Podcasting has never been more culturally relevant. Listeners are engaged, loyal, and attentive — yet the channel continues to punch below its weight when it comes to marketing budgets. Despite commanding millions of daily listeners and deep audience trust, podcast advertising still accounts for a small fraction of total media spend. Tune into this episode to learn how brands can take advantage of this under utilized and often overlooked channel.
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Takeaways
- 90% of podcast revenue is still direct, not programmatic.
- Host-read ads are key but challenging to scale.
- Frequency offers automated direct solutions for audio ads.
- AI is used for quality assurance in ad reads.
- Dynamic creative optimization is expanding in audio.
- Location-based data is crucial for ad personalization.
- Brands should test various audio strategies for best results.
- Listening to podcasts helps brands understand the space.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction to Pete Jimison
- 03:00 The Rise of Podcasting
- 09:00 Challenges in Audio Advertising
- 15:00 Innovative Solutions by Frequency
- 21:00 The Role of AI in Audio
- 27:00 Future of Audio Advertising
Why Podcast Advertising Still Isn’t Getting Its Fair Share How Frequency Is Changing That
Podcasting has never been more culturally relevant. Listeners are engaged, loyal, and attentive — yet the channel continues to punch below its weight when it comes to marketing budgets. Despite commanding millions of daily listeners and deep audience trust, podcast advertising still accounts for a small fraction of total media spend.
So what’s holding it back? And what will it take for audio to claim its rightful share of the marketing pie?
In this episode of The MarTech Matrix, host Sean Simon sits down with Pete Jimison, CEO and Founder of Frequency, to discuss the evolution of podcast advertising, the workflow barriers slowing its growth, and how Frequency’s new platform — Automated Direct — is reshaping the way brands plan, execute, and measure audio campaigns.
The Problem: Podcast Advertising’s Manual Workflows
While CTV and digital video have scaled quickly thanks to automated buying and clear attribution, podcasting remains largely manual. As Pete explains, 90% of podcast ad revenue still flows through direct deals — where brands must contact each network and negotiate every placement.
“Host-read ads are still the holy grail,” Jimison says. “They perform because they’re authentic. But they’re also time-consuming to produce and manage, especially at scale.”
That manual friction limits accessibility for large advertisers. For smaller teams, it’s even harder — testing across multiple shows or building relationships with dozens of hosts simply isn’t feasible.
The Solution: “Automated Direct” — Scaling Authenticity
Frequency’s answer is Automated Direct, a workflow innovation designed to automate the logistics of running host-read campaigns without losing their personal touch.
Automated Direct sits between two worlds:
- Programmatic advertising — efficient and scalable, but often impersonal.
- Direct host-read campaigns — powerful but difficult to scale.
By bridging these models, Frequency gives marketers a way to reach more shows, connect with more hosts, and test more audiences, all while maintaining the intimacy that makes podcast advertising so effective.
As Jimison puts it, “We’re automating the workflow, not the relationship.”
Smarter Data, More Relevant Creative
Automation isn’t the only unlock. Data-driven creative is giving brands new ways to match their message to the moment.
Jimison points to a campaign Frequency ran with McDonald’s, which tied ad messaging to local sports scores. When a listener’s team won, the ad celebrated the victory — and invited fans to swing by McDonald’s.
That’s personalization with context — not based on who you are, but what’s happening in your world.
“We’re seeing brands combine audience alignment data with contextual signals like weather, time of day, or local sports,” Jimison says. “It creates a more relevant and memorable experience that actually drives in-store behavior.”
Testing and Learning at Scale
Another reason podcasting struggles for share of wallet: too many brands test once and quit.
“Marketers will run a few host reads, not see immediate conversions, and walk away,” Jimison explains. “But podcasting works differently. You need time to learn which creators, tones, and audiences resonate best with your message.”
Frequency helps brands overcome that learning curve by allowing them to test multiple hosts, formats, and audiences simultaneously — then double down where results are strongest.
In many ways, it’s the podcast equivalent of A/B testing for creative and context.
The Role of AI: Quality, Safety, and Scale
AI is quietly transforming the audio ad ecosystem, and Frequency is at the forefront.
Jimison’s team uses AI to automate brand safety, suitability, and quality assurance, ensuring each host-read ad aligns with brand guidelines — even when hundreds of creators are involved.
They’re also preparing for the next frontier: AI-generated voice creative. While human hosts remain central, synthetic voice tools are beginning to support scalable variants of local or contextual messaging, giving advertisers more flexibility without sacrificing tone or intent.
