Chris:
If you treat your business like a hobby it’s a hobby. But if you treat your business like a business it will become a business. On today’s episode, we talk about this concept as it relates to podcasts and how you can turn your podcast into a business. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Get Overit podcast, I am your host Dr. Christopher Fasano. Just a quick reminder before we get into our guest and episode today. If you’re really digging the show and you’re into it, make sure you subscribe. It’s the best way to get all your episodes. You can find them on Spotify. All the pod players that you’re used to. Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, they’re there for you. Just subscribe and get it right there. You can also watch this on video on YouTube. Again, if you’re interested subscribe, leave us a review, let know how we’re doing, that’ll help us get you the content that you’re really loving, right.
Chris:
So let me bring on our guest for today’s show. Our guest is Bryan Barletta. Bryan is the founder of Sounds Profitable, a weekly podcasting … Podcast advertising technology newsletter. We’re going to talk to him about what podcast ad tech is. I’m willing to bet a lot of you out there might not know what that is and Bryan’s going to surely educate us on that. He also has a podcast of the same name, Sounds Profitable. Bryan, thank you so much for joining us on the Get Overit podcast.
Bryan:
Thanks for having me here. I’m real excited to be here.
Chris:
All right, Bryan, I always like to introduce, give some context before we get into the discussion today. So why don’t introduce yourself to the audience, and sort of where you are right now, and then we’ll talk about how you got here. We’ll talk a little bit about the journey on the way up.
Bryan:
Awesome. So I write Sounds Profitable. I started it about a year ago, September 2020. It’s a newsletter focused on educating the people in the podcast industry from the mid to enterprise tier, all about how podcast advertising and ad tech works.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
It’s such a passion for me, and I think we’re at this pivotable point where it’s attainable for anyone in the industry or anybody who wants to get in the industry to learn it, so I wanted to be a central unbiased source. Well, I guess I have my own biases. Unaffiliated source.
Chris:
There you go.
Bryan:
That could talk about hey, you should know how to do this, and this is how it generally works, and here are some companies that do it. So it’s a weekly newsletter, a podcast, I narrate the articles. We now have it in Spanish for the newsletter and the narrated articles. And we do a monthly deep dive of different products so just growing it as much as I can.
Chris:
So you said you had a passion for this so let’s talk about where that came from. So where … This is a recent thing you started writing, where was this born out of? Were you always just really into this? Are you a tech geek in itself? Talk to us a little bit about where your passion for this came from?
Bryan:
How far back do you want me to go?
Chris:
I mean, as far as you can remember it really starting to become something that you’re … You were thinking about. You know what I mean? What’s your background? Were you a history guy? Were you in sound? Were you an engineer? What’s your background and how you evolved here?
Bryan:
So growing up my dad worked in IT and he loved it but he kept getting fired from jobs so he’s like “Never work in this field.” So it was a passion for me. Technology was a passion but I wanted to be a history teacher. In my fifth year-
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
I decided to drop out.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
And just started writing about mobile applications, and a company in the advertising space hired me. Moved me from Massachusetts to New York.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
And that’s how I got into mobile advertising.
Chris:
Where in New York, by the way? In the city? Were you in the city or no? Were you-
Bryan:
I was right in Chelsea when I first moved there.
Chris:
Okay, nice.
Bryan:
And then through my journeys, I moved all around New York, and I’m now currently in Texas.
Chris:
That’s not a bad thing.
Bryan:
No, no. We’re trying to … We’re turning as blue as possible every … One day at a time. Everything about the industry was really neat to me because I never felt like I was a creator, I felt like I wanted to help these people. I could never program or anything, but the idea of being able to work with someone who had a passionate idea and help them monetize that was just so exciting to me. So I was a sales engineer, a technical account manager, I became a product manager.
Bryan:
Somewhere through that path, I moved into the opportunity to build an attribution product with a company that … Called Barometric that decided to focus specifically on podcasting and then that just took off. So it’s been about six years as a product manager and sales engineer in podcasting. I was at Megaphone after Barometric was sold. Megaphone eventually sold to Spotify. And I just got to deal and build out all of those things and really get people excited about working with it. And I don’t know it’s just such a weird passion because it’s that interplay between empowering somebody and then being good at it, right. These are things that nobody-
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Wanted to focus on-
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And I just really enjoyed it. And it just … It made me feel good.
Chris:
It seems like a niche, right. There’s a real-
Bryan:
Very much.
Chris:
Right. And as a podcaster myself … Because one thing I was taught a long time ago is that … Especially in podcasting if you can find a niche, especially in this game, you’re going to go a lot further, right. Your audience doesn’t have to be as big, you can monetize it quicker because the niche is … If you have the right niche … My brother’s a content producer and has a golf podcast, and he’s very successful in it now but it took him what seven … Six, seven years of consistent content. And that was a real grind to get him to a point where he can wedge into such a big, big pond, right. Where if you have a niche, especially in this game … My first podcast was in stem cell science, right. That need … There’s this small-
Bryan:
Very specific.
