Podbean Ads Marketplace Review: Businesses Can Benefit, No Matter Their Budget

Podcast advertising has a different effect on consumers than other kinds of ads. A recent study by MAGNA and Spotify showed that while podcast listening habits are similar to TV watching habits, podcast ads perform more effectively than television ads. Podbean Ads Marketplace makes it easy to start and manage your own ad campaign, no matter what size your business is. When you sponsor a podcast, your ads are targeted to people most likely to be interested in your business. Podbean Ads Marketplace helps you make sure your ad reaches the people most likely to be interested. Not only that, but setting up the campaign is as simple as posting to social media. Let’s take a closer look at Podbean Ads Marketplace, and see if this is right for you and your business.

Why Do Podcast Ads Work So Well?

There is a podcast for every possible interest and demographic you can imagine. Let’s say you run a little bait and tackle shop in Montana, that specializes in fly fishing. There are dozens of podcasts about fly fishing. Some of them are brand podcasts for sporting goods companies, but most are independent, and they would love to have your support. Whatever your business is, no matter how big or small (even a one-person operation like an Etsy shop), Podbean Ads Marketplace can connect you with podcasts that can promote you to your chosen demographic.

Podcast ads function like word of mouth advertising. Podcasts build intimacy and trust, and podcast ads use that to make a compelling case for your business’ products or services.

Why Should You Use Podbean Ads Marketplace?

Firstly, there are so many podcasts out there in the world, you can’t be expected to listen to all of them to find one that fits your business’ needs. Podbean Ads Marketplace lets you search by keyword to find ads that want your business. Secondly, creating a campaign in Podbean Ads Marketplace really is as simple as posting on social media (but I’ll show you the process anyway). Third, you can monitor and control your campaign to see the return on investment or change it, at any time.

How Do I Set Up a Campaign?

For practice, I set up a campaign to promote our astronomy podcast, Hostile Worlds. I typed in the name, description, and URL for the podcast. I selected what countries I wanted the podcast to run in, and keywords to find Podbean podcasts to match the ad campaign.

You can select pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ads. This means it plays at the beginning, middle, or end of the episode. All have different prices and benefits. Podbean Ads Marketplace provides the option to upload your own mp3 file, or they can record an ad spot, for an additional charge. It doesn’t say if this will be a host-read ad, or if they will hire a voice artist to record it. I think since you can select different options for the reader, it’s probably the latter.

Matthew has a great trailer for Hostile Worlds, so I uploaded that. Not that I don’t trust Podbean to make a great 30-second ad, but I wanted to see just how simple Podbean Ads Marketplace can be. If you choose to have them read your ad copy, make sure it has a compelling call to action. There should be a specific, memorable target, such as a URL or a coupon code that you can use to track effectiveness.

You also enter relevant keywords to describe your podcast. This helps them narrow down what podcasts would be a good fit for your ad copy or recording.

Select the beginning and end dates for your campaign, and the daily cap you’re willing to spend. Podbean Ads Marketplace gives you a rough estimate of how many impressions your ad will get, without going over that cap. You can enter different numbers to see different estimates.

Matchmaking with Podbean Podcasts

Podbean Ads Marketplace shows you a list of podcasts that match the keywords you specified. You can see how many times people download each podcast per month, typically.

Your ads will only play on podcasts hosted by Podbean. Since they host over five hundred thousand podcasts, there are plenty to choose from. Listeners will hear your ad on that show whether they use another listening platform or Podbean. The ad sticks to the podcast episode, not the app.

How Do Podbean Ads Sound?

Once the podcaster consents to run ads on their podcast, they can control the time slot settings. You control whether your ad plays at the beginning, middle, or end. But, the podcaster controls the exact time. This way, your ad doesn’t burst in, mid-word, like a bull in a china shop. They can edit their episodes so there’s a natural break for your sponsored message.

How Do Podbean Ads Perform?

Once you set up your campaign and enter a payment method, there’s a roughly 24-hour wait. Podbean Ads Marketplace reviews your ad and offers it to the podcasts you selected. Not all podcasts accept every ad that comes along. For example, the true-crime podcast in the screenshot above might feel that an astronomy podcast doesn’t fit.

A couple of days later, I came back to see how our little ad performed.

This dashboard is terrific, very clear and straightforward. As you can clearly see here, our campaign got 695 impressions over two days. Not bad, considering that only two podcasts chose to use the Hostile Worlds trailer.

Interestingly enough, the podcasts that chose our trailer aren’t specifically science or family based podcasts (what I expected). One is a true crime podcast, and the other focuses on paranormal themes. Maybe they liked the opening line, with Sarah Golding saying, “Welcome to Kraken Mare.”

So, did we get the 2000 impressions per day mentioned in the original estimate? No. Did we get meaningful impressions? Yes.

Editor’s Note

What was the impact on our end? During that day, our media host reported 16 unique listens, and 115 in the last 7 days. But, we can’t tell if these came specifically from the Podbean ads, or if they came from multiple sources. If you want to be able to verify the traffic between any ad or post and the target you want the audience to reach, use a link with tracking data, like a Pretty Link.

Is Podbean Ads Marketplace Right for Your Business?

Our results aren’t a guarantee of the results your business could have. For example, if we’d selected more options besides mid-roll, or used fewer keywords to search for podcasts, results would differ. Everyone’s mileage varies. For me, the key finding is that Podbean Ads Marketplace is definitely a great way for businesses of any size to benefit from podcast advertising, while also supporting independent podcast creators.

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