How to Measure Success in Podcast Advertising for Every Objective
Every marketer’s brain revolves around KPIs. It’s what we measure all our efforts against, no matter what marketing channel we’re running campaigns in. If you’re crushing those all-important metrics; you’ll be happy, and the boss will be too.
Podcast advertising has been steadily gaining momentum over recent years, and it’s no longer a niche marketing channel. According to the latest global advertising forecast by WARC, podcast advertising is projected to grow by 19.3% in 2022, reaching a revenue of $2.6 billion. Moreover, it is predicted to continue growing by 8.1% in 2023.
Brands of all sizes are embracing this medium to increase their brand awareness, extend their reach, and engage with their target audience on a deeper level. But how can you gauge the success of a podcast advertising campaign? If you’re new to the space, you might not know which metrics to monitor that signal whether your campaign was a success or not.
This article will delve into the specifics of podcast advertising success for the most common marketing objectives, what metrics to track, and the different methods of measurement available to you.
Measuring Success in Podcast Advertising by Campaign Objective
Deciding how to measure the success of your podcast advertising campaign can be difficult if you don’t know where to begin. The deciding factor on the metrics you choose to track and measure success against depends on your campaign type and objectives.
To make things simple, we’ll take a look at the main marketing objectives in podcast advertising to explain which metrics you should track and what measurement methods you can use.
1. Increase Brand Awareness
A brand awareness campaign aims to increase knowledge about your company or specific product, steer consumer perception of the brand, and build a sense of brand value, especially against competitors in the market—which plays into share-of-voice. Building brand awareness is critical when promoting your company and products, especially if you’re a new brand or introducing a new product or service to the market.
For brand awareness campaigns, you’re looking to reach new target audiences, establish familiarity through multiple touchpoints, and see higher engagement with your brand through various channels.
Metrics to track:
- Podcast ad campaign data: ad impressions, unique impressions, frequency
- Website analytics: unique page views, direct traffic, referred traffic
- Social media metrics: follower count, views, engagement, brand/product mentions, brand sentiment
- Search data: impressions, clicks, CTR, page ranking, Google Trends
How to measure:
- Self-reported attribution: Self-reported attribution involves surveying users about their first encounter with your brand, also known as “How Did You Hear About Us?” (HDYHAU) surveys. You can add this survey during the checkout or sign-up process, or send it after they become a customer.
- Brand lift study: Research undertaken by a third party or by the advertising network, such as Acast, with exposed and “control” listeners to identify whether they feel more favorably about a brand after being exposed to the podcast ad. It can also reveal whether the campaign has been recalled, if the key messaging has cut through, and if it has positively increased KPIs such as awareness, consideration, and core brand attributes.
- Google Analytics or similar website analytics tools: Track website traffic numbers such as unique pageviews, direct traffic, and referral sources on a month-over-month basis to see how your brand awareness changes over time. Compare data from before you were running podcast advertising, to during and afterward and monitor any lifts.
- Social media platforms: Your brand’s social accounts, social media management platforms, and social listening tools can give you insights into your account growth and engagement, as well as trends in brand mentions and sentiment.
- SEO tools and Google Trends: Use platforms such as Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Moz that provide data on branded search volume, search impressions and clicks, keywords, and more.
2. Drive Sales and Conversions
Conversion-led or “direct response” campaigns seek to deliver immediate event results such as purchases, generating leads, app installs, start trials, book appointments, and more. They’re often accompanied by enticing offers and are designed to turn podcast listeners into customers by taking action immediately.
This is lower-funnel marketing, where you’re looking to track conversion KPIs that exist at the bottom of your marketing funnel.
Metrics to track:
- Conversions: purchases, sign-ups, app installs, start a free trial, or whichever event you’re looking to achieve.
- Conversion performance: conversion rate (CVR), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) calculated by CPMs.
- Revenue: Value of conversions, return-on-ad-spend (ROAS), return-on-investment (ROI)
- Promo codes: number of promo codes used
- Podcast ad campaign data: ad impressions, unique impressions, frequency
- Website analytics: unique page views, click-through-rate (CTR), direct traffic, referred traffic
How to measure:
- Pixel-based attribution tracking: 3rd party pixel-based attribution uses a piece of code that you install on your website which is linked to the podcast campaign that you’re running. This pixel can then match website visitors to the people who heard your podcast ad. This attribution method allows you to track not just website sessions, but any conversion events you define such as purchases, sign-ups, etc. Acast offers free pixel tracking through Podscribe, or you can use other 3rd party vendors.
- Promo codes or discount codes: Promo codes are typically unique to each podcast or ad campaign that offers an incentive to listeners such as a discount. When a listener hears the promo code in the podcast episode and decides to make a purchase, they’ll use this code during the checkout process. The advertiser will be able to attribute that purchase to the podcast they advertised on based on the promo code used.