A More Measurable Future for Audio
For years, podcasting was seen as hard to measure. That’s changing fast.
Frequency supports attribution pixels, vanity URLs, and MMM integrations, giving marketers a clearer picture of audio’s contribution to awareness and conversion. “We can now track exposure, recall, and even in-store lift,” Jimison says. “It’s no longer a black box.”
The Takeaway: Audio’s Turning Point
If the last decade of marketing has taught us anything, it’s that channels evolve when technology removes friction. For podcasting, that moment may finally be here.
As The MarTech Matrix conversation highlights, Frequency’s Automated Direct represents more than just workflow automation — it’s the infrastructure podcasting needs to grow up. By combining automation, data, and creativity, audio advertising is ready to claim a bigger slice of the marketing budget — and a louder place in the modern media mix.
Speaker 2 (00:00.078)
So let’s start there. How did you first get into audio and what made you realize the space needed to change?
Yeah, so I first got into audio in 2012. I was running a creative production shop in New York City and we got introduced to Spotify and started building out lot of cool creative experiences for them. And it was with that that we started to see the trend of podcasting pick up. There’s an opportunity here that we could explore for audio to become more effective as a channel for advertisers if the right infrastructure is in place.
People started listening to audio more, but it still feels like something’s holding the industry back from getting that growth that say, CTV has experienced. What’s holding the space back from getting its fair share?
To this day, 90 % of the revenue coming into podcasting is done on a direct basis. So it’s a very manual process that you’re calling up each and every network and negotiating.
those deals with each network on the shows or creators that they want to work with. So that really creates a lot of big blockers, especially for those big Fortune 500 brands. There’s this middle ground and that’s what we’re tackling is called automated direct channel between programmatic and direct where you can be a little bit more automated in nature, but still finding premium placements, still able to do host read ads with, you the talent.
Speaker 2 (01:12.59)
So it’s more the mechanics of how you execute audio campaigns is what’s holding brands back, a belief that the channel is effective. If you give them a way to make it easier, it’ll scale.
I was saying before around infrastructure, how do we really create those pipes so that we can make this faster to execute but do it with authentic grand messaging with the talent that people want?
It just takes me back to the early days of digital advertising, know, 25 % media consumption happening online, but only like four or 5 % of the budget, it finally caught up. Sounds like audio is in that same spot. Welcome to the Martech Matrix, a Blurbs production. Blurbs is a community platform built by brands, designed around how they want to search for solutions, not how vendors want to sell them.
It’s where marketers and e-commerce leaders find the right tech faster with clear answers and no sales fluff. Each week, we bring that mission to life, interviewing MarTech founders and industry pros to explain what they do, the problems they solve, and how the space is evolving, all without the buzzwords. And now your host, Sean Simon. My guest today has been in the audio game since long before podcasts hit the mainstream.
He’s worked with some of the biggest brands out there and seen firsthand what’s broken from messy workflows to the way audio still struggles to get its fair share of marketing budgets. He’s one of those rare people who’s been in the trenches long enough to know how we got here and bold enough to actually do something about it. Pete Jimmison, welcome into the matrix. So let’s start there. How did you first get into audio and what made you realize the space needed to change?
Speaker 1 (02:48.738)
Yeah. So I first got into audio in 2012. I was running a creative production shop in New York city. and we got introduced to Spotify and started building out a lot of cool creative experiences for them and became their kind of production vendor, of record for about five years. and spent the better part of that looking behind the scenes of what were the creative formats that were being produced for streaming especially.
What were the workflows that being used for getting those ad experiences built? Working hand in hand with the advertisers all the way through to ad ops, ad sales teams behind the publishers. So we started with Spotify and then we quickly branched off into many other publishers in the space, started working with other large broadcasters from iHeart to Odyssey. And it was with that that we started to see the trend of podcasting pick up. And it started with serial back in like 2014, but it really didn’t really land a mark until after 2016, 2017.
And that’s when advertisers started to kind of spend a little bit more time and money in around podcasts. And what we noticed there was that podcast in terms of that workflow was even more of a mess. Cause if you think about it, it’s just like any other type of creator network. You have individuals that you’re working with and the creators get to say how they want to work with the advertisers for the most part. So with that process, you had to think about how do you manage an advertiser at scale, not just one to one experience building something for streaming.
But now doing that multiple times over with each and every creator. And so we created technology behind the scenes, working hand in hand with the creators and those bigger broadcasters and podcast networks. And really saw that, hey, there’s an opportunity here that we could explore for audio to become more effective as a channel for advertisers if the right infrastructure is in place.
