Podcasting has the potential to make a lot of money. You have three options for managing your sponsorships.
- Using your show host to attract advertising;
- Selling ad slots yourself;
- Waiting for advertisers to come to you.
It feels great to start monetizing your work, whether you began your show as a hobby or business endeavor. So, how do podcasts get sponsors?
We’ll go through the many sorts of deals you’ll come across, the different types of advertisers, how podcasts with lower audiences can still secure brand sponsorships, and where you can find all of these fantastic sponsors.
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How Do Podcasts Get Sponsors?
You may always sell the advertising slots yourself, but finding a sponsor might take a lot of time and effort. Suppose you want to take it this way.
In that case, I’d suggest listening to other podcasts in your industry to discover who the sponsors are, contacting the company’s public relations or marketing staff to see if they would like to sponsor your show.
If you are not in a rush to sell your ad slots, you may always wait for advertisers to come to you. They will most likely come knocking if your show has a high iTunes rating.
How Do I Find A Sponsor?
Having listened to tens of thousands of podcasts over the previous six years and been a podcaster for many years, I must tell you that lousy advertising may kill a listener base. Take into account the following ideas:
- Only advertise for businesses that are relevant to your niche: Many listeners dislike advertisements for firms like payday lending companies or online casinos. And if you do not link it to your theme, it might be a significant distraction from the broadcast.
- Limit the number of adverts on your show to two each episode: I’ve never encountered a podcast with more than two adverts that I could listen to for an extended period.
- Learn to love the product or service before you advertise it: Your listeners will sniff it out if you can’t wholeheartedly advocate a firm or if you don’t utilize it yourself. If you can’t, you’ll have to look for a new sponsor.
Things To Know Before You Get Podcast Sponsors
Before they start writing checks, any seasoned marketer will have a few questions for you. It’s critical to have these responses prepared since sponsors want to know:
What Is Your Elevator Pitch?
A media kit can help you respond to their frequent queries and promote the notion of advertising in general. Some businesses will be familiar with advertisements, while others may not.
You may change your media kit appropriately as you better understand the friction areas. You could even develop a separate unlisted version for advertisers to personalize your pitch.
What Is The Make-Up Of Your Target Market?
How many people listen to your show? Is your target audience made up of stay-at-home parents in their late thirties or college-educated basketball fans in Chicago?
Is it home-schooled teens or single women earning more than $80,000 per year? Knowing this will assist you in figuring out how to get sponsors for your show.
Of course, depending on the material you’re producing, you may get an excellent indication of who your target audience is. However, analytics will provide you with facts that you can count on.
Your show hosting platform will provide minimal statistics. We suggest checking at your Spotify analytics dashboard for somewhat more specific demographics or doing a listener poll to learn more about who your listeners are.
How Much Do You Charge For Advertising?
Even though the potential of making any money from your show is appealing, you should not undervalue it.
Remember that advertising is a fantastic opportunity for companies, and you’ve already done the hard work of building a following.
What you’re offering is quite beneficial. If you want to attract episode sponsors, you’ll need to tell them how much they’ll have to pay.
CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is a standard method of calculating rates (more on that in a second). The size of your audience generally defines that rate.
If you can demonstrate that you have a 500-CEO audience, you have a value offer that you can monetize. However, 500 uninterested listeners will not be enough.
What Is The Status Of Your Stock?
Pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll commercials are common in ads. It’s a format that you’re probably used to.
The mid-roll is the most useful since people already listen to the show. The post-roll is frequently less beneficial because fewer people will listen until the finish, and those who do can switch off the program as the end-roll commercials begin.
Pre-roll commercials are often the shortest but can keep listeners on board. Native advertising is when you collaborate more closely with an advertiser to merge their brand with your own.
It usually refers to host-read advertisements, but it might also refer to a business podcast with an episode where you can interview the founder of one of their sponsors.
How Many Listeners Do You Need To Get Sponsored?
Large sponsors are unlikely to be interested in your show until it has 50,000 or more downloads per month for all your episodes combined.
That’s a hard bar to clear, considering that 80 percent of episodes get less than 1,100 downloads in the first 30 days.
How Much Do Podcast Ads Cost?
Fortunately, there is an advertising industry standard. A pre-roll ad should cost $18, and a mid-roll ad should cost $23-25.
How Much Does Podcast Advertising Cost?