Chris:
Right. That’s a smaller pond but a very valuable pond to be in and so you learn that quickly. I’m curious about what you said about an attribution product for that. What was that? Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Bryan:
Sure. So attribution is the focus of taking … Identifying the people who listen to an ad in podcasting and then matching them to someone who took an action on a website like buying a mattress, right. And so at Barometric, we were doing that for mobile advertising primarily. And WNYC asked if we could do that for Progressive Auto Insurance and the salesperson said, “Yes,” and I muted and I was like “What are you doing?” And then we went back to the drawing board and we were like okay, we could make this work. And so basically it’s taking what data identifiers we know about you from the exposure. So in podcasting, it’s just IP address. If that matches to a household then we see if down the line that household-
Chris:
I see-
Bryan:
Makes a purchase.
Chris:
Okay. All right.
Bryan:
And so it was very neat to help build that out. Barometric was sold to Claritas, which is still a big player in the podcast attribution space and it’s very nice to be able to work with them still.
Chris:
So what I want to do is I want to do this. So I get in an elevator with you and you say … I say, “What do you do?” And you’re like, “Well, I’m in podcast ad tech.” And I say, “Great. What does that mean?” Now, the elevator is going up and I got 45 seconds to a minute. How do you describe what that means to somebody in that elevator?
Bryan:
Specifically podcast ad tech or what?
Chris:
Yeah, podcast ad tech. What is the field? What does it do? So just people might be like what does that? Is it a podcast itself or is it advertising? Or what … Where do the two merge?
Bryan:
I would say that podcast ad tech is the tools that empower a podcast publisher to monetize their show and maintain as much control or as little control as they’d like.
Chris:
So it’s not actually helping to solicit the dollars, it’s putting them in a position to be able to get dollars. Did I say that right? In other words-
Bryan:
Absolutely correct.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
It’s the tools that enabled those dollars to be spent, right.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
Finding the advertiser complete different field. That’s-
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
Specifically sales. And I think that that’s part of podcast advertising’s issue right now. We’re very good at keeping people in podcast advertising once they’re in here and spending money. BetterHelp continues to spend more money. They’re a great example. We lose very few advertisers, but getting new ones in, the tools are what make it easy. I recently wrote about how everyone dismisses Spotify and Anchor for all these things and it’s not technically podcast advertising because they have their own proprietary stuff on top of it. But when a buyer can easily in their computer be like okay, well, let’s do a little bit of TV, a little bit of Roku, a little bit of display advertising, and oh, well, let’s do a podcast ad, and they can do it all together without talking to anybody, right.
Chris:
Right. Right.
Bryan:
That makes it easy for them-
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
To go oh wow, that worked well, I should call podcasters, I should dig into this more. And I think that’s the nut we have to crack in the industry right now.
Chris:
And so then I’m taking the side from … It’s interesting because I’m in both sides. So I’m the person that in a marketing agency would help buy the spot for a company on the podcast, but I’m also a podcast producer and a host who wants to find a company that’s going to invest in the show. And typically, the way I’ve done it in the past is more … It’s more difficult, in my opinion, it requires more effort. And that is identify partners or potential sponsors not through some sort of program, but literally who would be a good company and a good fit. Let me try to reach out to members of their marketing team and their communication team and then it’s a pitch. Really it’s a pitch. This is why I think it’s a good fit.
Chris:
Then it’s trying to put some dollar … Some dollar to a metric. And it’s actually … Like you’re saying, it’s tougher because not only do you have to get their buy-in, you have to get them to believe that it’s going to work for them, you have to articulate that in a way, they’re going to want to know how you’re going to measure it. And so this sort of … This middle ground space helps make that conversation a lot easier, right. Helps bring the two parties-
Bryan:
Yes.
Chris:
Together easier, right. So what are some of those tools? What are some of the things that are used to help bridge that gap?
Bryan:
Before we do that let’s just highlight all the roles that you just talked about today-
Chris:
Please.
Bryan:
Because that’s really interesting. You’re on the mic. You have somebody editing or you’re editing in that scenario. Then you are outreach sales-
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
You’re outbound sales. And then you are account managing the campaign.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And then you’re handling the reporting. That’s four or five roles. That’s not a trivial thing. And so many of people in podcast get caught up on the fact they’re like well, how do I monetize? And it … For me, I don’t edit my own podcast. I speak into the microphone, I have my editor Ian handle it, he uploads it and everything. We architected it all together and made sure that that was done correct. But after that, I passed it off to him, we call it a day, and I just trust that it works. We check into it, but I like handling the sales part. I like soliciting the guests. I like getting all the sponsors on board. That’s fun to me. I think it’s really important that people look at that and see that this is why it becomes a business, right. One person can do all of it.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
If you’re a niche. If you like doing all of it.
Chris:
If you like it, right.
Bryan:
But this is a business.
Chris:
Right, right.
Bryan:
If it’s a business you really should think of it as something bigger, right. You really should invest and grow your team.
Chris:
If you want it to become a business. If you really want it to go there you’re going to have to do something. I recognize that too.
Bryan:
Yes.
Chris:
I mean, the other thing too, the other part to that is also the creative, the content part. One of the things that I don’t think people appreciate about podcasting is it’s not easy to A, consistently produce content.
Bryan:
Yes.
Chris:
That alone is a feat. So I have this show, a mental health show, and also this show, two shows, and this show I have a lot more help at Overit, right. I have Adam at Overit Studios that does … I come down, I sit here, I’m talking to you, and then they take it and they edit it and they do all that. But my other show I’m doing everything myself. I’m editing it, and I’m coming up with the ideas, I’m going out and outreach. And putting something out every two weeks for three years straight ain’t easy, man.