It feels like it’s evolved, especially during the pandemic, right? People started listening to audio more, but it still feels like something’s holding the industry back, right? From getting that growth that say, CTV has experienced in the recent years. So from your perspective, given that you’re working on the workflows and the connectivity of the different players, what’s holding the space back from getting its fair share?
Speaker 1 (05:01.806)
Well, I think still to this day, 90 % of the revenue coming into podcasting is done on a direct basis. So it’s a very manual process that you’re calling up each and every network and negotiating those deals with each network on the shows or creators that they want to work with. And so I think that’s the major thing that’s holding us back, right? We’re trying to do more with programmatic, enabling that type of targeting and media buying across the space.
And that only reaches a certain number of shows and you’re targeting the audiences and running brand supplied creative. And the main way that podcasting in terms of the delivery from ads today is through a host read ads through an experience that is really that kind of brand providing their talking points to the host and talent, having a really good connection with the talent to say, Hey, we’re aligned in our messaging and with our target audience.
and come up with an experience for that, that audience with a host read ad, you know, 30, 60 second type of reads, whether pre-roll or mid-roll, those are the ones that are the kind of the Holy grail right now for podcasting. And so to do that and do that well, you really need to buy direct. So that really creates a lot of big blockers, especially for those big fortune 500 brands that are looking to do it at scale, and not have to spend a lot of the effort of pinpointing each and every one of the talent they need to work with because
Just the effort involved in doing that is just makes it little bit more difficult. So what we see is how do you find a balance between what is programmatic, right? Easy to access, easy to purchase, but maybe not the premium placements that you’re looking for. And direct, which is premium placements, but very hard to access and to do it at scale. There’s this middle ground and that’s what we’re tackling. And then what we’re looking at is called automated direct.
So how do you find that kind of middle ground channel between programmatic and direct where you can be a little bit more automated in nature, but still finding premium placements, still able to do host red ads with the talent involved in those talking points and how do they want to connect with that audience, but also be able to do producer red ads or voice of network reads or use a talent that is maybe relatable or recognizable across multiple shows.
Speaker 1 (07:23.372)
So you could find a comedian like Kevin Hart and say, Hey, I want to run it not just on his own show, but how do we run this across a hundred other shows where somebody is going to recognize that voice and make them tune in a little bit more, have a little bit more recall for that brand.
So it’s more the mechanics of how you execute audio campaigns is what’s holding brands back, not a belief that the channel is effective. And so if you give them a way to make it easier, it’ll scale.
Yeah, and that goes back to what I was saying before around infrastructure. How do we really create those pipes so that we can make this faster to execute, but do it with those types of placements that people want with that brand messaging, that authentic brand messaging with the talent that people want. So it’s like, if you were to go work with, in creators or influencers in social media, how do you connect with hundreds of those creators today? You typically want to do it through systems that find brand alignment.
We don’t really have that today in podcasting. And so that’s what we’ve really developed is this type of interface. We can come in and really explore all of podcasting, especially the big tier shows like the mid tail to the top tier shows. How do we explore those opportunities and automate that process of creating the experience, the ad experience for the audience?
Yeah, it makes sense. It’s good for the whole ecosystem. It’s good for the advertiser, good for the podcasters. It takes me back to the early days of digital advertising in general, where you had like 25 % media consumption happening online, but only like four or 5 % of the budget. And then it finally caught up and obviously it’s where it needs to be today. I think it sounds like audio is in that same spot. A little technology here and there is going to help elevate it to its fair share based on media consumption.
Speaker 2 (09:14.586)
It seems that, least from my perspective, that a lot of brands when they try audio, it’s like this one-off thing. Like, we’ll give it a try. We’ll try this host read or we’ll try this dynamic campaign. And I don’t think it’s that kind of a channel, right? It’s like anything else. You’ve got to learn from it. You’ve got to optimize to get better. With the advertisers that you’ve worked with or the campaigns that you’ve observed, what mistakes do you see marketers make the most often?
Hmm. That’s a good question. I think it is that type of one and done. You know, I’m, I tried podcasting. ran it across a few shows. didn’t really drive the numbers I was expecting. You know, they, they look for that immediate conversion. And I think sometimes the attribution of where the audience actually resonated with your brand doesn’t maybe happen right away. It’s going to happen potentially later on and also podcasting.
