Hacker News Reader

Comment by perlgeek | Hacker News Reader

I listen to quite a few podcasts, and I'm increasingly annoyed by ads being repeated word for word in each episode.

There are two podcasts that do things a bit differently, which I enjoy more:

* https://risky.biz/ has short-ish interviews with the sponsors that focus not only on the product, but often on the market, insights that the advertiser gained from analytics that their products gather etc.

* https://www.acquired.fm/ has 30s spots where they ask their advertiser one question, which gives the advertiser the option to show off some special knowledge in their area, but can also be interesting to the listener. And a different question each episode.

I'd love to get some metrics on how those approaches compare to the traditional 30s to 60s ad reads (in terms of conversion).

View on HN

The most unique ad readings are probably Bill Burr's, on his Monday Morning podcast.

He would often read the copy sent to him by companies advertising, criticize their terrible writing or the product itself... and he's not faking it either, as he often loses these advertisers. (but it's Bill Burr! so not running out of advertisers any time soon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlBreqGEQ70

The Sherry's Berries reads were hilarious. It sounds like they were annoyed with the first read, but came around to his style as they kept re-up'ing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMLn57oS9Yk

This is the best approach. In a world where every podcast has a "Skip 30s" button, he has managed to have ad reads that people deliberately listen to - and even seek them out on YouTube. It's genius.

Hands down, I've never heard anyone do ads better than Cum Town[0] (seriously). Sometimes the reads end up being upwards of 15 min & in the middle of the show but nobody skips them. In fact in live shows the crowd will cheer when an ad read starts.

The trick is they have extremely tolerant advertisers who don't mind being basically slandered every ad read, having the promo codes and discounts read wrong, having the "don't read this part out loud" parts read on accident, etc.

Close 2nd is Hollywood Handbook, who also shits on advertisers and leads to their ad reads being the most listened to clips of the show. For example when Cards Against Humanity told them to say whatever they want [1].

[0] http://shoutengine.com/CumTown/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VGXloYZctI

Yep; the better podcasts pull in the advertiser into their unique style. Comedy podcasts are probably the best example of this. My Brother, My Brother, and Me will write a funny song about each advertiser, or involve them in "advice" bits somehow. They had a recurring segment with an online adult toy store that involved them reading lists of what people who had clicked through to their landing page had bought.

Then again, I've never bought anything that I've heard about on a podcast, so I have to admit I remain pretty skeptical of its paying off.

> Then again, I've never bought anything that I've heard about on a podcast, so I have to admit I remain pretty skeptical of its paying off.

It's not always that, it's sometimes brand awareness.

Also, I just bought an Indochino suit primarily because I've heard the goddamned ads 100 times by now. And I'm pretty pleased with the product, honestly.

I totally agree with you, I've never skipped an ad read on CT, but when have they done one live?

I like how Pod Save America (which is quite rife with ads) riffs on their advertisers and has amusing side-commentary on their advertisements that are in-line with current events.

It breaks out of the mold of a pure ad.

True, and Lovett is generally pretty hilarious, but... then the ad breaks are 5 minutes long... If I'm able (i.e., not driving), I tend to just skip them.

I think that's a given and priced in.

Sounds you've got 5 minutes....to go download the cash app. We only use the cash app now.

In a sense this is arguably what podcast advertisers are paying for, these kind of “amusing side-commentaries” in podcast ads tread a grey area between advertisement and paid personal endorsement. The best podcasters are relatively self-aware of this grey area and avoid accepting ad money from products they don’t personally believe are worthwhile to their listeners. Podcast advertisers are effectively paying to borrow the good will that often exists between a podcaster and their fans to try and sell products/services, which I suspect must have a pretty robust conversion rate, judging by the speed at which podcast advertising has grown.

The relationship between listeners and podcasts hosts is surprisingly intimate for a broadcast medium.

Unlike traditionally advertising, most podcast ads are called to action with links and/or codes that tell the advertiser where the customer came from. If the advertising wasn’t returning the ROI that the advertiser wants, they would know.

But advertisers are willing to spend $6500+ for a spot on the most popular Apple related podcasts - The Talk Show and Accidental Tech Podcast - and they do so repeatedly so they must be effective.

Just a nitpick, most savvy advertisers know that the discount code alone isn't how they measure ROI (or more appropriately ROAS) on a media buy. You look at other things like an increase in organic search or direct traffic, social mentions, etc. to try and paint a more holistic picture.

But they can attribute that directly to an ad spend. For instance the old joke is that the definition of a podcast is two guys talking about tech sponsored by SquareSpace.

I’m assuming that SquareSpace by knowing what percentage of the discount codes come from different podcasts can estimate where to spend thier money.

risky.biz is brilliant for podcast advertising - but last time I asked them (around 6 months ago) the regular sponsorship slots were fully booked until 2020! Their model is quite a bit different compared to the podcasts covered by OP: typically you buy a single 12 minute interview where the host interviews you directly. Pricing was around $7K USD for that (but perhaps that's changed in last 6 months).

I actually prefer repeated ads, it makes it easier to skip them with a double click on the headset remote.

* Mixergy discusses the company with the guest.

* Masters of Scale ads are a short story about a problem. The ad is broken into parts throughout the episode.

I still skip both often but it's harder to skip than a predefined time slot. I also listen more often than ads that are the same everytime.

>I listen to quite a few podcasts, and I'm increasingly annoyed by ads being repeated word for word in each episode.

Leo from twit.tv has always been good at doing more than just following a script when it comes to adverts on his podcast. It makes them a lot less annoying

Reply on news.ycombinator.com