Bryan:
No.
Chris:
It’s not. And it’s not to be on a pat on the back, but I don’t think people appreciate that. And I think when people want to get into podcasting, once they do they’re like wow, this is work. And you can see why it is totally acceptable and you should want to get that monetized because you should be getting paid for the effort if you’re putting stuff out that people enjoy and has value, which I hope all podcasters do it for and they’re not just doing it so they can hear themselves on their phone, but they’re doing because they think what they’re putting out has value. So how does that … How does this space … How does ad tech … How does the tech make it easier now? Let’s get into that. To facilitate the relationship there.
Bryan:
Everything I talk about is for mid to upper-tier podcasters. At the end of the day, what I really mean there is that you built up a team and you’re treating it like a business, right. If you can come in and you treat it like a business from day one, whether through sweat equity or putting money into it, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. What I mean is that you’re willing to grow this and focus on at that level. So there are tools for audience identification. I call audience insight tools from Podsites and Chartable are two great examples. You put the pixel or the URL tag on every single download and basically they’ll be able to start telling you who your audience is. Does it skew more male than female? And it takes this demographic data, which is directionally valuable, and it’ll help you build a sales sheet so you can say, “Awesome. Hey, Ford trucks I would like to have you as an advertiser because my audience really highly indexes with people who intend to purchase cars.”
Chris:
Now, this goes on a … This comes off your feed or does … Because does this go on your site? Because your site would only be a very small portion of your downloads.
Bryan:
It would be on your feed.
Chris:
It goes on your feed. Okay, that’s good.
Bryan:
It’s a redirect URL that basically when the podcast player presses play it calls that URL first, it goes back to the player-
Chris:
I see.
Bryan:
The player calls the actual destination.
Chris:
Very cool.
Bryan:
And so that’s a really great tool there. Just working with a hosting provider that’s IEB certified is really good because while I think that most people are IEB compliant, having that stamp of approval helps advertisers let you know … Or, helps you let advertisers know that you’re taking this seriously.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And that’s really important.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Additional tools out there for true monetization, you could participate in a marketplace or an exchange. So if you are on … Hosting on Acast or RedCircle, those are platforms where your inventory can be made available. You can list yourself on Gumball, which is a e-commerce style for your podcast inventory. You can connect to AdsWizz for programmatic.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And there’s all of these different options. But a lot of the ones I like to focus on are the ones that empower people to split up and divide their inventory from what they’re going to sell direct, who they’re going to work with to represent what they don’t sell direct, and what is going to be leftover and how people can access it.
Chris:
So is it get … So a lot of all that. So for people that are … That might be new to this, you have a whole bunch of episodes and you can monetize episodes, you can get sponsors for a whole show. You can do it in different ways. You can have multiple sponsors on a show. You can have … There’s mid, there’s … And you can do a lot of different things. To people that might sound cumbersome, but how am I going to know who’s where, and I got to … This person … How do I know what my inventory is? Is that all part of the technology that will enable me or a creator to manage that? Because it could be confusing. Who am I reading for How much do I have left et cetera, et cetera? So can you expand on that a little bit?
Bryan:
So if you do it as baked-in ads, so meaning … Right now we’re recording and if I just do hey, go check out soundsprofitable.com, I mean, which you all should I hope.
Chris:
Of course.
Bryan:
But if you do that right now that’s baked in, right. We wove it into the content.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
Now baked-in can also be that after this episode is done recording I read an ad read and then the editor puts it all together in one file and that’s a complete file. That’s all analog tracking, right, because in that situation the only thing that’s going to let you know that that ad is in there is that you have an Excel spreadsheet that says it.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
But ad tech and podcasting has advanced to the point where we have dynamic ad insertion, which really means that the episode has a bunch of places where we put markers that say, “If an ad is available then serve it there.”
Chris:
Okay, because it’s like any … It’s on an exchange. It’s just moving things in and out, right?
Bryan:
Not even on an exchange. I mean, in … Locally, right, your own show you could set it up to do that so that you could do all your ad reads on Mondays and you could switch them up for every week and every month and you might have multiple shows that you’re going to put them on. And then that ad read gets put into each of those shows through this tool that says, “Hey, someone pressed download on an episode from four months ago.”
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
This ad is eligible for it because it’s a pre-roll ad.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
And they downloaded it in this month and they meet the specific targeting or whatever that you want to set. You don’t have to set targeting.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
But now you’re able to say, “This campaign ran how it was supposed to”-
Chris:
I see.
Bryan:
“Everywhere it could”.
Chris:
I see. And is the … Is it purely a downloads thing? Is it all … On those sorts of things is it-
Bryan:
Yes.
Chris:
Is that what it is? Your pay per download and that’s how it rolls? Or how-
Bryan:
So ad delivery and impressions are a concept that’s a subset of downloads.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
So podcasting is like downloading a file from Dropbox, right. All … It’s one way. When Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon make a call from the podcast player to your host they say, “Do you have this episode?” And the host’s only response is yes or no.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And so the host says, “I’m sending you this episode,” and the host knows how much they’re sending down to your device. A download is when one minute of audio has been sent from the host to the listener’s device.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
Now that’s really specific because the ID3 tag, the information in there let’s just say the artwork, could be a huge part of it. You could put a 25-megabyte file-
Chris:
You’re right. That’s right.