There’s a lot that’s driven by back catalog or people were downloading and listening later. So you can’t just expect it the same to be as like, I’m seeing an ad, I’m clicking on the ad and there’s conversion, right? It’s not the same in podcasting. And you typically also want to try a lot of different creators to understand those audiences and where your messaging actually resonates the most. So I think that one and done strategy we see time and again, where people feel like they tried something and it didn’t really
run the numbers, just like if you were to go into social and like, I ran the campaign and I saw immediately. So now I’m going to, you know, ramp up. It’s, not the same. You really have to try a variety of different shows, talent, you know, the way that it’s read, that every talent can be different in terms of how they approach your brand. And so we find is a lot of advertisers really start to see that resonance with certain.
audiences and then certain talent that do just a fantastic job. And so they really develop those relationships with the creators. And what we provide is this ability to test a lot of shows at scale and to see where is your brand actually going to work the best. And then you can go directly to those creators if you desire after the fact and kind of double down or do bigger package deals like 360 approach to.
Speaker 1 (11:39.953)
integration. So we really provide like a really nice testbed and it’s like, hey, how do you get more of this out of the space? How do you try a different, a few different types of creative, different creators and explore, you know, the opportunities.
Yeah, it feels like one of those channels, at least now that advertisers are thinking about the CMO, there has to be some intuition there, right? In your gut, you know it’s a channel that works because you hear the ads and you remember other brands, right? It’s not about the click to conversion, which is sort of not really a thing anymore.
You’ve got to know it works. So like, if it’s not working for you, what can you do to make it better? Don’t just throw it out the window. So if you were talking to a CMO saying, okay, look, I believe in audio, I haven’t done it. Where should I start? Like, what is good creative sound like? And how do I get to the point where I’ve got something good enough to start my audio advertising journey with?
Well, I mean, there’s those three channels that I was talking about earlier. You have programmatic, you have automated direct, and you have direct. I would say you try all three, right? You, you, you dabble in providing brand supplied creative. You try connecting with hosts and seeing what works, what hosts work, what the messaging looks like for sounds like. And then I think it’s really important to provide talking points and let creators kind of run with it. So you give them those guardrails.
but give them that freedom to know how to connect to their audiences. You know, sometimes brands will just say, here’s exactly the script that you need to read. And that can come off as very like monotone and dry and it just doesn’t hit. And not saying that that doesn’t work, but I think there’s a way to kind of provide that flexibility that gives the creators an opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:25.868)
So I think trying a bunch of different things in the audio space to see where your brand can play nicely, because some brands may find that, running some programmatic, getting that kind of brand recognition, brand awareness, using my brand supply creative may be the best way for them to be in the audio space. While others may say, I think just making sure I connect with hosts and having that real deep integration and partnership that we can get a lot out of working with them in their audience.
that’s where I want to play. I think just really trying different, you know, attempts across the board, different creative, different types of creators and seeing where it matches. And then, you know, then you can double down and explore more.
Yeah, I’m a big fan of the, new heights podcast. And, you know, I hear some of the, some of the ads they talk through, whether it’s the Reese’s ads or the Peloton ads. I think, God, in my experience working with these brands, they would be cringing at the way these guys talk about their products. but it, works for them, right? Like someone has said, I’m just going to let them have their creative freedom and it works for the audience. Right. but it’s, definitely take some liberties and,
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:39.138)
It makes it more fun and memorable, even though it’s not within.
Yeah. But the other thing is that we have the tools as well to look at brand suitability and safety to have those checks in place. And brands often when they’re getting into audio express that concern because they have some of those tools that they can use and execute in other places like CTV or display. We have that as well in audio, right? And so we can look at the context of what’s being, um, uh, talked about in the content itself and the episodes or cross a specific show.
And C, does it match with your values as a brand? So we can do that type of alignment. And we have the ability to track if somebody’s heard the message or if they followed up and converted as well. So we can look across the board. We’re not very different from other avenues or channels. It’s really about the experience that’s very unique. And I think our format is probably the top in terms of that type of
recallability and connection to an audience because typically that audience they’re listening and they’re very, they’re active with podcasts. They are listening to those, you know, specific, um, hosts talk about whatever content they are. They specifically, you know, that show, whether they’re on that commute or whether they’re, you know, uh, doing the dishes, they want to listen for a reason. And so I think it’s not just a very passive experience. It’s very active. And it’s the thing that you can really
connect with them right then and there when they’re engaged.
Speaker 2 (16:14.104)
Yeah, you’re leveraging the brands, leveraging the relationship that the listener has with the host for that show. and so it resonates better. I totally get that. So you’ve worked with some pretty big brands at frequency, right? Like I think about KFC, McDonald’s Academy Sports. When you think back on all the campaigns that you’ve been a part of, can you share some examples of like what was done right in an effort to drive a specific ROI?
