Podcast Advertising: Create Effective Ads And Promotions That Bring Results

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everybody. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host Tracy Hazard and we're going to talk about podcast promotion and ad creation today. Really for what? Could be promoting your own products or services on your podcast or it could be an actual third party sponsored Right.

So we want to really highlight the idea of it being promotions because that's really what's most effective nowadays. So if we're really trying to make an ad, ads don't convert. Ads are really brand awareness and while that's fine, if that's what you're going for, that's what your sponsors going for for the most part there is probably some kind of call to action with it. And if you've got some call to action with it, then we definitely want to have that treated like a promotion. So that's what we're going to be calling this on and off the way that it here. We also want to remind you that a lot of the things if you're listening in, your host probably doesn't have the ability to do this unless you're hosting with Productize. So some of the things we're going to mention here are padded only things. We will try to identify those. But sometimes we just talk about it because we just assume everyone should be able to do this because it's the user friendly way to make sure that our ads and our promotions are converting. But sometimes your hosts don't have these capabilities. So to just keep that in mind as you're listening, you're like, why do I don't know how to do that? Feel free to message us and we'll try to guide you. And you just may not be able to do it with your existing host or your existing editor. So just keep that in mind as we go forward here.

So I want to talk about the length first because that's the first part that most people ask.

Oh boy. Sometimes I have heard some ads that are like two and a half or three minute long and I'm like, what? Really? I mean that gets to be a bit much in a podcast, I think.

Yeah, we hear again and again from listeners, especially binge listeners, who are your most active listeners, who are the ones who are going to buy, they're the ones that convert the most because they listen to you and they really trust you. We hear from them that these long, lengthy ads that are infomercial like are really annoying, that they start to make you not like your show anymore. And this is where people drop off and stop listening. So this is. We see people who regularly do this, see a drop off in listenership over time. It's sort of a gradual drop off, but it happens now, that being said, every so often doing one when it's a truly useful tool or it's a truly useful product that you use yourself, where you're treating it like that, then I say go ahead and make an episode of it instead of these lengthy ads and then do a small promo where the promo references the episode of which you're talking about is like, if you'd like to find more about how this great supplement really helps you fight anti aging or boost your immunity, then go to this episode where we discuss it in length and give them the episode. Name the episode number, whatever. Don't do numbers unless you really are going to keep it clean because once you hit over 300, your numbers change on Apple and that could hurt you. So we're not a fan of the numbering, but use that to help yourself if you want to go into a deeper dive, especially with something that you're affiliate marketing. But to keep it short, 30 seconds is really that's ideal. Maximum of 45 seconds is where we like to keep it at a max if you have to. And some of that is transition in music and so you can get away with that. But we like to keep it tight.

Under 30 seconds, sometimes even 15 seconds will work. I mean, it depends on what you're trying to communicate. But you really want to tighten up any script that you're going to write. And you know, we always talk about with our podcasters, we recommend you never script your episodes. That we firmly believe. However, when it comes to your ads, absolutely script, script it because you want.

To be concise and conciseness comes from scripting it. But here's the thing, when you script it, you need to speak it. So what I like to do is I write it, I read it out loud to myself and I listen it back and then I edit it again and then I do that again. So I'm always when I'm writing an ad and sometimes people give us ads when I'm Writing an ad, the first thing I do is I speak it and I send it to my sponsor, I send it to my advertiser and I say, this is what you said. I don't think it's the best solution. And here's why. First off, it's too long. Here's. It just is awkward in the way that these words flow when you speak. It looks fine when you read it. And here's my recommended edits. And then I give them that verbally. I never give it to them in writing. I just give them the verbal and they'll usually go, oh, that's amazing. I love that one. The energy is good. Like, yes, go for that. So that's how I do it is I don't really like redline and edit their. Their copy because they can get frustrated and upset with you over that. Instead, I just let them hear it because hearing it is just demonstration of how it's going to be received by the listener. Length again, Tom was mentioning 15 second ones. 15 second ones are great for the little promotion saying this episode is sponsored by such and such and you can find out more information URL. Right. Like doing something really short and simple like that. Keep it sweet. Short and sweet. It's like really easy. So those are our recommendations on length. We found it to work again and again. And ad spot doesn't really matter on the length. Like, I mean, if you've already done a lengthy intro, you definitely want your first ad if you're running it or your first promotion running it right after it. Really short because you just ran this lengthy ad for the show essentially. So you try to do that and again at the very end. So pre roll, what we call pre roll position and post ROL. Keep those to 15 seconds if you can. Unless your whole episode's short, then you don't really have much choices in where you're gonna put that. So those are our length recommendations. We talked a little bit about copy, Tom, but you know, tone of the promotion and tone of the way you say something really matters in how you write the copy or how you read it. Right. Or how you're saying it.