Bryan:
By accident in there. And so what they’re trying to say is, “Well, remove that 25-megabyte art file.”
Chris:
Right. And you still … Right, right, right. Okay.
Bryan:
Get to the MP3, get to the audio file. One minute of that.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
Ad delivery is a subset saying that, did the hosting platform send the part of the episode that includes the ad? Now, a lot of people get hung up on this, and especially digital buyers, and rightfully so. If I was spending money I would be as pedantic as possible about it because I would want to talk people down on pricing and all that.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
But there’s no concept of listens in podcasting. Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, all the big guys can tell you the consumption on the app. Spotify does have their own channel, which is InApp audio advertising whose content is podcasting. But in podcasting, there’s no response back from the player. But so few downloads happen without the user saying, “Let’s press play.” And drop off-
Chris:
I see.
Bryan:
Drop off for a show, you can tell by logging into those dashboards. Most people who are successful podcasters, at the point of monetizing, aren’t having drop off earlier than 70 to 80% of the end of the show.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And so by that, you can just know-
Chris:
You know.
Bryan:
That your pre-roll and mid-roll are getting listened to. Now you don’t know necessarily if they’re listening to all of them, but that’s where these other tech tools come into play. If I run a campaign driving to your website, and I get a ton of downloads but nobody’s actually listening to the post-roll, the ad at the end of it, then nobody’s going to convert.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And so it’s going to become visible that while I have the downloads my audience doesn’t convert, which is honestly worse than figuring out that nobody’s listening to it.
Chris:
So this is an interesting conversation. I’ve had this a lot just being in the space in that there’s two ways I look at this, as a podcaster and a creator. And also, it’s interesting now running business … Have running businesses before and also in the business of selling advertising on digital space. I see a value in a podcast in both ways. I see a short-term value, which is I have a product or I have a show, it has an audience, you have a product, you want to sell it to that audience so I’m going to run an ad on here. They’re going to go take an action and help me buy what the services I’m offering. It’s very basic advertising.
Chris:
I have a product, you’re going to help me sell it, and we’re going to measure that because it’s trackable. I can click a button, it takes me there, you make the purchase you made. I spent $20 on your ad, it led to $200 in the purchase. There was a positive ROI that’s good for me, I want to keep running ads. That’s a very basic situation. There’s also something about podcasting that I’ve … And what I’ve sold a lot in the past is be a partner of the show. Don’t worry necessarily about your short-term game. We’re in this for the long-term. We’re not only are we providing you hopefully, new leads and leading to purchase, but we’re actually giving you content which you now-
Bryan:
Yes.
Chris:
Need as part of your marketing strategy because you don’t have any. And I’m giving you two shows in your brand, in your field every month that you can use, and leverage, and send in a newsletter, give to your members, which also has value beyond necessarily somebody clicking and making a purchase. So that’s a … That requires a different sell and it requires I would say a more willing party as a company to say, “I’m willing to go with you on this and not necessarily look for that immediate return.” How do you square … Have you seen both approaches? I mean, at some point you still need to track things, but it’s not as immediate as a purchase. So is that is still a valuable play nowadays in podcasting?
Bryan:
It’s branding, right. So let’s talk about this for two sides, right. I want to split it to publisher and advertiser.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
On a publisher end, it is in your best interest to represent your inventory as unique. The second you become commoditized you lose all negotiation.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
Right. If you are putting your inventory available on a programmatic exchange, and that is a big moneymaker for you, the ebbs and flows of that space, that partner representing the inventory, dictate all of your revenue.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
So you need to be the number one seller or you need to just acknowledge that you’re just going to go with the flow. Whether that means you make a ton of money one month or make nothing the next month.
Chris:
Right, right, right.
Bryan:
And that’s really critical.
Chris:
Right because it does … It will have … Like you said, it will ebb.
Bryan:
I’ve absolutely worked with people who have made quit your job money in Q4 of one year and then Q1 they were having to reapply for a new job. Because if you don’t pace how you make that money, right, you can’t assume that it’s going to continue to be there because these programmatic things have ebbs and flows. People want to spend money, they go to one central partner to do it. On the publisher side, the niche thing is really important too in setting yourself up different because, like you said, getting to that point where you pitch yourself and say, “Hey, make this a partnership,” right.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Make it more than that.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Sounds Profitable was a podcast newsletter and podcast about … Oh, sorry. A newsletter and podcast about podcast advertising, technology, and advertising.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Right. I have 3,500 … 3,500 subscribers to my newsletter. And people are like “Oh man, how high do you think it’s going to go?” And I said, “Well honestly, how many people do you think work in this industry that this appeals to?”
Chris:
Right. Exactly, exactly.
Bryan:
If I hit 10,000 people and I was like yes, it’s a very targeted audience, you would laugh at me, right.
Chris:
Right, right.