Yeah, I think it really depends on the type of brands and what they were looking to accomplish. if you you mentioned a McDonald’s and a Academy Sports in those cases, those are two very distinct different types of like campaign objectives that they were going after Academy Sports.
I was running a lot of creative that was personalized to local markets and to the stores and calling out certain products that they were rolling out. They also did changes based on the listening audience that they were speaking Spanish or English. So, you know, those types of creative decisions really kind of also inform like what they’re looking for, drive to store traffic at the store.
McDonald’s, one of the campaigns that we ran with them was all about going to McDonald’s, getting in line, but it was much more related to, think, providing an experience that matched with the emotional connection that the listeners had with the sporting events that they were listening to. So what we did there is we used the sports scores and we called those out and we would say, hey, your team is winning, you know, whatever team it may be. So.
get in line. And so it was really about how do you connect to that listening audience when they’re following the game and matching it right then and there to the brand. So I think very distinct and different types. And that was much more, again, like brand supplied creative versus a podcast ad and podcast experience where we’ve worked with brands like your talk space or Stitch Fix of the world’s where, you know, they’re really looking for that.
Speaker 1 (18:38.68)
direct consumer experience and trying to drive an action and look to see did they go and engage and that’s done through, they leverage many talent to do that. A lot of creators across the various networks that we work with to activate. So completely different types of opportunities that were being used and leveraged there. And it kind of goes to show like the DDC brands that really have leaned into the podcasts and the brands
that are much more about brand awareness that have leaned into the streaming space. For our goal right now is to, how do we create experience that we can bring all of them opportunities in podcasting? So McDonald’s can start to do those types of experiences across the scale of different creators or Academy Sports, for an example, can find a talent that connects with the Spanish listening audience or English audience and can still talk about certain products.
You can do that and have it be done with shows, with creators that are available to do those host read ads. And I think that’s something that’s, I think, rather new. Whereas before it would have been like, let’s just run an audio ad, just like you had done in radio.
Yeah, it doesn’t really work. It just sounds like you have to that right strategy plan going in to reach the audience that you want to reach in that authentic way. so let’s dive into that a little bit more. I mean, we’ve established everyone prefers or has the essay loves post-red ads because they’re authentic, right? They come from the host that the listeners identify with, but scaling them has been tough. Can you scale them and keep that authenticity?
and add efficiency.
Speaker 1 (20:29.558)
Yeah. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And when we say scale, it’s about scaling across multiple shows, right? And it’s about finding that audience across those shows. So that’s the scale. It’s like, instead of going and saying, I’m going to go work with just this one network, or I’m going to identify this one show. How do I look at scale and getting millions of impressions, right? Versus just a few hundred thousand maybe per show.
so we really provide those access points to all of these networks and we use, we work with them as like nodes of influence essentially, because a lot of these creators for their monetization, they go and work with networks. And so when you are looking across the space, it’s really fragmented and we, it makes it very difficult for any brand trying to get into audio. How do I get those relationships with each and every one of those networks? Well, coming through frequency.
We open up the doors to all of those networks and allow you to explore their catalog. And we do it in a way where it’s a non-guaranteed placement, but you have control over what shows it could end up on. So we use brand suitability and safety. do audience alignment checks. And then we provide it over to those podcast networks and we do vetting with those podcast networks so the talent can say, I would love to work with the Talkspace or the Stitch Fix or the McDonald’s.
And once that has been done, then the production of doing a host read ad just happens very easily through the system. And you can kick off a campaign within days and do that again across multiple networks and multiple shows. And so that’s the scale and the automation just makes this much more of a, uh, an easy channel for an advertiser to run against.
So let’s talk about that in more of a linear way. So if I’m a brand, I come to you today and say, Pete, I want to work with podcasts that talk about football, NFL football, right? Just very broadly speaking, not any particular team. I want to find hosts of shows that talk about football. Walk me through how that works. So I come onto the platform and I do a search and then I see all the shows and then I
Speaker 2 (22:47.008)
I can select which ones I want to work with and then take me through that process.
Yeah, today actually our team’s going to be helping you through that process. And so in that example, we would basically go through the catalog and we identify all those sports shows or listening audiences that are related to that NFL context. And so for us, like right now, I think we probably have four to five networks already that are very much sports focused. So you’re talking about hundreds of shows across the US that would be talking about
The NFL, because it could be local sports, you know, talk radio in let’s say Washington, DDC or New York. It could be much more national. That’s just, you know, a star former star player that brings on guests and then, and just as a lot of stuff relevant and related to the NFL. So there’s many ways of kind of figuring that out. so you can sort by category. You can get down into, you know, the specific sport. and then obviously you can see all the talent that’s there.
