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This week: A birds-eye view of how podcasting is doing political ads this year, Spotify stock drops after announcing price increase, podcast companies discuss diversity at Advertising Week and the IAB Upfront, and a massive new Nielsen study shows podcast ads universally boost brand metrics. How podcast networks are making their own rules for political advertising—and how they differ from one another. Manuela: Midterm elections are approaching fast in the United States and that means political ads are on the rise. This Wednesday MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers published https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2022/10/26/how-podcast-networks-are-making-their-own-rules-for-political-advertising?mid=4afb33bb7ffe284d840660fb3604ff60. “Political advertisers, including candidates and advocacy groups, have expressed interest in podcasts, according to several network execs, but not all networks want to play ball. And because the FCC doesn’t regulate political ads in podcasting, the rules are left entirely up to platforms and networks.” iHeart, Wondery, and Vox declined to comment on Meyer’s story, but those that did gave a wide variety of responses and opinions. Cadence13 has always been open to political ads, for instance. That said, the decision on whether or not to run any particular cause or campaign is left to the individual hosts of Cadence13 original podcasts. Spotify has flipped the switch to allow political ads again, having banned them after accusations of spreading disinformation during the 2020 presidential election. Curiously, both Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts do not directly mention political advertising in their ad policies.  Due to government regulations, NPR cannot run political ads on terrestrial radio. CEO Gina Garrubbo told MarketingBrew NPR chooses not to run political ads on other platforms. Meyers continues: “Execs from other podcast networks told us they’re starting to see increasing interest from political candidates and issue-based organizations, and though they’re open to these opportunities, some don’t have formal policies in place yet.” Shira Atkins, co-founder and CRO of Wonder Media Network, has taken the approach of allowing political ads but only as part of sponsored content or via baked-in host-read. She says the network has gotten pitches from PACs and candidates, but some have blanched at the idea of handing over creative control to a host instead of running an ad produced by the campaign.  “While political ad dollars aren’t flooding the podcast space the way they are CTV, as the industry continues to grow, its political ad policies will likely continue to evolve and solidify, even if they differ across networks.”  If there’s one clear consensus in the world of political advertising on podcasts, it’s that there currently is no consensus.  Spotify Shares Slip 10% After CEO Says Price Hikes Coming Next Year  Shreya: On Wednesday Denny Jacob, writing for The Wall Street Journal and reposted to MarketWatch,https://www.marketwatch.com/story/spotify-shares-slip-10-after-ceo-says-price-hikes-coming-next-year-271666801839The results were a mixed bag for Spotify. “For its third quarter, Spotify reported 456 million monthly active users, up 20% from a year earlier and above the company's guidance. Paying subscribers, Spotify's most lucrative type of customer, climbed 13% to 195 million, also exceeding the company's expectations, thanks to promotions and household plans.” That said, Spotify also posted a Q3 loss of 195 million dollars. Spotify Premium has cost $9.99 since the service launched in 2011, but CEO Daniel Ek says that’ll change some time next year. Spotify shares fell 10% after the announcement.  Podcast companies want to increase diverse content—but say they need better ad budgets to do so Manuela: Time for another article from MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers, this one published on Monday. In it, she covers conversations about the podcasting industry stemming from https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2022/10/24/podcast-companies-want-to-increase-diverse-content-but-say-they-need-better-ad-budgets-to-do-so?mid=4afb33bb7ffe284d840660fb3604ff60 last week.  “Part of the push for more diversity in podcasting is about getting creators from different backgrounds behind the mic in the first place. Conal Byrne, CEO of the iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group, said that podcasting, like other mediums, has a problem with representation, but that there are efforts underway to “course-correct.” Meyers cites the Edison Research’s 2022 Infinite Dial to demonstrate that the average makeup of the regular US podcast listeners - 53% men and 59% white, has declined in recent years. She also notes the diverse makeup of podcast hosts is outpacing wider US population statistics, using statistics from https://soundsprofitable.com/article/the-creators-us-2022 on June 28th.  Conversations about diversification also raise questions about brand safety.  “During Acast’s panel, global head of ad innovation Elli Dimitroulakos said that brand-safety tech can be imperfect as well, because it “has been built by people with preconceived notions or biases.”  Dimitrioulakos provides the example of a retailer avoiding any instance of the word ‘bomb’ in an attempt to distance themselves from any content to do with war, but in the process unrelated content like discussions of bomber jackets are caught in the crossfire.  “Or “if I say ‘a bomb lipstick,’ I’m not talking about a weapon,” added Brooke DeVard Ozaydinli, host of the Naked Beauty podcast.” Tenderfoot TV co-founder and president Donald Albright says advertisers should be prepared to invest in the industry and support the diversity they want to see in the industry. “Black content is what creates the culture, all culture, so invest in that,” he said. “Put the money in it, and also pay a premium on it. Don’t just pay the normal rate, pay extra, because you’re reaching a very targeted market that’s going to set the trends. That should be more valuable.” New massive Nielsen study finds podcast ads universally boost brand metrics, long ads work. Shreya: On Wednesday Gillian Follett, writing for AdAge, covered https://adage.com/article/digital-marketing-ad-tech-news/nielsen-study-shows-podcast-ads-universally-boost-brand-metrics/2445491 “The study, titled “Podcast Ad Effectiveness: Best Practices for Key Industries,” consolidates the findings of 610 separate studies conducted by Nielsen to measure how ads inserted into podcast episodes affected several performance metrics, including brand familiarity, brand affinity and brand awareness. It also measured consumers’ intent to search for more information about the brand; purchase something from the brand; or recommend the brand to others.”  The individual studies cover a period of four years and involved over 147,000 respondents, leading to the claim this is the largest ever study of podcasting advertising effectiveness. This claim was made by study commissioner Magna, an investment and intelligence unit of IPG Mediabrands. One notable bit of data is the finding that ads longer than 35 seconds drive better results than shorter creatives. Magna executive VP and managing director of audience intelligence and strategy Brian Hughes suggests this is due in part to the tendency for longer creatives to be tailor-made for podcasting. Shorter ads have a higher likelihood of being repurposed from another medium - such as radio - while longer ads likely have been built with podcasting in mind.  “Additionally, podcast ads largely had the same impact whether they were read by the podcast host or they came from the brand. In fact, custom ads—which typically involve the host sharing their personal experience with the brand, according to Hughes—were generally less effective than those that didn’t feature the podcast host. The report points out that “custom content may not be worth the price of creation given it lags in performance.”” It’s also worth noting with both the results we’ve covered and the rest in the article that Nielsen’s methodology actually suppresses positive results, in a way. Respondents aren’t actually listeners of the podcasts they’re being tested with. It then stands to reason that if a result comes back positive in this study, the results are likely even better with an individual podcast’s actual audience.  Quick Hits Manuela: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’ve named Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2022/10/19/pocket-casts-mobile-apps-are-now-open-source/?utm_source=Hot+Pod&utm_campaign=7d7517d609-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_10_20_06_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f85dcd1354-7d7517d609-92412891 by Yael Rubinstein for Pocket Casts. This one does what it says on the tin: podcast listening service Pocket Casts announces their decision to make both the iOS and Android versions of their mobile apps open source. https://rainnews.com/soundexchange-wins-9-7-million-judgment-from-slacker-liveone/

What’s the episode about: Arielle Nissenblatt chats with Sounds Profitable partners Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster about the two year anniversary of Sounds Profitable. Learn about our content initiatives, our research, our partnership opportunities, and how you can get involved at every stage. Listen to learn about:  What it means to be a Sounds Profitable partnerWhere we think Sounds Profitable will be in another two yearsOur upcoming research initiatives AKA what we’ll be exploring nextThe next iteration of The Creators, our research study about podcast creatorsHow you can best utilize Sounds Profitable’s resources for continuing education within your company Links: Bryan BarlettaArielle NissenblattTom WebsterArticle discussedThe DownloadSounds Profitable: Narrated ArticlesSquadCastPodsights Credits: Hosted by Bryan Barletta, Tom Webster, Arielle NissenblattSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronProduced by: Ron Tendick and Reece CarmanAssembled by: Spooler MediaHosted by: Omny StudioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it