Well, it does. And the danger of reading something scripted is that you're gonna come off as inauthentic compared to your normal just speaking in your podcast. Right. And you don't want that. I mean, look, if I'm doing a promotion for another company, it better be something I really know and understand and hopefully I like. I'm an actual advocate of it in general, not just because I'M being paid on a promo for it, and I want to speak about it naturally. So that's part of, you know, your tone. Yes. How it's written. That copy is critical. It's gotta be written in your voice. So even if. And we've had this happen recently with a bunch of ads from Hewlett Packard on one of our podcasts. And how many ads did we record, Tracy?

Well, we ended up recording nine, but we'll talk about that in a minute about why we recorded so many.

Right. But you want to not only take the copy they give you, but we riff on it, adjust it a little bit, and make it more our voice. If I don't normally use the word, you know, it's more of a descriptive word. You know, if there's a word that just isn't how I would say things, I might change that word.

Right. As long as you're not changing the essence of what their product is, their services, you're not changing the names of anything. Feel free to, like, do that slight embellishment word or the way. The pace at which you speak. The other thing about the tone that I want to mention is that this is a promotion is used slightly amped up, so the energy level should just be a little bit higher than you normally bring. Look, I'm really passionate and excited and energetic on my show, and I talk fast already. Right? But an ad should be like that. It should be slightly sped up from the way that you normally speak. So when Tom does it, that he has to speed up his think, his thought process, and the way that he speaks in an ad. Because you want to, of course, get the time crunch in. So you've got that. You know, you want to get it in that time. Spanish. But you do that slightly energized. Because thinking about it, it's like a promotion, right? It's like. It's got that kind of energy like a promoter is. Right. So you need to put that energy into it as well. So just amp up who you are already and just put that into the tone of the advertisement.

Well, you know, all of a sudden, smiling and laughing at me, smiling, not at you. You made me think about this scene from Howard Stern's Private Parts where he's an early DJ at a station in Connecticut and he's a radio dj, and he knows he. He has to read. Oh, there's an ad spot here for some new sports. You know, it's like a sporting goods company. Yeah, sporting goods. Like Sullivan Sport or so who knows what it was. Some Sport company And then he can't find the copy and he. So he ad libs and he's like, you know, I love Sullivan Sport. I used to go there all the time when I was a kid when my parents, you know, needed to get me a baseball. We would drive over there and it was always like a party. And then he finds a copy and then the copy says, and the grand opening of Sullivan Sport is this Saturday.

So I mean, yeah, so adding a personal story, adding a little personal anecdote, that's a really great way to do that. But not if it overly lengthens it. And so just be thinking about that. If you've got a spot, try to add that in without overly lengthening it. You know, just keep this in mind. This is your job is now promoter, not just host. So just hold that energy as you record it. As you do it. Record it. Just like you record your ads. I mean, your normal show, you record your ads the same way I turn the video on, even though I'm not gonna save the video. Cause it's only an audio ad only we don't record the videos the same way. But I turn the video on because it helps me look at myself. Am I looking energetic? Am I using my hands like I normally do? It helps me see have I really hit that tone that I'm looking for. And it just helps me work through that. And I'm also then not talking just to a computer, right? Hey, I'm talking to myself. But it makes me feel like I'm on a Facebook Live. It makes me feel like there is an audience out there. By turning the camera, that helps me find out what works for you.