And even we can look at the content because of all the transcriptions that are available so we can filter through and see what matches.
And then you’ll help. It’s actually a really good example because if there’s 30, what is there, 32, 30 teams. If you’re an advertiser and you don’t necessarily have an affiliation with a team, but you can create an ad for each show, if you will, right? Or like each region, each team, so that that host can be more specific about the team that the listeners root for.
Speaker 2 (24:27.798)
Rather than just be the NFL, it’s the Foot Off Eagles, it’s the Batsmore Ravens, it’s the Buffalo Bills, whatever it is.
Yeah. And, and so to go back to the example of a brand supplied creative versus talking points provided to a host, I can provide talking points for that, that brand. And now it reaches all those various hosts for all those local sports markets. Now, when they’re talking about it, they do it in context with that local sports team, but you could also do brand supplied creative and make it dynamic in nature and change the creative to match those local markets as well. so we can do both.
can also use voice voices that are familiar with the network. a voice of network read, like I was speaking about Kevin Hart before, right? Find certain talents and even make that dynamic in nature and work with the talent to do multiple reads that can reach scale across all the shows. So there’s various ways of actually activating, across those shows with the different types of creative experiences. It really comes down to and depends on what does the brand see working best?
to hit that audience. And you, again, have to test a few different ways.
Okay, so talk to me a little bit about measurement, right? You’ve mentioned that you can do a lot of the same things that you can do in other channels. How does measurement work for someone who’s never done audio? Think about that CMO is like, I want to be in this channel, I’ve never done it. I know I can’t measure clicks. So how do I, what’s the best way for me to understand whether my campaign is working or to get information back that I can optimize on?
Speaker 1 (26:01.93)
Yeah, so podcasting, you know, started really around promo codes because of that, the vanity URL to drive the audience to go to a certain URL so that you could measure, they heard it and they went in, they enter the promo code or they went to a specific URL. We’ve now moved on. We still do that to this day. There’s still brands that do that, but there’s now attribution pixels that can be provided. And so you can look at conversions. can, the listener is pixeled once they hear the ad or the
download the file for the podcast. And so once they then go to the site after the fact, you know, there’s a corresponding tracking pixel that can see that they’ve now taken that action. And so that’s the most recommended path. And we work with all the different attribution providers out there. So we just recommend you always provide a pixel, even if you’re doing a promo code or vanity URL, always make sure you provide a pixel as well to have that additional tracking support.
Yeah, that makes sense. is it fair to say that if you’re an advertiser that is still relying on last click measurement, which I hope there aren’t that many left, but there seem to be once in a while that pop up, that this is definitely not something that you should be looking at because I’m speaking from personal experience. If I hear an audio ad, I don’t always remember
the details, the URL, the advertiser, I’ll go to Google, search for something, or I’ll go to the show, right, and look at the show notes, and then I click through. So you’ll lose something there. So you have to be more open-minded about how you’re gonna measure it, and use the tools that are meant for this channel, and don’t try and squeeze it into another channel, tools from another channel into this channel.
Yeah, I think that’s correct. But you can also use those, know, MMI tools as well to see like what’s, what’s working across your media mix and make sure that like, you know, how, how did you measure in CTV and in audio when you’re running these campaigns and seeing what’s actually converting? I think there’s, you know, there’s room for that as well.
Speaker 2 (28:10.38)
Yeah. And when you think about, again, thinking from a CMO perspective that’s considering this, what should I expect from a CPM perspective? like how is it, is it sold on a CPM? Is it sold on number of listens? How would I be buying this premium network that you’ve created here with HostWrite ads? What’s the mechanism there?
Yeah, almost everything is sold on a CPM basis. Some of those networks, if you go direct, will still sell it on a flat basis for certain episodes. Let’s say like new episodes being launched. But typically the way that you’re going to be buying is on a CPM and the CPM changes in terms of range. Obviously, greater the audience and opportunity with a certain talent, the higher the CPM rate. And so you’re typically seeing for direct buys.
A CPM of $25 on up can sometimes get up to 70, $80 CPM. You know, for those big shows like your, uh, new heights podcast, I don’t know what their current rate is, but I would assume it’s somewhere around there. Um, and then, you know, as you get, you your way down to programmatic in terms of CPMs, that’s, you know, going to be in the range of, I’d probably say about eight to $15. Uh, and where we’re looking at is, typically in the middle of that.