mean that several podcasts paid to have their podcasts downloaded in a mobile app? Let’s break down the issue at hand, where things went wrong, and what we as an industry can do to solve it. Credits: Written by Bryan BarlettaEdited by Bryan BarlettaProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: TikTok spotted scraping podcast feeds, YouTube launches audio ads and host-read ad service, Internet radio platform Live365 to distribute through TuneIn On Air, the Spoken Word Audio Report debuts next week, and Digiday research shows publishers are warming more to programmatic. Evidence suggests TikTok to explore podcasts. Manuela: TikTok is coming to podcasting, or at least it looks to be that way from the breadcrumb trail of hints the company has left behind over the past year. Most recently, in Monday’s edition of Podnews, James Cridland reported podcast hosting company Audiomeans has spotted a“new bot that is scraping our feeds, starting October 11th.” The host also provided Podnews with details about the bot scraping their feeds that ties it back to TikTok.Back in May the social media giant registered a trademark for a new service titled TikTok Music, which happened to include a provision for podcast content. Further back still, in the last week of December 2021 all TikTok users got a notification prompting them to take the ‘TikTok Podcast experience survey’ that collected listener-focused data, as well as audience metrics if the person filling it out identified as a producer. With questions like “if TikTok is going to launch a podcast feature, which of the following do you think will lead to a positive podcasting experience?,” it’s no surprise we’re seeing signs they’re building something podcasting related almost a year later.  YouTube launches audio advertisements, service for host-read podcast spots. Arielle: This Monday YouTube announced a launch of audio-only ads, including ways to allow advertisers to specifically target podcasts, music, and those using connected TVs. This feature was beta-tested in 2020 but has now gone live globally. Sheila Dang covered the announcement for Reuters. “The streaming video platform said it will expand audio advertising globally to allow brands to market to people who use YouTube to listen to music or podcasts.”  It should be noted, as of this writing the YouTube podcasts homepage is still unavailable outside the US, though the announcement of global audio ads suggests this will change soon. Then on Tuesday MarketingBrew’s Alyssa Meyers covered further development on the story as YouTube brought host-read ads into the mix. “YouTube BrandConnect, its branded-content platform that connects creators with advertisers, is piloting a program that offers video ads read by podcasters, signaling YouTube’s continued interest in expanding its footprint in the podcast world.”  The BrandConnect system will allow brands testing the program to op into 60 or 90 second host-read ad segments that exclusively appear on the YouTube version of the podcast. The spots will either include video of the host reading the copy or a custom title card with audio overlay. BrandConnect managing director Lori Sobel mentioned skincare company Neutrogena has implemented the tool to run a campaign on the The Financial Confessions. In the future BrandConnect has intentions of using audience insights to pair brands with creators.  Live365 signs TuneIn On Air distribution deal. Manuela: Last Wednesday Soundstack’s Live365 platform announced a distribution agreement with TuneIn. Broadcasters on Live365 premium subscriptions now have access to the TuneIn On Air, opening up access to the platform’s 30 million US-based people using the TuneIn mobile app on over 200 connected devices, including integrations with automotive systems by Tesla and Volvo. A quote from TuneIn CEO Richard Stern: “This partnership with Live365 fits perfectly within our mission to reinvent radio for a connected world and democratize access to radio for broadcasters large and small. We believe great conversations are driven by the power of the human voice and we know our listeners rely on us to stay connected to the issues that matter to them most via our content catalog. We're thrilled to help more broadcasters reach TuneIn's expansive audience." This partnership comes at a time when traditional radio listenership is dropping. Last month Tom Webster, in an article for Sounds Profitable, wrote about the most recent Edison Research Share of Ear study. In recent years there has been a slow decline in Americans 13 and up listening to audio on AM/FM radios, while listening time on mobile devices has grown in almost direct correlation.  “I am certainly not the only person to write about this, but radio has as much of a hardware problem as it does a “software” issue. Other than your car, it is getting harder and harder to even buy a broadcast radio receiver. Some mobile phones do offer radio tuners, but Apple has famously rebuffed all attempts by radio lobbyists to include one in the iPhone. And so, as you might guess, AM/FM’s Share of Ear on mobile devices is comparatively quite small, indeed--in fact, today that share is markedly smaller than the share allocated to podcast listening on mobile devices.”Bringing radio to those mobile devices eliminates the issue of limited access to hardware. TuneIn is a standout example of a service modernizing the radio listening experience and making it accessible from mobile devices. Thanks to their roster of connected devices including automotive systems like Tesla and Volvo, their version of portable radio even can take over one of the last bastions of AM/FM hardware.  The Spoken Word Audio Report 2022 Launches Next Week Arielle: Mark your calendars, NPR and Edison Research are set to release the 2022 version of the Spoken Word Audio Report on October 27th. The study will explore:“specific types of spoken word content, various spoken-word platforms, and devices used to consume spoken word content. With young people in the U.S. listening to spoken word audio more than ever, this year’s study includes a special focus on Gen Z consumption.” Vice President of Edison Research Megan Lazovick and Lamar Johnson, VP of Sponsorship Marketing at National Public Media , will present the study via webinar at 2pm Eastern Standard Time. Registration for the webinar is live and a link is available on the Edison Research blog post announcing the event. Digiday+ Research: Direct-sold ads lose favor with publishers, while programmatic ads make gains Manuela: The tide appears to be shifting more in favor of programmatic advertising. This Monday, Digiday deputy managing editor Julia Tabisz covered a survey of 200 publisher professionals conducted by Digiday+ Research over the first and third quarters of 2022. Their findings show a growing difference between money made from direct-sold ads and programmatic.  “While programmatic ads still make up a smaller portion of publishers’ revenues on the whole than direct-sold ads, publishers see potential in programmatic, Digiday’s survey found, which could affect how publishers prioritize their businesses through the end of this year and into next. For instance, the percentage of publishers who said they will put a large or very large focus on building the programmatic part of their business in the next six months has risen from fewer than a third (32%) in Q1 to 43% in Q3.” The survey found the percentage of publishers who self-identified as getting a large or very large portion of their ad revenue from direct-sold ads fell from 59% in Q1 to 45% in Q3. On the flip side, publishers who got a large portion of ad revenue from programmatic ads only shrank from 32% to 30% from Q1 to Q2.  “Digging a bit deeper into how publishers manage their programmatic ads business, it turns out that the open market is the biggest source of publishers’ programmatic revenue — and it’s growing.”  Longtime listeners of The Download have heard this before: programmatic isn’t a dirty word, and an excellent tool when used properly, and we love to see wider industries embracing it.  Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading Arielle: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week: 5 Reasons Brands Shouldn’t Sleep on Co-Listening by Melissa Paris for SXMMedia. SiriusXM, in collaboration with Carat and Edison Research, has published their second co-listening report as a f

There are around four million podcasts in the world today - but how many are you actually competing with? The answer is much smaller than you might think. Credits: Written by Tom WebsterEdited by Tom WebsterProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: ESPN to potentially partner with DraftKings, Podcasting unions make headlines, Netflix confirms two independent measurement companies, advertisers reflect on 2023 spend, and two new podcasting hosts arrive in the US. ESPN Nears Large New Partnership With DraftKingsManuela: Last Thursday Ed Hammond and Crystal Tse of Bloomberg covered an anticipated deal between ESPN and sports-betting firm DraftKings. According to an update to the piece, DraftKings’ stock rose as much as 8.8% in response to the news on Friday. “ESPN has already invested heavily in sports gambling, though it has steered clear of taking actual bets. The broadcaster has betting-related shows such as Daily Wager and marketing deals with DraftKings and Caesars Entertainment Inc. where links to the sportsbooks are integrated into ESPN’s website. Disney also acquired a stake in DraftKings as part of its acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019.”Disney has long avoided gambling in pursuit of upholding its wholesome family image. As Bloomberg points out, none of the Disney cruise ship fleet have casinos aboard, nor are Disney characters licensed to slot machine manufacturers. Clearly, their attitudes appear to be changing as they search for a sports betting partner for ESPN.Sean Russo, Research Manager of Magellan AI, offered this when asked about the growth of sports betting and adjacent categories: “As of August, the Fantasy Sports industry is up 22% year to date, although historically spending in the industry has peaked in September. Last year spend more than doubled between