Well, and I also think if you see yourself and you recognize your facial expression, if you actually smile as you're doing it as much as you can, then I think that improves your tone as well. You know, your energy level, how you're sitting, how enthusiastic you are. I cannot record ads at like five in the afternoon. I am spent for the day. That is not my time of day. If I'm going to record ads, I'm recording them before noon.

Yeah, I usually like tape them to his computer at the end of the day so that first thing in the morning, they're there for him. And that's how I do it. Because we know what works for each of us, right? So just keep that in mind and really help yourself with that tone and voice because it's going to make the promotion convert better. And that's our goal here. Remember, we're talking about how to make them more effective and convert and that absolutely the purpose of doing this. Right.

Well, and you know, we didn't say this yet, but it is absolutely true that a host read ad meaning spoken by you, the host recorded by you, instead of a third party voiceover talent is actually more effective. We find conversion is higher when the host speaks it because you've already established usually by the time you're putting ads into your show or any promos into your show, you've established some authority, some position of authority with the listeners. And when you endorse something, when you talk about some product or service, they're gonna listen and take you seriously.

Yeah. So I want to qualify that slightly what you said there, Tom. So it's okay to use your voiceover artist occasionally in a mix up of ads and we're gonna talk about the mix up right next so you'll hear why I say this. But using your voice is really important. Using your voiceover artist is okay as another option and as a mix up option. So you don't have the same ad so repetitively. But using the voice of a pre programmed from the company, that's where you don't want to do it. That's where it doesn't work as well. So that's the qualifier that I want to make your voice of authority, people are used to that. Your voiceover artist is a voice of authority on your show. So you can utilize that when you need to have that somebody who has a different energy. Like sometimes you can't talk about it because you're a male host and you need to be talking about a female oriented product and a female voice would work better for that. So there's times at which to do that and that's when you can employ your voiceover artist or a voiceover artist to help you out with that. But using the voice of the company or the company's pre programmed ads, that's what we find tends to not work as well in podcasts.

Okay, I agree with you, Tracy. But I would also. Let's take an example of needing, let's say I'm a host and I'm just a man and that's it. And just a co host. Just a man. Yeah. And we have an ad that for something that would really is meant to appeal more to women. I agree with you on having a female voiceover artist to record that. But in that case you as the host may need to actually transfer a little authority to that voiceover artist and have a transition or lead in Right.

Unless that voiceover artist is your regular one. Right.

I'm getting ahead of myself because transitions are coming. But. Well, keep that in mind and we'll talk about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about mixing it up. So when we deploy ads and this is part of the potato system, it's not part of everyone's system. So just keep in mind this is one of those moments of which we're talking about. We deploy ads across our entire show catalog. Why do we do that? We do that because 60% of our listenership happens on the back catalog, happens on episodes that are not currently airing in the current month. So if you have 10,000 listeners a month, 6,000 of them are on shows that aren't currently airing that aren't brand new. So if you're editing in promotions and ads only into your current four episodes in the given month, you're only getting 4,000 listeners if you do it that way. So we have a system that mixes ads across the entire show catalog. And of course, our system mixes them in and takes them out so you can remove them, change them, mix them up over time. And part of that process is why we deploy it in this way and why we mix it up. Because for some of our shows, we've got 500 episodes, 600 episodes actually in our last one. 600 episodes. That. That's a lot of episodes. To hear the same ad again and again and again.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, yeah, so we do a mix up. So what we did in this last round of the last time we put ads in into our 600 episode is that what we did was we actually had three different ad copy. So we had different copy, three different types of ads. They were for three different purposes. And we took them and we each recorded them. So Tom recorded three, I recorded three, and our voiceover artist recorded three. So we ended up with nine different audio recordings recording promotions. So it's the same copy, but very different.

Well, but three different copies. Right. Each of the three of us read and recorded and I think ad libbed in our own style a little bit. Each of three approved ad copies, but each one coming the same ad copy from each of the three of us is not only a different voice, but was slightly unique because of how we each delivered it, read it, maybe changed a word here or there, but they.

Each went to the same URL, the same.

Right.

So each one had their own that there were three different ones. So overall, we ended up with nine different sounding ads. Right? Like that's the point. Nine different sounding promotions. To mix across 600 episodes.