- Vanity URLs: A vanity URL is a short and easy-to-remember version of a longer, more complex link. They should be unique and related to where the listener has heard the ad, such as including the podcast host’s name (e.g. harrys.com/adambuxton) or where it’ll take them (e.g. go.acast.com/sponsorships). You can track the performance of visits to these unique vanity URLs. You should also add UTM tracking to your vanity URLs, which allows you to further track visitors and attribute conversions that take place through the links.
- Self-reported attribution: Self-reported attribution involves asking users about their first encounter with your brand. One of the easiest ways to measure your podcast ads performance, is simply to ask your customers: “How Did You Hear About Us?” during the checkout process.
3. Build Brand Trust
While similar to brand awareness, building brand trust is focused on improving the trustworthy perception of your brand with your target audience. It goes beyond just making them aware of your company or products and instead aims to establish security, loyalty, and authenticity with consumers.
According to PwC’s Consumer Insights Survey, “Brand trust” was the second most frequently cited reason for purchase decision-making. Advertising in podcasts is an effective way to build brand trust, as our study with Nielsen revealed 63% of respondents said the hosts of the podcasts they listen to are trustworthy, and 80% said they trust recommendations from hosts they currently listen to.
Metrics to track:
- Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) survey: Percentage calculated by the number of ‘Promoters’, ‘Passives’, and ‘Detractors’.
- SEO and search data: brand/product mentions, impressions, clicks, CTR, page ranking, Google Trends, backlinks
- Social media metrics: follower count, engagement, brand/product mentions, brand sentiment
How to measure:
- Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) survey: Net promoter score is a market research metric that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty. It’s measured by asking a single survey question: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?”. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who answer with a 6 or lower (known as ‘detractors’) from the percentage of customers who answer with a 9 or 10 (known as ‘promoters’).
- Google Analytics or similar website analytics tools: Track keyword search queries related to your brand to gather insights into sentiment around your brand, as well as a general lift in searches for your brand or product names. SEO tools like Ahrefs and Moz will also show you data on backlinks, which are the number of websites that are linking to your website—this is an indicator of authoritativeness and votes of confidence from other websites.
- Social media platforms: Your brand’s social accounts, social media management platforms, and social listening tools can give you insights into your account growth and engagement, as well as trends in brand mentions and sentiment.
- Brand lift study: Research undertaken by a third party or by the advertising network, such as Acast, with exposed and “control” listeners to identify whether they feel more favorably about a brand after being exposed to the podcast ad. It can also reveal whether the campaign has been recalled, if the key messaging has cut through, and if it has positively increased KPIs such as awareness, consideration, and core brand attributes.
5. Grow Podcast Audience
If you’re a podcaster, you might consider paid promotion of your show to grow your podcast audience. Podcast advertising is a top option for running a promotion campaign, as there’s no other channel that can guarantee you reach 100% podcast listeners with your ad spend. You can get started more easily than ever with Acast’s self-serve advertising platform.
Measuring a successful podcast advertising campaign for podcast growth is a little different from other campaign objectives, but you can use the same measurement solutions that we’ve discussed in this article.
Metrics to track:
- Podcast analytics: downloads/listens/plays, audience size/followers/subscribers, episode performance
- Podcast apps and charts: reviews, ratings, rankings
- Podcast ad campaign data: ad impressions, unique impressions, frequency
- Social media metrics: follower count, engagement, brand/product mentions, brand sentiment
How to measure:
- Podcast analytics dashboard: Your podcast hosting platform of choice (like Acast) will give you an overview of your show’s performance downloads are a common performance metric that can provide a rough estimate of your podcast's growth.
- Pixel-based attribution tracking: You can use pixel tracking services such as Podscribe to measure the impact of ad campaigns on show growth. Podscribe has a smart promo feature that tracks how many devices downloaded an episode to see how many new listeners your ad drove.
- Podchaser and listening apps: Podchaser is a brilliant tool for podcasters to get an overview of their show’s performance in show and episode charts, as well as track and view reviews and ratings. You can also go to the specific listening apps to check charts and reviews, such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.
- Social media platforms: Monitor your podcast’s social accounts to see whether there’s an increase in following or engagement, and you can also use tools to analyze mentions and sentiment around your show.
Conclusion
The success of podcast advertising lies in its ability to deeply engage audiences and build authentic connections between brands and listeners. However, measuring this success requires a multi-faceted approach, combining various strategies and metrics to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of your podcast advertising efforts. By carefully selecting your campaign type, setting clear goals, and meticulously tracking relevant metrics, you can effectively measure the success of your podcast advertising and optimize it for even better results.