August and September, primarily driven by brands like Fanduel and DraftKings”  ESPN is a major podcast network and sports betting, as well as its cousins like fantasy sports, continue to climb in popularity. If this deal comes to fruition, it could be a big deal indeed. Podcasting gains new union, hears from two recently affected by Spotify layoffs. Shreya: In this first segment we have two stories fitting in a theme of organized labor in podcasting. Last Tuesday, Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios announced last Tuesday that roughly 75% of their proposed bargaining unit signed up to officially join WGA East. Ashley Carman reported for Bloomberg: “The employees said they’re looking for increased transparency around pay, rights to their intellectual property, protection against favoritism at work and improved health insurance, according to the letter.”Later in the week, the utility of unionizing was highlighted when Spotify pruned their walled garden. Last Thursday Tech Crunch’s Lauren Forristal reported on Spotify canceling multiple shows at once from two of the four Spotify in-house content production companies. Three podcasts from Gimlet and eight from Parcast are either canceled effective immediately or set - in the case of Horoscope Today - scheduled to end in the second quarter of 2023. Spotify also announced this would cause “less than 5% of layoffs of Spotify’s podcast staff.”  Last Friday both the Gimlet Union and Parcast Union took issue with that number in an official letter posted to Twitter.  “Yesterday, Spotify blindsided both Gimlet Union and Parcast Union with at least 38 layoffs across their studios. Spotify has said in the press that these layoffs constitute less than 5% of people working on original podcasts. That number is misleading. The reality is that each bargaining unit organized with the Writers Guild of America, East has lost about 30% of its members. These are not small cuts, they are massive restructurings.”  The two unions go on to highlight Spotify’s internal reasoning for canceling the podcasts was due to low listenership, which the unions argue was in large part due to decisions made by Spotify itself.  “Their decision to make most of Gimlet’s and Parcast’s shows Spotify Exclusive caused a steep drop in listeners - as high as three quarters of the audience for some shows. Yet the company did little or nothing to staunch the bleeding. Shows languished without marketing support, and teams were not given clear audience goals to meet.”  Netflix strikes measurement deals ahead of new ad-supported tier Manuela: On Monday Garett Sloane, writing for AdAge, reported on some updates to the ongoing story of Netflix prepping for the launch of their ad-supported tier. As covered in the September 8th episode of The Download, details were scarce about the tier beyond its possible price point and the streamer’s CPM goals. “... Netflix has been asking for high prices for its ad inventory, at least $60 CPMs—cost per thousand views—while only offering limited targeting possibilities and no third-party measurement, according to people familiar with the situation.” Now Netflix has announced they’re working with both Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify to act as that third-party measurement. A measurement executive speaking to Sloane anonymously believes implementation of the two services should be relatively easy for Netflix. Netflix signing two big-name third-party companies to give credence to their measurement stands as another example of why a certain podcasting platform’s decisions come off as odd. Spotify, when in a similar position of needing brand safety and ad measurement as Netflix, chose to not only work with one third-party company, they strongly inferred the partnership intended to create a proprietary brand safety tool. Surveyed advertisers discuss where they’ll potentially spend differently in an uncertain 2023.  Shreya: Much talk has been had about the uncertainties of how things will look in the future as the economy has a will-they-won’t-they relationship with a recession. This Wednesday MarketingBrew’s Ryan Barwick brought some numbers to the table that demonstrate just how uncertain the industry is. The following numbers are the result of a survey of 43 advertisers run by the World Federation of Advertisers and their media research company Ebiquity. 41% expect to keep their 2022 budgets, though as Barwick says in the article: “29% said they expect a decrease in their budget. The remaining 29% said they expect to see an increase.”While 43 might seem like a small sample size for a survey, it’s worth noting those companies account for $44 billion in ad spend. 28% said they’d increase performance advertising, while 21% aim to increase their share of brand advertising. 40% of respondents would up their share of flexible or biddable buys. ““With uncertain times ahead, it’s clear that brand advertisers seek more tactical agility in terms of trading and shifting budgets throughout the year, versus annual upfront commitments,” Ruben Schreurs, chief product officer at Ebiquity, wrote to Marketing Brew.”  