in place where they can help you with your ad campaigns.

[00:05:38] Starting with an agency is a really good place to start because it will allow you to have one point of contact versus many points of contact, especially if you're brand new to podcast advertising, being able to work with an agency can make the difference between seen it being an easy experience or a difficult experience.

[00:05:57] Now, the other way that you certainly can [00:06:00] go about finding podcasts to advertise on, is just taking a look at the podcasts that are out there and available. Lots of different people are out there producing podcasts. Many are producing podcasts that are in your genre, you know, representing your target market. That would be a really good fit for you. So you can do things like go, you know, just on Apple podcast.

[00:06:24] You can also, there are, I feel like there are a couple of other places that I probably would start. Player FM has a really good ranking system for podcasts. And I feel like there's searchability on their site is really nice when I've looked for podcasts myself in the past, I've gone on Player FM because I just feel like it brings up a lot of different podcasts.

[00:06:46]You can also, go to Chartable. So Chartable is a site that ranks podcasts and it shows, you know, how they are ranking. The difficult part about Chartable is it gives you a ranking for a specific [00:07:00] show. So let's say you were interested in a business show and you really liked Masters Of Scale.

[00:07:04] So maybe you went on to the, you know, Charitable site and you put in Masters Of Scale. It's going to tell you how it ranks. Has it moved up in the rankings, has it moved down in the rankings, like where exactly has that show, you know, ranked, but the problem is with charitable, you can't go in and just it's like a business. I want business podcasts and it's just going to bring you up a list of business podcasts and how they rank.

[00:07:29]There's also a company out there called Podtrac that gives you, they produce a, a ranker on a regular basis. So you could Google that and I'm sure you could come up with a nice list of some of the top performing podcasts.

[00:07:41] But one of the things that I think is sometimes the most challenging part of podcast advertising is it's really difficult to tell how large an audience, a podcast has.

[00:07:52] You can't always tell. Does this podcast have a hundred thousand, or a million listeners, or does it have a [00:08:00] thousand? And part of it is that it's easy to put together a good professional looking podcast, which is terrific. And I shouldn't say it's easy. Of course there is a lot of work that goes into it, but it's not like producing a TV series or, you know, something to that magnitude.

[00:08:18] There are lots of people who produce quality podcasts that are out there and they maybe have, you know, a thousand listeners to their show. And that doesn't mean that you're not, you might not be interested in advertising on a show like that. That could be an incredible opportunity, but that show might just as easily have a hundred thousand or a million downloads.

[00:08:38] So it can be really difficult to determine from the outside, looking in what exactly you're getting into. And the reason why that's important is if you're interested in advertising on a podcast like The Daily, you're going to spend a whole lot more money than if you want to do like, you know, just a daily news podcast that is [00:09:00] produced, you know, at a different level, right?

[00:09:02] They're not going to have as large an audience. So you're not going to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. You might be spending a couple thousand dollars. So there's this huge range in size. And as an advertiser, you have to decide what are the types of podcasts you're interested in? Are you wanting to test and are, are you wanting to use a smaller budget to test podcast advertising?

[00:09:24] Or do you have a larger budget and you would like to invest more heavily in podcast. It just depends where you're at and what you feel like would be best for you. So it's important to kind of consider that as you are, looking at the landscape of podcast advertising.

[00:09:43] So just to kind of recap, if you're looking for podcasts to advertise on there, definitely a couple of different ways to go about that.

[00:09:50] You can look for an agency you can for networks. And as I mentioned, a lot of those are just going to be selling you their podcasts, but then you can also look to [00:10:00] agencies that do it a lot of podcasts to ad buying. So there are options there. Next, I would go to different rankers that you can find online.

[00:10:07] That'll give you a list of some of the best and most popular podcasts. And then finally just good old search, right? Get on the apps and just look for shows that seem like they could be a good fit for you.

[00:10:19] Now, those are good ways of finding shows. How do you approach a show if you're interested in advertising on their show?

[00:10:25] So I always recommend that podcasts have websites. Websites are great, a little human invention there, but a lot of podcasts, unfortunately, don't have websites. So hopefully fingers crossed the show that you're interested in has a website. And then hopefully they have some contact information and you can reach out to them in that way. 

[00:10:45] Another way certainly is going to be on social media. If you want to reach out directly to them, you know, direct message them comments on one of their posts. anything, you know, in that realm can work for you to get in front of these different podcasts, but [00:11:00] that can be a bit of work, to try and work with podcasts on an individual basis.

[00:11:05] So it just depends on the size of the team you have and what you're interested in doing. So I hope those options have been helpful for you.

[00:11:12] If you're interested in learning more about podcast advertising, you can reach out to us at truenativemedia.com and we would be happy to talk to and answer any of the questions you have about podcast advertising.

[00:11:24]Thanks so much. Take care, and we'll see you again next week.

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