Bryan:
My target is the people who work at NPR, the people who work at Wondery, Amazon, Google, and those are my sponsors and also the people who subscribe to it. The people listening to this podcast I would love for you to learn about this, but I’m not going to go spend marketing dollars to grow that.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
I know exactly where I am.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And because of that, I can say to the people who sponsor me, which is very similar to advertising, that I reach the people that you want to be associated with or in front of.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And your logo, and your ad, and all of that are very important to have there. And therefore, I can charge a higher price.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And that’s-
Chris:
And that … Right. Right. That’s it. What is it? I always get it wrong. It’s the small pond … Wait, it’s not the big pond. Not … You know what … What is that?
Bryan:
Big fish in a small pond.
Chris:
There you go. You got it.
Bryan:
And that’s really important there. I started Sounds Profitable because I’d read Ad Age and Adweek, and AdMonsters, and TechCrunch, and they were just podcast advertising not quite yet. And I was like you’re wrong. You are so painfully wrong.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And so I just … I don’t have anyone else writing about this space like I am.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And I would love for that to be but I stumbled into a B2B influencer niche.
Chris:
But people have asked me that before. I have friends or just people I’ve come across that’ll say, “I want to start a podcast.” A lot of people say this. I want to start a podcast, right. And they’ll say … I’ll say that … They’ll say that to me and I’ll say “Why?” And you’re … I’m amazed by that one question. There’s always a pause. And the pause tells me a lot. If you’re pausing then you really maybe don’t want to start a podcast. You don’t … Because my point is a podcast is not all fun, it’s a lot of work and it’s a grind.
Bryan:
It’s a lot of work.
Chris:
It’s just … I went … I did a … This is a little bit different but I went through a PhD program and people would joke with me and they’ll say, “You know what? I was thinking about becoming a doctor, an MD, but instead I’m just going to do … I’m just going to go into get my doctorate.” And I’ll say to them, “What are you nuts? Don’t ever do it.” And I would never tell anyone to do what I did unless you absolutely love it because it ain’t easy. It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of time.
Chris:
But if you have a passion for it and you feel really strongly about something, then you should find the … But you have to craft it. It’s a creative. What are you going to talk about? What is your show going to be? Don’t just do a show in mental health like I’m doing. I’m doing something very specific about younger kids, and parents, and mental health. It’s a sub of a sub, right, so you really have to think about it before you go in wholesale because if your goal is to monetize and create a business you have to approach it as such.
Chris:
I mean, there are … I think there are a few exceptions where people just say, “I want to start a podcast.” They get into it and they just blow up. And they happen to … They just … It just goes for them and they hit it hard. But that’s not really a lot of my experience a lot of the time unless you’re really good or you have a following already. But coming back around. This comes up a lot in downloads. People want to know … I get this. How many downloads is enough? In other words, what is the number of downloads I should aim for before I can go seek monetization? You might say back to me, “Chris, it depends on your niche,” right. How does one gauge that and whether they should start to think-
Bryan:
Sure.
Chris:
Okay, I’m now … I can now start to make money on my content?
Bryan:
I know an IT company that … Or, a podcast network about IT topics that was so laser-focused that even their newer shows were able to get advertising in the couple hundreds to a couple thousand downloads in a month.
Chris:
Really?
Bryan:
Or per episode. Well, look, if the advertiser can make $100,000 off that contract.
Chris:
Right. Correct.
Bryan:
What type of return … You sell one for them in a year and it is less than $100,000 in ad spend that they spend with you. There’s only so much that you can charge on a CPM basis or so much you can get away with on a pure sponsorship basis before the math just doesn’t add up, right.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
So I think it’s really about the niche. Sounds profitable as a podcast gets maybe 2,000 to 3,000 downloads a month. Okay. That’s not that big. My setup is sponsorship-based, right. So I don’t do … I do one advertisement at the top of the newsletter but everything else is sponsors who want their logo on the site who believe in the content that I’m doing and want to collaborate with it and use that as a stepping stone. They back me to build all this. We do some consulting work as well, and that’s the value that they find from it. I say their name and someone asks me like, “Oh cool, I heard you mention Omni Studio, what do you think of them?” And then I make an intro. That one intro can very easily hit that.
Bryan:
Now there’s another tier that I’ve started doing which is if somebody has a piece of technology that would be fun for me to have in my flow, I want … I feel that so many people in ad tech don’t have a good demo. The amount of times I’ve had to walk through a tech demo they’re like “Here’s some client data don’t tell anybody.” Or worse, here’s an empty dashboard don’t worry about it, this is where the data would be. And now I’m just like okay, here’s the deal. I don’t have a ton of traffic but I will use this with my full heart. And instead of you being like here’s … Veritone’s is a great example. Veritone is translating my English to Spanish, has made a synthetic verse of my voice, and now it speaks Spanish and there’s a Spanish version of the podcast. And now instead of being able to say, “Here’s our president speaking English and Spanish,” they now have me using this every single week.
Chris:
Here’s an example of what it’s like.
Bryan:
That someone built into their flow.
Chris:
Right. I see.
Bryan:
So it’s part of my process. And that is a bad relationship.
Chris:
That’s cool. That’s cool because that … Again, that is more … That is less salesy. It’s just more … It is what it is, right. You’re just … You’re using the product because you want to use it because you want to have-
Bryan:
Yes.
Chris:
You want to widen your audience, and you want to get it to a Spanish speaking audience, and it perfectly demos the capabilities of that product as well so it’s a win-win really, which in the end in podcasting, when you’re doing that, that’s what it should be, right. Both sides should be benefiting in that game, right.