New Podcast Hosts Cross the Atlantic Manuela: Two new podcast hosting services have hit the US markets this week. First: podcast recording and editing application Alitu has announced Alitu Hosting, making the service all-in-one. According to Jacob Anderson, head of Growth at Alitu: “We started building Alitu four years ago with one mission in mind: to offer the clearest path to sharing your voice and making an impact on the world, making no compromise over control and creativity. Whether that’s making one person laugh, or lifting an entire community, we want to offer the help you need to achieve your purpose.” This Tuesday French hosting service Ausha announced the rolling out of their service in the US on their official blog. Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading Shreya: Finally, it’s time for our semi-regular roundup of articles we’re calling Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week: Platforms used for listening to podcasts in Poland in 2022 by Statista. We make a point of discussing podcasting performance around the globe. With t

As interest in podcasting continues to surge, so does the expectation that podcasting adheres to norms established in other advertising channels. Today, frequency capping takes the center stage.  Podscribe DD: https://soundsprofitable.com/article/podscribeThoughtleaders: https://soundsprofitable.com/article/thoughtleaders-intelligence Sounds Profitable Podscribe A deep dive into Podscribe: critical intelligence for podcast advertisers. Dec 17th, 2020 Sounds Profitable ThoughtLeaders Partner Intelligence Solution Elsie Bernaiche, Director of Sales at ThoughtLeaders, joins us for our latest product deepdive into the ThoughtLeaders Partner Intelligence Solution. Credits: Written by Bryan BarlettaEdited by Bryan BarlettaProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Podcasting overtakes talk radio, CPMs increase, video game ads counting as podcast downloads, and Publishers test personalizing newsletters. Podcasting overtakes talk radio, CPMs increase Manuela: For today’s first segment we’re going to cover two recent pieces about industry growth. First, Kurt Hanson’s Rain News recap of the Audioscape 2022 talk by Cumulus Media executive Pierre Bouvard. The biggest eye-catching number from Bouvard’s presentation of Edison Research media involves how the 18-34 age group spends their weekly time listening to talk or personality-driven audio content. Terrestrial radio has been overtaken in this bracket, with podcasts taking 60% of those listening hours.  “Even within the older demos of 25-54 and 35-64, podcast listening’s share of talk/personality listening is high — 47% and 39%, respectively, with those numbers up nearly double and more than triple, respectively, compared to five years ago.” Continuing the trend of good news from new data, Libsyn’s Advertisecast has published their Podcast Advertising Rates 2022 report. The presentation is compiled from reporting data provided by 2,985 podcasts. Podnews editor James Cridland reported on Monday:   “There has been a jump in the average CPM for podcast advertising, according to Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast: the average is now $24.35, the second-highest on record. It’s up 3.7% month-on-month, or 5% year-on-year.”  Podcasting continues its upward climb. More listener share over radio and growing CPMs sounds like a good thing to us.  A follow-up on video game ads counting as podcast downloads.  Shreya: Last week we covered Ashely Carman’s piece covering podcast companies, most notably iHeartRadio, purchasing downloads via mobile game ads. In a follow-up piece covering industry reactions posted last Thursday, Carman got official comment from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.  “The standards are in a continual state of review,” said Eric John, vice president of the media center at the IAB. “We’re trying to ski to where the puck is going ultimately, and we’re going to make standards to match the industry’s needs.” On the same day Podnews reported a response from Podtrac explaining why the gaming ads only playing 20 seconds of an episode of were counted as full downloads. “It’s our understanding they appear as browser traffic without a unique user agent (or [unique] IP address). These downloads don’t have a material impact on the publisher rankings including the rank order of the top publishers.”  Then, in related news, HotPod reported on an InsideRadio piece covering Podtrac suspending its weekly data newsletter after iHeart stopped sponsoring the project. The decision was reportedly made over a month ago. According to HotPod, the last data tracker email they’d received was published September 13th, while the last one with iHeartRadio branding had been sent August 15th.  Since the HotPod publication went live, InsideRadio - a company owned by iHeartMedia - has pulled their Podtrac story.  