You know, how do you provide an experience, still get host read ads, but at done at scale, but since it’s not a guaranteed placement, you can have the ability to cut down that CPM to be a little, maybe a little more effective. But again, you’re not getting a guaranteed opportunity with certain creators, right? So it’s really about all about how you want to go and explore the space. But everything for the most part, it’s done on a CPM basis.
So if I wanted to start a campaign tomorrow, I wanted to get into this space, I can I just come to Frequency and you’ll help me from start to finish, like think through my strategy based on my target audience and my goals, and then help me navigate what shows to pick, develop the creative, look at the data so that I can optimize. Is Frequency a soup to nuts kind of a solution for me as a brand, or do I need a third party to sort of be between us?
Speaker 1 (30:20.342)
Yeah, we don’t operate like an agency. So we’re not going to be providing that, you know, total level of strategy, but we are there to support and we can provide guidance. think typically when we’re working with brands, a lot of the, the brands have had some experience in audio or are leaning on an agency themselves to run across the space and they have some level of strategy that they’re employing. So we are then just kind of tweaking or guarding.
guiding in a certain way. So if you’re looking at doing something in streaming or you’re looking into podcasting, podcasting specifically, we then really can help kind of figure out how do you connect to the right shows? How do you do that kind of brand matching with the talent? That’s where we get involved. But we’re not really typically looking at a brand and saying, hey, you want to do something in audio? We’re the perfect solution, anything in audio. But we would be able to support you pretty much in anything you do in audio.
Um, it’s, but I think a lot of the creative decisions are maybe done upfront or they’re thought through as to how they want to get into the space. What we encourage though is again, to test, try programmatic, try, you know, streaming, try the host read ads, try going to direct, try using our product to get across multiple, just try everything. Yeah. But we can help facilitate that execution when it comes to the creative. Um, we do not do the, uh, buying on, uh, streaming. So if you want to go and.
know, by programmatically, we have other partners that we refer you to, or you can leverage your typical, you know, DSPs like a trade desk to execute.
Make sense. Okay. Before we wrap up, any final advice for a brand that is really wanting to get into the audio space, particularly host-read ads that just isn’t sure how to go about it. I or I’m just, I want to do it for the first time. Any, any advice you’d give them?
Speaker 1 (32:15.17)
Listen to podcast. I would say listen to podcasts. mean, and what we find is typically the brands that are excited about getting into the podcasting space are with individuals that are representing the media buying who are already listening. And so they recognize how great of an experience it is as a consumer. and so I think it’s really nice to be that consumer and listen to a various number of podcasts to explore yourself of what does it sound like with the talent? How are they doing those reads?
What does that experience feel like for us as a brand when we end up in the space and get activated? I think doing that to get that kind of education first and foremost is going to be the best for you because once you start to then really explore with a team like us, know, like Frequency, you now understand all of the various shows that you’ve listened to and how they’re really bringing those brands to life. So now you can say, Hey, I heard it this way.
I I would love it to be done this way. The way that they went off the cuff, like you talked about the Kelsey brothers, right? And they talked about Reese’s. Those are the types of things that you want to know going into it. How comfortable are you with that type of experience? Do you want it to be a little bit more buttoned up and verbatim to the script? Or do you want things to be a little bit more riffing? And there’s all sorts of different ways that these talent
provide those experiences and I think exploring the different genres from true crime to comedy and exploring the different hosts, you’ll get a good sense because then when we go and do it at scale, we can kind of look at those lookalike comparisons and see what matches and what makes sense.
Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Well, it’s clear audio is evolving quickly, right? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, this is taking a big step forward. Um, and I think the brands that figure it out, um, they’re to have a serious edge, right? Cause I think it’s a really powerful channel. If you don’t mind, I’ve got a few more questions. I’ll ask the question. If you want to skip it, skip it. If you have an answer, great. Um, okay. Pete, this comes from one of our listeners. AI is transforming how content is produced and personalized. How is frequency.
Speaker 2 (34:28.81)
leveraging AI to improve both ad relevance and the listener experience.
So can you repeat the message again? Or the question again?
Yeah, sure. AI is transforming how content is produced and personalized. How is frequency leveraging AI to improve both ad relevance and the listener experience?
Yeah. So the first thing I would say in terms of AI usage, we’re looking at employing that as a tool for quality assurance. so imagine doing host reds at scale. You’re trying to do that across hundreds of shows and the talent has the ability to riff off the cuff or try to say certain things verbatim. How do you look at assuring that the ad that’s going to be put out there is going to match what the brand has in terms of expectations. So those do’s and don’ts.
