Two Sides to Podcast Advertising = Two Services from Podtrac Inc

Back in 2004, years before iPhones hit the market, some smart techy types (one of them a famous MTV VJ from the 80’s) came up with a way to distribute audio files as if they were blog posts.  Yep, it’s now called podcasting.

It didn’t take long for podcasters to start looking for ways to make money from the work they were doing.  Advertising seemed like the logical model, but there were two big problems:

  • There wasn’t a clear way for podcasters and advertisers to find each other, and
  • There wasn’t a way to measure podcast audiences -- so no way to determine the value to advertisers of any given podcast

Without these two integral services podcast advertising would just never reach any type of scale. In 2005, Podtrac Inc launched with the mission of solving these two problems and began offering podcast ad sales and podcast measurement services.  Over the next ten years, hundreds of advertisers and tens of thousands of podcasts turned to Podtrac for podcast advertising campaigns and the data they needed to understand podcast audiences.  

Beginning in 2015, the podcast advertising industry began growing rapidly.  More advertisers became interested in podcasting and these new advertisers were not always sure where to turn for reliable information to know if podcasts were right for them or which podcasts might be right for them.

  • On one hand they needed independent, open measurement along with demographics to understand podcast audiences.
  • On the other, they needed expertise in running podcast ad campaigns

In response, Podtrac Inc divided its offerings into two separate services:

  • Podtrac for independent audience measurement and analytics, and

  • Authentic for podcast advertising services.

As of May 2016, Podtrac is 100% focused on podcast analytics and provides the data and context advertisers and publishers need to understand podcast audiences.  Also beginning in May 2016, Podtrac began publishing the first-ever comprehensive podcast industry ranking with the goal of making the same types of reports and data that have been available for display advertising and other types of digital media for years available for podcasts.

Authentic is now the Podtrac Inc brand focused on leveraging Podtrac’s more than 10 years of podcast advertising experience.  Authentic's mission is to ensure successful ad campaigns for its partner advertisers and podcasters.

2016 and beyond will be exciting times for the podcast industry and Podtrac Inc will continue to grow and change to support whatever comes.









 

Why It's Time for a Podcast Measurement Standard

Just a few years ago, you probably had a hard time describing exactly what a "podcast" was to someone who didn’t know. They're not quite a radio show, but not quite an audio book... but not really in between, either. Flash forward to today and just about everyone seems to have a favorite podcast to call their own. But for advertisers, figuring out how to advertise in podcasts can still be confusing.  The audience is there - it's just finding the right shows to reach that audience and reliable audience metrics to verify that they have, that is still a stumbling block for many.

You've undoubtedly heard of the podcast "Serial," first launched in 2014. In addition to debuting at "Number One" on iTunes, it also became the fastest podcast to ever reach five million downloads. Forget podcasting - "Serial" was an overnight sensation whether you're talking about books, TV shows, movies - you name it. There are network television programs that would kill to have a passionate audience of five million people tuning in week after week.

And the incredible thing is that "Serial" is not alone. "This American Life," "The Nerdist" and similar shows have grown large and stable fan bases over the last several years. This growth in audiences has naturally led to advertisers seeing opportunities, with increased ad spending as a result.

So why don’t we see more advertisers taking advantage of podcasting?

If you polled the leading podcast advertisers today and asked them what their number one concern is, you’d get a similar answer across the board: the fact that there isn't a consistent, reliable source of measurement data across podcasts and networks. Many podcasts are selling their own ads and there are various ad networks representing podcasts, but each determines its own method of measuring and reporting downloads.

Many advertisers rely on iTunes as an objective way to get an idea of popular shows for media plans. Even though podcasts have long since moved beyond being synonymous with iTunes and the iPod/iPhone, this is the best way to approximate audience size for most advertisers. But rank in iTunes is not based on the total size of an audience or the total number of downloads - it's based on the total number of new subscribers that a particular show has received. This means that the number one "Comedy" podcast on iTunes isn't necessarily the one with the largest audience, but with the largest NEW audience. A subtle (but important) difference.

Advertisers routinely ask where they can go to find reliable data about the size of the shows that are making waves across the Internet today.  And a key metric for these advertisers is unique monthly users - a metric that up ‘til now just doesn’t exist in the industry.

An industry standard podcast measurement system has obvious benefits to both advertisers and podcast publishers.

For advertisers, they’ll have solid information that they can use to make sure they spendthe right money in the best way. For podcasters, they’ll finally have verifiable, truly independent measurement to use to value their audiences.