A pre-roll ad is a 15-second commercial that appears at the start of the podcast and says something like, “Bob’s Unicycle Shop sponsors this podcast.” Bob’s Unicycles is a one-stop-shop for unicycles for everyone!”
In general, the mid-roll is more free-form. If you’ve ever listened to talk radio, you’re familiar with the sound of a mid-roll.
A typical mid-roll commercial lasts roughly 60 seconds. The marketer will provide you a script or, at the very least, the key talking points and then ask you to free form a portion of it to make it seem more natural.
How Much Does It Cost To Advertise On A Podcast?
CPM models are popular in podcast advertising. The cost may vary greatly, ranging from $10 CPM for more comprehensive programs to over $200 CPM for more specialized events. Working with a media purchasing firm may frequently help you get better deals on your advertisements.
How Much Should You Charge For A Podcast Ad?
Advertisers will need to pay a flat rate per 1,000 downloads each episode. Let’s imagine your organization will spend $20 every 1,000 people who listen to a popular podcast.
Let’s assume a show has 200,000 listeners, which means you’d have to spend $4,000 for ad time on their program.
Another option for pricing your ads is to buy a certain amount of impressions from the network or host.
You may buy 300,000 impressions and have them show your ad over some time, perhaps two months, until it reaches the stated amount of images, at which point it stops running, and you pay the fixed CPM charge. CPM charges typically range from $30 to $50.
How Much Do Companies Pay For Podcast Ads?
Sponsoring podcasts will cost big companies $25-$40 per CPM. Here’s a link to Midroll’s Podcast Sponsorship Calculator.
So, if your episodes have 50,000 downloads in the first 30 days, you may expect to earn $1,250 each episode from a Squarespace ad.
How Much Do Podcast Sponsors Pay?
It all relies on the advertising opportunity presented to the marketer. For a single ad baked into podcasts chosen by the advertiser, the producers generally charge $25 CPM.
A host-read ad supporting a product might cost up to $35 or more. The CPM would be substantially lower (e.g., $3–$5) if it was “programmatic” advertising, essentially robo-placement of dynamically placed advertisements dumped somewhat randomly into unsold inventory.
A complete sponsorship, which includes sponsor credits and commercials in the show, is a step up from these alternatives. These are good for podcasts with a specialty audience that is a logical match for the sponsor.
For example, a knitting needle maker may pay a premium to reach listeners of a knitting podcast. Sponsors would determine the pricing of your show based on the content and how tight the fit is.
How Do Podcast Sponsorships Work?
The most conventional way of monetization in the media is podcast sponsorship. However, it may take various forms, and it isn’t the best method for everyone trying to monetize their material.
The advertiser pays to have their product or service advertised on one or more episodes at the most basic level. You can approach one of two ways on podcasts ads.
“Host Read” Ads
The most efficient method is for the host to discuss the product or service. They’ll usually explain why they advocate it, giving instances of how they utilize it, how they gain from it, and why the listener might benefit from it as well.
A well-done host read ad may sound like an extension of the episode’s content rather than an interruption.
“Radio Style” Ads
A third party may also create advertisements. In this manner, all the podcasters need to include them in their episodes.
It is ineffective since the audience listens to hear the presenter’s ideas and opinions. It may be surprising and even frustrating to have a random Voice-Over interrupt the material to offer you a sales pitch abruptly. Listeners may fast-forward as soon as the cadence or background sound changes.
Placing of Ads
An advertisement may appear at the start of an episode, after an episode, or anywhere in between. These slots are referred to as:
- Pre-Roll – before the material begins;
- Mid-Roll – during the episode’s primary content
- Post-Roll — After the material has concluded, the most coveted location is mid-roll, and thus, the most expensive.
Listeners are less likely to skip over this information. The least ideal place for an ad is post-roll, yet it is also the cheapest.
Final Thoughts
Podcast advertising is a popular marketing strategy that is only becoming more popular. Brands can no longer ignore advertising since most consumers have listened to a podcast and have rising engagement rates.
Working on each formula component can help you optimize your podcasting ad income, including attracting sponsors for your show who are willing to pay extra for access to your audience.
I hope this article helped you know: how do podcasts get sponsors? Find more posts about podcasts on our site. Thank you for reading!
The following video will wrap up all things mentioned above. Enjoy it!