Every marketer’s brain revolves around KPIs. It’s what we measure all our efforts against, no matter what marketing channel we’re running campaigns in. If you’re crushing those all-important metrics; you’ll be happy, and the boss will be too.
Podcast advertising has been steadily gaining momentum over recent years, and it’s no longer a niche marketing channel. According to the latest global advertising forecast by WARC, podcast advertising is projected to grow by 19.3% in 2022, reaching a revenue of $2.6 billion. Moreover, it is predicted to continue growing by 8.1% in 2023.
Brands of all sizes are embracing this medium to increase their brand awareness, extend their reach, and engage with their target audience on a deeper level. But how can you gauge the success of a podcast advertising campaign? If you’re new to the space, you might not know which metrics to monitor that signal whether your campaign was a success or not.
This article will delve into the specifics of podcast advertising success for the most common marketing objectives, what metrics to track, and the different methods of measurement available to you.
Measuring Success in Podcast Advertising by Campaign Objective
Deciding how to measure the success of your podcast advertising campaign can be difficult if you don’t know where to begin. The deciding factor on the metrics you choose to track and measure success against depends on your campaign type and objectives.
To make things simple, we’ll take a look at the main marketing objectives in podcast advertising to explain which metrics you should track and what measurement methods you can use.
1. Increase Brand Awareness
A brand awareness campaign aims to increase knowledge about your company or specific product, steer consumer perception of the brand, and build a sense of brand value, especially against competitors in the market—which plays into share-of-voice. Building brand awareness is critical when promoting your company and products, especially if you’re a new brand or introducing a new product or service to the market.
For brand awareness campaigns, you’re looking to reach new target audiences, establish familiarity through multiple touchpoints, and see higher engagement with your brand through various channels.
Metrics to track:
- Podcast ad campaign data: ad impressions, unique impressions, frequency
- Website analytics: unique page views, direct traffic, referred traffic
- Social media metrics: follower count, views, engagement, brand/product mentions, brand sentiment
- Search data: impressions, clicks, CTR, page ranking, Google Trends
How to measure:
- Self-reported attribution: Self-reported attribution involves surveying users about their first encounter with your brand, also known as “How Did You Hear About Us?” (HDYHAU) surveys. You can add this survey during the checkout or sign-up process, or send it after they become a customer.
- Brand lift study: Research undertaken by a third party or by the advertising network, such as Acast, with exposed and “control” listeners to identify whether they feel more favorably about a brand after being exposed to the podcast ad. It can also reveal whether the campaign has been recalled, if the key messaging has cut through, and if it has positively increased KPIs such as awareness, consideration, and core brand attributes.
- Google Analytics or similar website analytics tools: Track website traffic numbers such as unique pageviews, direct traffic, and referral sources on a month-over-month basis to see how your brand awareness changes over time. Compare data from before you were running podcast advertising, to during and afterward and monitor any lifts.
- Social media platforms: Your brand’s social accounts, social media management platforms, and social listening tools can give you insights into your account growth and engagement, as well as trends in brand mentions and sentiment.
- SEO tools and Google Trends: Use platforms such as Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Moz that provide data on branded search volume, search impressions and clicks, keywords, and more.
2. Drive Sales and Conversions
Conversion-led or “direct response” campaigns seek to deliver immediate event results such as purchases, generating leads, app installs, start trials, book appointments, and more. They’re often accompanied by enticing offers and are designed to turn podcast listeners into customers by taking action immediately.
This is lower-funnel marketing, where you’re looking to track conversion KPIs that exist at the bottom of your marketing funnel.
Metrics to track:
- Conversions: purchases, sign-ups, app installs, start a free trial, or whichever event you’re looking to achieve.
- Conversion performance: conversion rate (CVR), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) calculated by CPMs.
- Revenue: Value of conversions, return-on-ad-spend (ROAS), return-on-investment (ROI)
- Promo codes: number of promo codes used
- Podcast ad campaign data: ad impressions, unique impressions, frequency
- Website analytics: unique page views, click-through-rate (CTR), direct traffic, referred traffic
How to measure:
- Pixel-based attribution tracking: 3rd party pixel-based attribution uses a piece of code that you install on your website which is linked to the podcast campaign that you’re running. This pixel can then match website visitors to the people who heard your podcast ad. This attribution method allows you to track not just website sessions, but any conversion events you define such as purchases, sign-ups, etc. Acast offers free pixel tracking through Podscribe, or you can use other 3rd party vendors.
- Promo codes or discount codes: Promo codes are typically unique to each podcast or ad campaign that offers an incentive to listeners such as a discount. When a listener hears the promo code in the podcast episode and decides to make a purchase, they’ll use this code during the checkout process. The advertiser will be able to attribute that purchase to the podcast they advertised on based on the promo code used.