That’s all going to be handled through AI. While we still have some manual checks, we’re really going to be taking that part of the process and using AI to do that at scale and say, okay, this brand provided this creative instructions, the talent saw those creative instructions, but they maybe missed a word. They maybe missed a certain specific requirement that they really wanted to hit during those talking points. So all of that’s going to be, you know,
Speaker 1 (35:52.846)
looked over via AI. And then I would say we’re also looking at using AI for the creative side in terms of voice and generated voices. So that today is being done where you can really get pretty good, almost indistinguishable between a normal read from a human and a voice that’s been generated by AI for certain phrases. But it gets a little bit choppy as you get
bit more into the 30 second or 60 second reads. So we are thinking in the next two to three years, as things advance, it’s going to become much more commonplace. And you’ll see that, especially when you can do things that are dynamic in nature, calling out certain local markets, calling out certain products. So we have partners in the space that use or have created systems around AI for voice generated creative.
And now they can export directly into frequency. So we’ve automated the process of doing the creative variants at scale and working with AI partners.
Excellent. Another question from the listeners. As dynamic creative optimization expands in audio, what new forms of personalization or performance measurement are becoming possible that weren’t before?
So as personalization expands in audio, what forms of measurement are becoming popular?
Speaker 2 (37:25.098)
Well, it says, what new forms of personalization or performance measurement are becoming possible? So with advances in dynamic creative optimization, are there things that you can do today with creative that you couldn’t do say a year or two, three years ago? And then the same thing for measurement is measurement. there new things in measurement that are making things possible that you couldn’t do a couple of years ago? Two different questions, I think.
Yeah, okay, got it. So I would say that kind of feeds off the last question with AI. So now with AI’s influence, you can start looking at doing, many more brands are going to be open to doing that kind of dynamic creative experience, right? Instead of having to rely on talent to do all those reads or to create those variants. That’s still not happening. I would say it’s not as common as you would expect, maybe, as you would see in other spaces, but it’s coming.
So we’re preparing for that. And like I was saying before, as the AI continues to improve and as talent is willing to leverage AI for their own voice, then you’ll start to see that influence. But I wouldn’t say that over the last two to three years, the creative experiences changed that much for dynamic. mean, the same capabilities are there in terms of delivery.
and we’re leveraging the same sort of data signals, I would say maybe that more partners are open to running dynamic creative experiences and trying new data signals. We’ve seen that on the rise. So I think the adoption of dynamic has continued. In terms of measurement, the interesting thing I would say is similar to that approach where before a lot of audio was just one file, just one read.
measurement was mostly just related to that one creative. Now with the ability to do a lot more creative and people adopting those tools, we’re seeing the use of macros so that you can pass along that data for third parties to run those tracking events and see how did that specific creative perform. Whereas before you could probably use the same pixel across
Speaker 1 (39:42.656)
Everything now that pixel make sure you need to make sure you have that data that’s being passed along so that those third parties can also look at attribution in store traffic, all those types of other measurements that people want.
You mentioned data signals. What are some of the top data signals that advertisers use to personalize ads?
I mean, point of interest location, I think is probably the number one that we’ve seen. we’re running a campaign right now with Verizon wireless. That’s over a thousand locations in the U S and you can set up your radius around those specific stores, brick and mortar stores so that the creative changes as the listener falls within that certain number of miles. So let’s say 10 miles or 30 mile radius from that store. so we see that time and again, for a lot of companies that have store locations.
And they see, they find that to be very effective. We talked about that, about the Academy sports. That was an example where they wanted to drive people in store and they saw that benefit by using audio, dynamic audio for that conversion. I would say outside of that in streaming, people tend to use weather, day of week, time of day, all those kind of typical data signals where we’re really kind of seeing now
Interesting uptick is in sports data around sports. Just like we mentioned the McDonald’s example, how do you connect to an listening audience when they’re kind of in that emotional response state to watching their favorite teams or listening to their favorite teams and the games using sports and that data? It’s like it’s phenomenal, you know, and you can do pregame during game postgame. So that’s we’ve seen that increase and then there’s been all sorts of unique
Speaker 1 (41:31.174)
propositions that we’ve seen as well. blood donation, train times. So looking at how do you find certain data to create an experience for the listener that provides some utility but also allows for the brand to be a part of that experience.
So Pete, thanks for joining me inside the matrix today. was great to have you here and sharing your knowledge of the audio space. Take care. That’s it for today’s episode of the Martech Matrix, a blurbs production. To see what’s coming up next, visit themartechmatrix.com. And if you’re looking for your next Martech solution, start your search at trustblurbs.com where marketers discover vendors faster.
Thanks for having me, Sean. Appreciate it.
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