Oh, yes.

So that's how we're mixing it up there now.

I remember. So one of the other things I just wanted to make clear, because you didn't say it before, Tracy, is that the 60% of listens, on average of your entire all your episodes of your show. Just to be clear, you know, some people, especially as podcasters, when we're in the weeds of our podcast, like, well, that's an old episode. Why do I care if that has a current ad? Well, like, I just want to make sure it's clear. What Tracy was saying is about 60% of the total plays of your episodes in that month are not coming from the new episodes you published this month. They're coming from older episodes. But here's the point. Those plays are new to whoever's listening to it now, even though they're old episodes. Right. That's why this is so important.

There are people that are new to you. They could be benefiting from the promotion. They could be learning more about what's going on and what you do or whatever. The promotion is what your sponsor does. Right? So this is where you don't want to lose the capitalization of your back catalog of those back episode listens, especially because their current listen nurse. Right? So that conversion rate is. They're actively looking for something, and it might be you, if you remind them that you're here, that you have something. So that's really where we look at that as really critically important. And that's why we designed the producti system the way that we did, so that it does take advantage of this.

Now, the other thing that we do is when we mix it up, we also do block out episodes. And I say that. And like, we don't allow ads in certain episodes. So in today's world, if you had a very sensitive topic subject, we would block ads from that. So if it's a highly emotional episode, a highly controversial episode, we block ads from that. We think it's inappropriate, and we think it helps the listener appreciate that you understand the sensitivity of the material. So that some random ad. Because if you're randomizing them and mixing them up, you don't know which ads gonna go on it. Then you don't want to have this sort of, like, odd thing happening, and it's in complete tonal contrast to what's going on there. So we do set certain episodes and saying, these are no go. No ads will ever run in these. So we have about 12, I'd say, not very many out of our 600, but we have about 12. One where we like talked about 3D print guns. We always block that episode because also a sponsor may not want to be associated with that topic. So that's another reason that we do that.

Yeah. And just keep in mind this is something that when you have your podcast hosted on Poditize, you have complete control over this. I mean, Tracy's saying we don't do that. Well, that's, we, the hosts of the show, deciding we don't want to put ads on this. These particular episodes. You have complete control over the ability to omit ads from any episode you want to.

So just, just understand there are many hosts and many ad mixing systems that are out there that do not give you the choice because of how they stream ads on there. So keep that in mind that that is a choice that you have here, but you don't always have everywhere else. And it can be problematic. So you may need to disclose that because if your sponsor finds out about it, like, like I said, we had one on 3D printing guns. If Hewlett Packard found out about it, they might be very upset about being associated with that topic. So we block that one on primary purpose. So these are some things to think about when you're mixing it up. We have a system that allows you to randomize it. So like you basically can say, I want all any of these ads. These three ads could run in the pre roll position. I want these three ads to run randomly in the mid roll position. And it's just mixing it up for you. It's just automatically going in so that someone who's binge listening doesn't hear. Tom's ad. Tom's ad. Tom's ad. Tom's ad. Tracy's ad. Tracy's ad, Tracy's ad. So it doesn't work like that. And so that way they're always mixing up. And with us having nine as an option to mix up like that really gives it a much more randomized feel and a much more personalized feel. So this is really tapping into the binge listener experience and making them feel special and not overly sold to. They don't realize it's the same ad. The tone, the energy, the copy sounds a little bit different, even though the messaging is getting it repetitive for them so that they do get the ending message, the call to action that's repeating for them and repeating it in a really good way that is leaving an impression which is likely to get them to engage.

Yeah, it's actually, it's very well done with the HP ads. You know, if you listen to all of them because they are talking about different aspects, different things that HP is doing to try to move the 3D printing industry forward. So they're not the same at all.

Tell you what I'll do. I'll link to the ads in the episode so that you can just hear them. I'll link you right to the Dropbox ads and you'll be able to just kind of check them out.

Or we can just embed each of them as a list right in the post. You can just play them.