Publishers test personalizing newsletters with varying degrees of success Manuela: Last Wednesday Digiday’s Sara Guaglione reported the experiences of publishers who experimented with using tools to generate personalized newsletters for subscribers. We’re covering it here as the tools and methodology involved might just be of interest to podcasting. From the article:  “As companies like The New York Times and The Washington Post experiment with personalizing their homepages to get readers to consume more articles, publishers are also tweaking newsletters to serve readers’ specific interests and behaviors — but to varying degrees of success. The piece opens with the success story of The Telegraph, which has run the personalized newsletter Headlines for a year. Each time a newsletter needs to be sent, an algorithm selects vertical-specific content recommendations based on browsing history, including making sure to not recommend articles the subscriber has already read.  The Telegraph reports higher click-through rates, page views per click, and time spent on the website from Headlines subscribers vs. their standard hand-built newsletters. In contrast, publications like The Toronto Star have tried similar things and found little to no results. Newsroom director David Topping told Digiday:   Most newsletter subscribers “seem pretty happy getting what everyone else got,” Topping said. The personalized newsletter drove engagement for a “niche audience” who wanted tailored recommendations but it wasn’t “necessarily something that’s going to move the needle,” he added.” Niche audiences are a thing podcasting does well. The recommendation tech used to create these newsletters could be of use in the podcasting industry. An individual news podcast could build itself live akin to how Spooler allows The Refresh to add new segments on the fly. Except, with a recommendation engine, a news podcast could be constructed of only segments the recommendation tool knows the listener would enjoy.  Or, scaled up to an entire production house or network, the same tech could be applied to give bespoke RSS feeds to subscribers that only dole out episodes of podcasts that company produces that the listener would enjoy. An elegant solution for the existing logjam of either dozens of individual RSS feeds for a stable of similar podcasts, or one feed containing multiple different shows.  Quick Hits: Recommended Weekend Reading Shreya: Finally, it’s time for Quick Hits, our roundup of articles that didn’t make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:  Numbers games by Brian Morrissey for The Rebooting newsletter. An excellent op-ed discussing how recent focus on having writers create content that generates subscriptions to a publication is the modern version of prioritizing writing that generated page clicks. Both overlook the meaty day-to-day content that keeps readers coming back. An excellent piece of opinion about an industry next door to podcasting.  What are the Top 10 Alternative ID Solutions and How Should You Use Them? By Andrew Byrd for Admonsters. For those looking to get into some deep-level tech discussion, Byrd details ten privacy-focused Alternative IDs to future-proof for the day when Google eventually kills third party cookies.  Political advertising is propping up a slow ad market by Jeremy Goldamn for InsiderIntelligence. Political ads are a hot-button topic for podcasting, but there’s no denying it’s a midterm election year and spending is only going up between now and November.  Hit Songs Are Staying on the Top Charts Longer Than Ever by Lucas Shaw for Bloomberg. A companion piece to last week’s Quick Hit from The Guardian, Shaw details how modern streaming analytics are making top charts stagnate. Where a person who buys one CD a quarter and listened to it 500 times didn’t affect charts in the 90s, that same listening habit can keep artists afloat for years on Spotify.  How ad tech aims to build back better by Ronana Shields for Digiday. We’re four years into a post-GDPR world. Shields covers the current state of adtech and privacy via discussions had at the first in-person Dmexco conference since 2020.  The Download is a production of Sounds Profitable. Today's episode was hosted by Shreya Sharma and Manuela Bedoya, and the script was written by Gavin Gaddis. Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster are the executive producers of The Download from Sounds Profitable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the release of We’ll Be Right Back, part two of After These Messages, Tom Webster has a few questions about promo codes. Is it time to change how we use them? Credits: Written by Tom WebsterEdited by Tom WebsterProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sounds Profitable is two years old this month! Founder Bryan Barletta talks about just how far we’ve come in 24 short months, and where we are headed next as we continue to serve our mission to push podcasting forward and set the course for the future of the audio business. Credits: Written by Bryan BarlettaEdited by Bryan BarlettaProduced with Spooler.fmHosted with Omny StudioSounds Profitable theme written by Tim Cameron Sounds Profitable: Narrated Articles is a production of Sounds Profitable. For more information, visit soundsprofitable.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.