Bryan:
But there’s a hard wall you have to get through. When I first started, it was really difficult to say to these people “Hey, I think your product is very cool. I’m speaking to an audience that I know it will appeal to. Not only would I like to not pay to use your product, but I would like you to pay me more than my standard sponsorship for me to use it. And I’d like you to commit to a certain period of time because I will have to change my workflow to add it in there.” And that was very scary, right. I definitely didn’t do that at first. I definitely … There are some people that I paid for their product. Or, there are some that I got it for free but didn’t charge them any extra. But now it’s at a point where it snowballs, right. When you find success with one and you can use that success to show it with others, and you’re passionate about it. You’re not just like “Hey, where’s the check,” right.
Chris:
Right, right.
Bryan:
You’re really passionate about it, that’s good. And that brings us back to what you were talking about, right, when we split that to the publisher side and the advertiser side. That direct-to-consumer mindset, that click, right, is something that a 20-year-old underpaid individual can go into their demand-side platform and programmatically purchase.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
Right. They don’t need to talk to you, they don’t care. They send you a form letter, you say yes or no, you follow their guidelines, and that’s it because they are not happy with anything.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
That buying into that sponsorship relationship, you need to go the layer up. And that person’s stressed too because we don’t put enough people in these roles.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And we don’t do enough education-wise. And I feel like, in general, as a 35-year-old who has had very few managers actually teach me, actually manage me, work is a mess. So these people that are hierarchically, whatever. These people that are the bosses of the entry-level people doing the direct-to-consumer ads are there in those roles sometimes just because they’ve been there for a while.
Chris:
For a while.
Bryan:
Not because they’re the strategy leader they need to be.
Chris:
Right, right.
Bryan:
And sometimes your pitch to them can make them feel connected to it again.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And be a chance for them to look as good as they’re supposed to look.
Chris:
Exactly. No, that’s interesting actually. So let’s say I have a podcast that I’m saying, “You know what? I’ve been doing this for some time and I think it’s time for me. I want to make some money on this show.” How do you recommend someone … What are the steps at that point do they take? How do you … Where do I … What is the approach? Do I … Do you say, “Make sure you have enough tools at your disposal that you can speak … Articulate your value.” Is that the most important part outside of the downloads? Like you saying, I have these types of people. I have 50% of this gender. I have X, Y. What is the … What are the steps there and how does one then determine what’s the best route of monetization for them?
Bryan:
You need to determine if talking to people and selling people on you because it is you is important, right. And you need to not discredit the fact that you could be your number one advertiser. Some people have a product … Their podcast doesn’t need to sell other people’s products it can sell your own product. It can be a funnel to other things that you make money off of and just lead gen. So don’t discredit that. But if your goal is to get money then you need to build it like a business, right. You need to … If you want to just connect to programmatic and whatnot you’re going to have to hit thresholds because you are just another inventory source.
Chris:
Right. It’s just … It’s a numbers game, right. It’s the-
Bryan:
And that’s … But you can get into that numbers game by spending. You can spend money on advertising your podcast to grow the audience. You can work with plenty of people out there that can help drive substantial listeners that can get you on other shows to get you a better listener base and those things are all super valid. And it’s like starting a business. If I was starting a retail store-
Chris:
Right, you’d have to invest.
Bryan:
And I said to you “I’m not going to buy a physical location or am I going to put any money in, but I found this stuff for free on the side of the road and try and sell it.” You’d laugh at me.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Right, that’s not a store.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
That’s a side hustle.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
But if your goal is to sell it yourself, I think the most important thing to do is one, make sure you’re the right person to sell it. If you’re not comfortable with that don’t do it.
Chris:
Don’t. Right. It takes a type of-
Bryan:
Find somebody-
Chris:
It takes a type of person to be able to sell it for sure.
Bryan:
It super does.
Chris:
I know.
Bryan:
It is.
Chris:
I know.
Bryan:
And people … If you’re not the person who waves down the waiter to ask for ketchup or stands up and really gets their attention and just eats your fries without ketchup, then you’re probably not the person to go ask somebody to buy an ad.
Chris:
But then what do you do if you’re not that person? There’s people out there that you hire to do it?
Bryan:
There are.
Chris:
All right.
Bryan:
I call them second seed sellers. So the mindset is that they have some sort of exclusive and non-exclusive right to sell your inventory right after you sell it. True Native Media is a great example of that. They’re an agency that focuses on representing publishers. They’re not always looking for exclusive on that, but they take a cut of what they’re selling and they have great advertiser relationships. Very few of them are going to go hunt down the niche advertisers for you especially if you’re not that big. So really what you need is you need tools to identify your audience so that audience inside tool is great. Its demographic info, it’s directional. But survey your audience. I wrote an article and I’ll send it to you so we can put in the episode.
Chris:
Yes, I agree with you.
Bryan:
Details. Edison Research, which is the number one research company in podcasting. They’re the ones that lead all of the … All the sales decks out there. Everybody uses their stats for everything. Provided a free survey for anybody to use.
Chris:
Oh, really?
Bryan:
So you could just take it-
Chris:
So you can just take it and deliver it to your audience.
Bryan:
You could say, “Hey, go to Soundsprofitable.com/survey and fill this out,” and it would really help me out. And once you get enough people filling that out you can compare that to the rest of your audience. You can use that to extrapolate what your whole audience looks like. And then you have enough information to say, “This is my audience and this is how they engage.”