There you go. We'll go even further, make it really easy for you to just hit play and check them out. And you can check out the three voices, you can check out the randomization of them for how we utilize them. So that way you can just hear what's going on. And hey, HP gets a little boost on a different show. So why not? Your sponsor's not going to be upset by that, right?

I mean, hey, if you have any interest in 3D printing, then absolutely. You know, I don't know how many people listening to feed your brand are into 3D printing. Probably some.

Yeah. Never know. So anyway, I just want to quickly touch on the placements. We did a whole podcast episode on it. We'll link to that in the episode from this one as well. But we talk about what, what makes a pre roll ad, a post roll ad, a mid roll ad, and it has to do with its placement in the episode. It's kind of a radio term. It doesn't always work out really well. Like we have multiple mid roll spots. So we, we have a pre roll which would, pre roll would technically be right after the formal introduction and that would be a pre roll spot. And then Tom and I usually introduce our guest and then we put a mid roll and then we have the interview and then we put another mid roll and then we do our post conversation back and forth about what we learned. And then we could have a post roll right before our outro. So like we have multiple spots. We have four spots we can utilize in any. And this is a typical 45 minute episode for us. We could have four spots in there. We don't always use them. Like very typically with these, we might only use one of the mid roll spots, not both of them. So like that's a common thing for us. We choose what we want to do. If we had multiple sponsors, I might use both positions so that it mixes it up enough. But for this particular thing, if we're Only doing it with one sponsor. We usually only use one, but that's, you know, that's how we just choose.

Let's be clear about that. I mean, we do have some clients who have three or four different sponsors in a given month and they're running, you know, ads from each of them and they will run, you know, two or three in a given episode and then. Absolutely, you know, that will work if you want. Or you can just rotate, you know, each different episode has a ad from a different sponsor.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, this is the other thing about it is that thinking about the ad you spots, we don't love pre roll and post roll except for quick mentions, because what happens is that you have a intro outro before and after it. So you really don't want that whole like constant, extra long, lengthy thing. So we really only use that for this episode is sponsored by or, you know, a quick mention. Don't forget about something like that. So these are the positionings. We talk about that more in that specific episode on the ad placement spots. So we'll link to that in the episode for the blog for this episode. So let's talk about those transitions. Tom, because we don't prerecord, right. We don't pre record the ads in with our episode like many people do. Right. Like, we don't plan that at the 10 minute mark we're going to take a break like you do on radio and put in an ad here. We don't like to do that. We like to let the conversation flow naturally. We like to let the episode flow naturally. So the transition spot to an ad or to a promotion is required to be on the promotion itself side.

Yeah. So let's think about this. You want your episode to sound perfectly normal if it plays without any ads in it. So you wouldn't want there to be a section where you say, all right, I'll be right back after this message. And then, you know, all of a sudden there's no messaging. You say, we're back. Right. I've actually heard that on other podcasts. It's awful where they don't have an ad in there or they edited out, left the transition.

Here's what happens if you're a binge listener, okay. If you're truly, and I know so many of you podcast hosts out there are not actually podcast listeners. Why? Because I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of you and nine times out of ten you will admit you don't listen to podcasts, so you're not a listener. So Take this from the listener's perspective, of which I have, because I am a heavy podcast listener, very heavy, Right. And I interview them as well. So I understand what drives binge listeners and what they are when they hear that ad spot. Especially when you do it in a show that's just beginning, because you haven't sold the ad. So it's like your first 20 episodes and you're doing this like, and we'll be back in a moment, and then the moment happens and no promotion happens. You know what it says to the listener? Your show is not successful enough to sell ads. That's the answer that they get back. That's what they feel. That's what they believe. Or they think they're gonna sell me out. They're gonna sell those ads to whoever they can get the placement for. This isn't a show that's in it for me, the listener. This is a show that's in it to make money. So this is what I want to remind you. Do you know why your Joe Rogan show is an hour and a half or longer? Because he can fit more ad spots in and make more money. Right? That's the absolute truth of it. And true listeners know that. So be conscious of that. In our system of not putting the promotion and the pre spot have to market, being able to put it on the promotion side eliminates the point of that at the beginning till they get into their show. And you love. You love your show and are happy to listen to an ad at that moment, right?