- Vanity URLs: A vanity URL is a short and easy-to-remember version of a longer, more complex link. They should be unique and related to where the listener has heard the ad, such as including the podcast host’s name (e.g. harrys.com/adambuxton) or where it’ll take them (e.g. go.acast.com/sponsorships). You can track the performance of visits to these unique vanity URLs. You should also add UTM tracking to your vanity URLs, which allows you to further track visitors and attribute conversions that take place through the links.
- Self-reported attribution: Self-reported attribution involves asking users about their first encounter with your brand. One of the easiest ways to measure your podcast ads performance, is simply to ask your customers: “How Did You Hear About Us?” during the checkout process.
3. Build Brand Trust
While similar to brand awareness, building brand trust is focused on improving the trustworthy perception of your brand with your target audience. It goes beyond just making them aware of your company or products and instead aims to establish security, loyalty, and authenticity with consumers.
According to PwC’s Consumer Insights Survey, “Brand trust” was the second most frequently cited reason for purchase decision-making. Advertising in podcasts is an effective way to build brand trust, as our study with Nielsen revealed 63% of respondents said the hosts of the podcasts they listen to are trustworthy, and 80% said they trust recommendations from hosts they currently listen to.
Metrics to track:
- Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) survey: Percentage calculated by the number of ‘Promoters’, ‘Passives’, and ‘Detractors’.
- SEO and search data: brand/product mentions, impressions, clicks, CTR, page ranking, Google Trends, backlinks
- Social media metrics: follower count, engagement, brand/product mentions, brand sentiment
How to measure:
- Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) survey: Net promoter score is a market research metric that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty. It’s measured by asking a single survey question: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?”. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who answer with a 6 or lower (known as ‘detractors’) from the percentage of customers who answer with a 9 or 10 (known as ‘promoters’).
- Google Analytics or similar website analytics tools: Track keyword search queries related to your brand to gather insights into sentiment around your brand, as well as a general lift in searches for your brand or product names. SEO tools like Ahrefs and Moz will also show you data on backlinks, which are the number of websites that are linking to your website—this is an indicator of authoritativeness and votes of confidence from other websites.
- Social media platforms: Your brand’s social accounts, social media management platforms, and social listening tools can give you insights into your account growth and engagement, as well as trends in brand mentions and sentiment.
- Brand lift study: Research undertaken by a third party or by the advertising network, such as Acast, with exposed and “control” listeners to identify whether they feel more favorably about a brand after being exposed to the podcast ad. It can also reveal whether the campaign has been recalled, if the key messaging has cut through, and if it has positively increased KPIs such as awareness, consideration, and core brand attributes.
5. Grow Podcast Audience
If you’re a podcaster, you might consider paid promotion of your show to grow your podcast audience. Podcast advertising is a top option for running a promotion campaign, as there’s no other channel that can guarantee you reach 100% podcast listeners with your ad spend. You can get started more easily than ever with Acast’s self-serve advertising platform.
Measuring a successful podcast advertising campaign for podcast growth is a little different from other campaign objectives, but you can use the same measurement solutions that we’ve discussed in this article.
Metrics to track:
- Podcast analytics: downloads/listens/plays, audience size/followers/subscribers, episode performance
- Podcast apps and charts: reviews, ratings, rankings
- Podcast ad campaign data: ad impressions, unique impressions, frequency
- Social media metrics: follower count, engagement, brand/product mentions, brand sentiment
How to measure:
- Podcast analytics dashboard: Your podcast hosting platform of choice (like Acast) will give you an overview of your show’s performance downloads are a common performance metric that can provide a rough estimate of your podcast's growth.
- Pixel-based attribution tracking: You can use pixel tracking services such as Podscribe to measure the impact of ad campaigns on show growth. Podscribe has a smart promo feature that tracks how many devices downloaded an episode to see how many new listeners your ad drove.
- Podchaser and listening apps: Podchaser is a brilliant tool for podcasters to get an overview of their show’s performance in show and episode charts, as well as track and view reviews and ratings. You can also go to the specific listening apps to check charts and reviews, such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.
- Social media platforms: Monitor your podcast’s social accounts to see whether there’s an increase in following or engagement, and you can also use tools to analyze mentions and sentiment around your show.
Conclusion
The success of podcast advertising lies in its ability to deeply engage audiences and build authentic connections between brands and listeners. However, measuring this success requires a multi-faceted approach, combining various strategies and metrics to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of your podcast advertising efforts. By carefully selecting your campaign type, setting clear goals, and meticulously tracking relevant metrics, you can effectively measure the success of your podcast advertising and optimize it for even better results.
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