Chris:
Yes.
Bryan:
And then you reach out to advertisers. And ideally, you want to reach out to people in those … The markets that make sense. If you are talking … Your other podcast is-
Chris:
Mental health.
Bryan:
Mental health about children?
Chris:
It focuses on younger children, and parents, and educators who might have an influence on that mental health.
Bryan:
Awesome. So let’s take that for example. The first thing that I would say to you is go listen to every kid’s podcast out there. And you’ll find that they all say, “Grownups, this message is for you.” That’s my favorite thing. Wow in the World does that. And so it’s anything from better help just being like hey, things are stressful. It’s real tough to be a parent, we’re here for you and we support this show so let us know how we can help. To do you remember Hooked on Phonics? Right. And it’s so neat. Heck, there’s one IKEA ad on there that was just like are all your pieces of furniture secured to your wall? I was like oh, they sure are not.
Chris:
Wait, wait. No, they’re definitely not.
Bryan:
And so now when I walk around my house I was like … I’m checking everything.
Chris:
Oh, man, my bookshelf’s going to fall over.
Bryan:
I was like thanks IKEA. And so you think about that. And then you look at the other aspect. Is there a certain location that resonates with it, right? I love coffee. I live in San Antonio. I consistently think about making a podcast of just going and talking to the people who have coffee shops here because there’s over 50 of them. And if I did that then the perfect advertiser, someone who wants to get in front of people in San Antonio.
Chris:
Right, right.
Bryan:
Or someone who wants to get in front of people in … Or who like coffee. So find those people, deal with them, and always feel free to make discounts. Say, “Here’s … I need to get the ball rolling. If you want to be the person to get the ball rolling I’ll do a three or a six-month contract with you. It’s sponsorship base and you’re going to get the best deal that I can ever cut.”
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
And be genuine about that, show them. But when that ends don’t feel bad about raising those prices.
Chris:
Right. Exactly. That’s true. I want to come back quickly to the survey. And then before we go one other quick question. The survey to … When I had my first show, not only did it provide valuable information about the audience, it also gave me the ability to demonstrate to an advertiser, to a company, the action that the audience takes. In other words, I’m going to say something to my audience and 1,000 people went and did what I asked them to do. That has power, especially to an advertiser because it shows that not only are people listening and downloading, they’re listening, they’re now taking that and doing something because I asked them to do it. And that … And the end is the essence of what a company wants. A company wants your … My audience, your audience to take an action on something that they might ask them to do but they have no way to know if a download is going to translate to an action.
Chris:
But the survey, if you can demonstrate that hey, I asked them to go do this and 1,000 of them went and did that, that shows them that they’re listening and engaged enough to go do something that I asked for. Now, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to go buy the product, but it at least means that they’re just not playing and then shutting it off. They’re actually listening, engaging, and then taking a downstream action, which has a lot of value when you’re trying to pitch for an advertisement on the show.
Bryan:
And I agree that. I think that’s showing that people are engaged and will take you seriously and buy into what you’re doing is valuable. But I also … I like to fight whenever somebody dismisses a download. You don’t know what they’re doing. It’s like awesome, cool, how’s those Super Bowl ads going? Right. How’s that billboard?
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
How’s that gas station ad? How’s that mailer that I threw out?
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Do you want to talk about all those things?
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
Because I’m very happy to do that. How do you know the impressions on your search ads because you don’t? You know your clicks.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
So you don’t know the things that go downstream.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And that’s the big thing that’s important is that your audience it’s … There’s so many different ways to go about it, but I think that realistically a podcast will not continue to gain downloads if it is not being listened to.
Chris:
Yes, correct.
Bryan:
If you’re at 50 downloads an episode and you don’t consistently gain one or two every few episodes, then your podcast is being auto-downloaded because people who care about you subscribe to it on Apple Podcast or Overcast which is already downloaded.
Chris:
Right. And it’s getting delivered and it’s getting delivered, right, but you’re never seeing it.
Bryan:
But then after a certain point it’ll drop off because if they don’t listen to it auto-download stops.
Chris:
So that’s interesting. I was actually trying to find that information. Is that true? Is there a certain … Is that an algorithm-based or is it a pure stat? If they don’t listen to X number of intervals … Is it an interval-based? Is it time? If it’s two months and an auto-download isn’t consumed they shut it down? Do you know how that works?
Bryan:
So Apple just released that their … How their download works and its five episodes played in the past 15 days.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
Or something like that. I forget the exact [crosstalk 00:39:39].
Chris:
But they will kill the subscription if you will? They will shut that down?
Bryan:
Oh, if your paying … Subscription is paid. They’ll take your money all day long.
Chris:
If it’s not paid. If it’s free and I subscribe to the Overit podcast and then I stop-
Bryan:
It’ll still-
Chris:
Listening. I never listen to … I don’t listen for three episodes in a row, will it continue to have me subscribe? Will it click it off eventually?
Bryan:
It’ll still have it subscribed, it’ll still follow but it’ll stop the auto-download.
Chris:
Okay. All right.
Bryan:
So then until you press play the download doesn’t happen.