So here's. Let's. Just from a tech perspective, really quick, what you do is, you know, you may record that ad separately, you may have a voiceover artist record it, but you, as the host should absolutely, in either case, record a transition, a lead into the ad and then a transition out of it back to the episode. So within this one MP3 file, that's the ad that gets uploaded to the system and inserted, has the context within it where it says, maybe I just asked a question of my guest. And then I say, all right, now we're going to hear the answer to that question right after this important message. And then it transitions into the ad. And then after the ad says, all right, now let's hear the answer to that question. Something like that. Now, in the earlier example Tracy gave, where she was talking about, maybe I'm a male host of a show, and this particular ad would be perceived better by women if it was spoken by a woman. Well, I can quickly, in that transition, not only transition to the ad, but transfer a little authority, saying, you know what, everyone, we're going to hear the answer to that question right after this important message from a friend, and not mine. Her name is Mary. And I think you're really going to be interested to hear what she has to say about this subject or you.

Do something of, like, for all those women listening out there, you know, I want to honor you. I have daughters and I really believe that this product is worth talking about. So I've asked my friend Mary to come and talk about it.

To come and talk about it. That's even better. Had I thought about it more, that.

Would have been a transition. So you wanted to have something that not only transitions authority, but personalizes it. Say, hey, I'm a guy with daughters. You know, I've been married to my wife for 29, 28, I don't know, 28, 28 plus years. And so, yeah, so you know, and this, I know this would mean a lot to her. Like, so you're making that personal connection still to you, because remember, you're the one the audience loves. So that is important. Why are you bringing this in to them? You're giving it context. And that's what the point of that sort of transition part is, to give it context in both how it's being listened to within the episode and how it's going to be presented. Right. And who or who's going to be presenting it.

So to me, those transitions are critical because they really help give it context and help it be received better. And then also they don't. They don't make you look like an amateur. They prevent you from looking like an amateur. They make you look like. This is a professionally put together show.

Who cares about the audience, who's working hard to make sure that we are receiving promotions and advertisements that matter, that are important.

So I just want to touch on randomizing really quickly. Why do we like the randomizing? We like the randomizing because it mixes it up. But in that randomizing, we still want to be consistent about our call to action. So that is really important in sort of making that one single call to action or a process for the call to action. So in other words, remember, we always say here on the show that everything that you do has got to reinforce the URL. So you're going to go to FeedYourBrand co. FeedYourBrand co. So if you're going to do something where you're going to have some promotion over it, maybe you're going to do FeedYourBrand co.

I'm trying to think or book or special or.

Right. And a word that's simple to remember, that's related. Sometimes I'll use a name of if it's short, like when we did hp, we just did hp because that's short. Right. Easy to remember. I listened to an ad about HP and I'd like to find out how to find them. Right. So you go there and you are able to get through to any of the promotions. So if you're running multiple promotions, I like to put them on the same page. That's our process for doing it. So it does not matter which promotion or which advertisement they listen to. They go to a page that actually might have all three. So they could be like, oh, I didn't hear the episode that had that offer or that webinar or whatever that is. But this also prevents you from your sponsor from screwing it up is really the answer here. So this is what I found over time. It's like if you do a URL and you let the sponsor or you let your affiliate or whatever control it, what happens is that they very, very.

Long, all these numbers and letters, like, you want me to recite that?

Right. You can't recite that on the air. So that's number one thing. The next part of it, though, is they change their promotion and the links are broken. So you have ads sitting there that are broken, which is why we developed the system of removing the ads, because it was happening so often that people were like, changing this. So this way, all you have to do is reform the URL on your end so you're in control of it. They are not. So that's the one thing that we always do, is we always require it to be a forwarding URL from our website to whatever it is. Now with hp, we have jump links. So they're tracking it, it's converting, they're following everything. But that jump link comes through from our forwarding URL page to them. And that's simply how we control that. And you need to be in control of that. Otherwise you'll have broken links and it'll make you look like less of a pro. And that's what we're trying to avoid. Right, right.

