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Good for awareness. Good for reach. Hard to measure.

But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Podcasts and creator campaigns can absolutely be part of your performance media plan.

The difference isn’t the platform.

It’s how you use it.

If you want creator campaigns to perform, you need to treat them like performance assets not brand awareness strategies, here’s how:

Give listeners a reason to act, and make it trackable. 

Combine a clear written CTA in the description, an audible mention in the read, and a visual reminder on clips or stories with an offer specific to the audience. 

If someone decides to purchase a few days after hearing your ad through a google search and not your tracked link, my money is on them remembering the offer they heard on that podcast which is going to save them some cash meaning you can still track podcast related conversions.

Look, I am aware this still isn’t as thoroughly tracked as Meta ads for example, but something that helps tracking beyond a tracked link and offer is embedding tracking tools. 

Platforms like Podscribe or Chartable let you embed real attribution into campaigns. You can track link clicks, promo code usage, and even match uplift in web traffic to podcast exposure.

Performance starts with targeting. 

Niche, micro creators with the right demographic will convert better than broad, general shows. Go narrow and relevant over mass and vague if you want to see tangible conversions. 

Branding on reels or pre-roll dynamic ads across multiple shows? 

That’s brand awareness focussed.

A story post with a link, or a host-read mid-roll as part of a long term partnership with one creator that includes a clear call to action and link in the description, bio & comments? 

That’s performance and conversion focussed.

When you layer these things together, podcast ads stop being part of your brand budget only and something that generates tangible and tracked performance.

I would also argue that performance focussed campaigns come across far more genuine and authentic.

A niche creator representing one brand for a long term with an exclusive offer and naturally integrated adverts will land better than the same generic scripted ad played as a pre roll, mid roll and post roll ad read. 

(I call that second one the ‘Ad Network approach’. Selling 3 x the impressions by putting the same ad, in the same episode, 3 times. 

Unfortunately, many brands are too lazy to even notice how their budget is being spent. All they see is X impressions for X amount of money, definition of ‘spending brand budget’.)

Long story short, if you see podcast advertising, YouTube brand partnerships and influencer marketing as brand awareness only.

You’re getting left behind by the brands that run performance focussed creator campaigns that convert.

Rumor has it Pod Partnerships helps brands to run them…

You should DM those guys…

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