Chris:
Okay. And they’re not so that … So people out there don’t understand that. It’s just because I’m subscribed it doesn’t mean that it’s actually a play or a download. You have to actually still play it to get the download. Does that make [crosstalk 00:40:18].
Bryan:
For every single thing out there except Apple Podcast and Overcast, it’s … You have to intent-based play. If you’re listening on Spotify, it doesn’t matter if it gave you a notification, it doesn’t matter if it showed up on your feed, until you press play-
Chris:
Until you press that button. Okay. All right.
Bryan:
Downloaded such a loaded word because download sounds like you store it for offline usage.
Chris:
Actually have the file. That’s not true. That’s how it is.
Bryan:
It’s progressive download.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
And this is a fun test. Take Spotify, take Apple, take anything, play a podcast for five seconds and then turn on airplane mode. You’re downloading minutes, sometimes a full episode because it’s progressively downloading.
Chris:
Correct.
Bryan:
Because if it was a hard download, a hard stop, or a stream it’d be awful.
Chris:
So in the last two minutes I just want to ask this because you’s someone that’s so into this. Where is this going in the future? Is it continuing to grow the whole industry of podcasting and advertising on it? Are you seeing corporate, and companies, and advertisers put more dollars towards creators and publishers in … I mean, in the podcasting space is it plateauing? Do you think it’s going to continue to grow as long as there is inventory on the podcast side? Do you see a … Because for a while people were a little still hesitant about putting money into this as a valuable return mechanism. Do you see that shifting and do you think it will continue to grow?
Bryan:
I think that we’re about to see the split of the industry.
Chris:
Okay.
Bryan:
And I mean that in a good way.
Chris:
What do you mean?
Bryan:
I think that right now … Well, this podcast right here being considered a podcast against what QCODE puts out that eventually turns into a movie, right. We are all under the same umbrella of podcast. So what is the difference between them, right? We focus so much on indie people can’t make it. Well, I’m very sorry that your podcast about talking about horror movies with your friends isn’t wildly successful, but there’s a billion of them out there and it’s oversaturated, right. It’s the same way the app store is oversaturated with these things.
Chris:
Yes.
Bryan:
So we’re going to see something that divides the industry between the Hollywood aspect of it and well funded, the truly indie, and then the amateur.
Chris:
I see.
Bryan:
And I don’t think that that’s bad because there’s [inaudible 00:42:19].
Chris:
I don’t think so either.
Bryan:
I’m a huge nerd. I love tabletop role-playing games. I have one section in my shelf in the backroom, for the people who are watching on YouTube, that has my Dungeons & Dragons books. And then I have one entire four-section shelf full of books from indie creators. Because what happens is when you find a medium you like you start to explore it past the mainstream.
Chris:
Yes.
Bryan:
There’s nobody out there that says, “Oh, I’m a movie buff.” And it’s like what are your favorite movies? Well, Thor and Thor: Ragnarok. And that’s not a thing, right. They’re just like oh, I love this director in this indie film. You dig in deeper to it. So what I can say is that I think the time is done for almost every medium that’s actively live right now, every channel that’s live, for you to just be a breakout success. I don’t think that’s going to happen overnight. I don’t think that can happen for a lot of people even without a substantial amount of money behind it but you can sell your idea to that Hollywood side. You can go hard into it on the indie side and make enough. But we’re getting past the point where someone can be Joe Rogan.
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
You can’t just talk on a microphone and hit success. I think the industry has a lot growing pains, but the complaints and the fear come from the people who say, “Well, we recorded 10 episodes we took two months off. Before I get back into it I really want to know how much money I can make.” And I say “Negative $150,000 for the next two years.” Because if you don’t treat this like starting a business-
Chris:
Right.
Bryan:
You should not expect to draw a paycheck like it is a business.
Chris:
You’re right, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right. And like you said, but catching that lightning in a bottle with this is just not going to really happen. Again, it … You have to be very special. Or more likely you have to already be famous or with a following and jump on something, and instantly going to get 10,000 downloads and then keep it rolling. But I mean-
Bryan:
Or, the niche aspect. Because Sounds Profitable has existed for one year. I put nothing but my time into it. I gave cuts of certain things to people to help me boost different aspects of it. I made … I cut deals for different advertising and sponsorship when I started. I am … By being in this niche, by focusing on podcast, ad tech, and advertising, by being a demo in a playground, I have multiplied the salary that I was making when I was at Megaphone. And it is because I found something I was actually passionate about.
Chris:
Right. And you treated it like a business.
Bryan:
And it was in an industry where people spend money. The biggest thing I can say to you is stop trying to charge the individual, especially if it’s a niche. Charge their company. Get the company to pay the bill.
Chris:
Well, on that note, if people want to learn more about this podcast of yours and the newsletter where do they go and how can they subscribe to the newsletter?
Bryan:
Absolutely. You can go to soundsprofitable.com and it’ll link out to everything. We do the newsletter in English and Spanish, we have the podcast twice a week, we have the product deep dive once a month. And I would love anybody to read this or shoot questions over to me or you, and then happy to come back on and talk more about it.
Chris:
Cool. This was a lot of fun. Selfishly maybe for me because I’m a podcaster so that’s got my … It’s got my wheels turning right now about what we can do. But I appreciate your time. Thanks so much for doing this, man.
Bryan:
Thanks.
Chris:
All right.