Well, the other thing is brand reinforcement, Honestly, always having the URL that you're promoting your show be on your own website. That's, to me, a critical requirement, really, because you don't want to be promoting somebody else's website. You don't want to send people directly from your show to another website. You Want to send them to your website, even if that's a forwarding URL that goes out to another website, make them type in your website dot com. Reinforce that in the brain. It helps your brand, right?

And they're already aware of it because you're reciting it at the outro as well. So it reinforces it there. So you've got a lot of it. That's not something they're gonna forget. So that's useful for the sponsor, for the promotion that you're running in that. So short, easy, consistent, right? That's what we're going for. Then. Another option that Tom, you know, has had some people do is do these text offers. And while I think it's not the worst thing ever, there's also numbers to remember. So if they're not writing it down or they can't click it. So here's one of the recommendations that we make on that. If you want to make a text offer, which is not a bad thing because most people listen to podcasts on their phone, so it's easy switching over to the text messaging app while you're still listening, it doesn't disrupt the listening. So that's a fine thing. Type that in. But the problem is that you heard the ad, it repeated. It's really hard to rewind and get to it. So people don't love that. So if you do that, put it in your descriptive paragraph, put your call to action for the ad, right? So that they can open up the episode and see that right there in the description there, and then go, okay, I got the number. So just, you know, it kind of conditioned them that that will be there for them. And that's also an easy way for them not to forget. So making your text number, you get kind of assigned it. So it's not always the easiest thing, you know, be great if you got 1 3, 1 3, you know, but if you don't, who knows what it is?

So it's usually five digits, which is better than trying to remember a phone number or something. It's easier. But.

But whatever word you have them type, make that really simple and easy and consistent from one show, one promotion, to another promotion. So, like, you're always doing it so that the word that you choose is really consistent and easy. And, you know, maybe you want to do offer every single time, if that fits it. I mean, sometimes it might not be an offer, but always do offer. And then they get. They are just like, hey, there were five offers this month, so I'm giving you all five of them, choose which one you want, you know, and it just be really kind of cat. That way you don't have to be overly specific about and go offer one offer to offer three. Like, or anything weird.

Like that can be tricky.

It can be cumbersome. So speaking of that kind of testing and removing things. So sometimes we like to test ads, and that's part of why we did this 9 AD process, is that we wanted to sort of see which ads were working and which ones weren't.

We want to see that the ones Tom read convert the most. That's what we want.

Because it's always a competition here, right. You know, who does our audience love the most? And so it'll probably be Chris, our voiceover artist.

Maybe at the end of the day. I mean, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. I was just teasing.

Right. So you can mix up the URL or the offer names or whatever based on who's reading it too. If you're doing that kind of testing, don't make it overly complex, but you can at least do that so you're tracking where they're going. So we could do a 3dstartpoint.com Tracy with Y. Right. Like I have to say that. So that's always a problem. But Tom is easy, right? And so then they go to the ones that Tom said. It still sends them to the right page, but it's a forwarding URL into that. Tracking the fact that Tom's ads converted higher. So you can always do something like that in terms of testing. And then you remove the ads that aren't working. And then the next month. And I like. And this is the one thing that I want to give you. I like to give our promotions 30 days before we start mixing things up, because you really don't get a good sense of how it's worked across all the episodes. Have our binge listeners caught up with the episodes. Like, where are they in the process? So we don't really get through all of that unless you give it about 30 days before you start messing with it and making changes. I mean, if you got some immediate feedback saying, like, people are like, I don't understand what you said. Like, go ahead and fix that. But unless you get that, give it time. So I don't know. I don't have anything else about podcast promotions, ad creation. Just. I mean, this is a. There's an art and a science to creating great ads, and there are. People get paid lots of money to do that. But here in podcast world, being genuine, being authentic, just being you and putting it out there, doing that is going to do a lot better for you. And really picking and choosing promotions that you believe in are going to go a long ways to getting your audience. Even if you make every mistake under the book and how that you, how you present it, how you offer it, we can help you be a pro and refine that by giving you this advice and all of this. But you know, the thing is, is that just doing that is going to take you 80% of the way there.

So true, Tracy. All right, well, thanks so much for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week with another great episode. This has been Tom and Tracy on feed.

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