Announcing 3rd Pod-y Impression Verification
Advertisers new to podcasts might not believe this, but podcast campaign billing is, with little exception, based on publisher self-reported numbers—numbers manually compiled from multiple sources.
So, if Brand Y buys 1 million impressions from publisher X, publisher X emails Brand Y download counts in a CSV at the end of the week. That’s the bill, and the proof.
This has gotten the industry to $1B+ per year ad revenue, primarily as flat fee baked-in ads have reigned supreme. However, impression buys are increasingly becoming the norm. As the billing criteria shifts from “was my ad inserted” to “how many times was it inserted”, automated reporting becomes key.
As early publishers in all other seasoned media forms discovered, 3rd party verification both facilitates and is required for significant scale.
Manual reporting also costs publishers dozens of man-hours per week. These CSVs and screenshots don’t create themselves, particularly when a publisher has shows across multiple hosting platforms. Every new platform adds a new site to check, with a different UI, reporting standards, and export formats.
It’s no easier on the buyer’s side. Imagine combing through 40+ differently formatted CSVs each week just to know your campaign pacing.
“As the space grows, the need for fast and accurate reconciliation is becoming tantamount. Fast moving tech companies, accustomed to platform-based advertising solutions like Meta and Google, have neither the time nor patience to accumulate non-formatted reports, transcribe screenshots, or blindly trust publishers. If there is a single element holding Offline media (and podcast advertising specifically) from eclipsing digital in terms of volume of spend, it’s accurate, verifiable, rapid reconciliation data.”
Buyers also often lack basic audience analytics. If you’re a DTC brand shipping only to the US, it can be useful to know what % of an audience is non-US. Or the underlying reach from the show, or across your entire campaign. Not to mention the download numbers from spiders & bots.
To combat this lack of 3rd party verification, the industry-wide inefficiencies and general lack of audience analytics, we’re launching Podscribe impression verification!
How it works:
Email the Podscribe rss prefix (https://verifi.podscribe.com/rss/p/) or server pixel (email contact@podscribe.com for this) to the publisher
In real-time watch downloads broken out by show / episode / week, on your dash, and your internal Google Sheet in whatever column(s) you want
Get alerted if campaigns are under-pacing, have significant non-US geos, or have higher-than-normal frequency (often sign of bots or abnormal listener activity)
Real-time pacing info each day, with reach, frequency, and geo.
You might have agreed with me so far, but impression tracking already exists, you might say. What makes this any different than Podsights, DCM, etc ?
The primary difference is our focus — verification, specifically for podcasts. Some unique elements:
Fully Automated Sync to Google Sheets - never manually copy weekly download counts to your internal Google sheets again
Impression Audits - campaigns can be flagged if their impressions have a) high suspected bots/crawlers activity b) a high % of unexpected geos c) are under-pacing
Placement Verification - based on where we see your ads inserted, we transcribe every episode you’re in. We then check 12+ listenability factors, including competitive separation, location (eg mid vs pre), not stacked behind 3+ other ads, duplicated ads appearing in the same episode, etc. See the exact aircheck placement for your spots and never wonder where, when, or how your ads are inserted.
Simulcast support - we auto-match podcasts to their YouTube simulcasts and combine the download counts with views
Integrates w/ DCM - we can call or be called from a DCM tag so you can enhance your favorite DCM reporting.
Brand Safety Monitoring - fearful that audience or run-of-network buys will land you in hot water? Based on the transcripts, we score every episode your ads appear on using the GARM methodology and alert you to spots on risqué content within 1 hour of airing.
Many of the largest buyers in the space already rely on Podscribe placement & impression verification, including Oxford Road, Adopter Media, BetterHelp, etc.
“Even with our most-trusted partners, aggregating updated numbers can be a repetitive chore. Having reliable third-party reporting through Podscribe increases the trust and transparency between brands and networks, and once a pixel is implemented, the reporting process is automatic. This is a game-changer that will help move the industry forward in a meaningful way.”
We’re also grateful to our earliest publishers partners, including Acast, SXM, iHeart, Kast Media, Audacy, and All Things Comedy.
We look forward to increasing trust and transparency in the podcast world together as an industry.
In the end, when buyers can rely on independent & automated reporting, more dollars flow and the podcast world grows for all.
If you’re an advertiser looking to test a campaign, or a publisher looking to offer this …
If you’re interested in joining an agile, technical team passionate about podcasts & data …
If you’ve got any questions or feedback …
