What’s the right way to do a podcast ad read?

It’s not an easy answer, but we did our best to tackle the question.

Podcast host ad reads are unique. There’s really no other advertising quite like it. Everyone in the industry, from podcast hosts to the brands and agencies that buy the ads that run on podcasts, have their pre-conceptions about the best way to execute a podcast ad read.

That’s why a group called the Podcast Ad Buyers United, led by Eric Smith of Incremental Media and Adam McNeil of Adopter Media, decided to bring together a panel of podcast hosts to share their opinions on as much about podcast ad reads as we could pack into a one hour session. A big THANK YOU to all of the hosts who shared their candid answers to our questions:

Priyanka Aribindi — What A Day

Kimberly Arnold and Katie Mitchell — A Date With Dateline

Shannon McNamara — Fluently Forward

Jordy Meiselas — The MeidasTouch Network

Paul Vogelzang — The Not Old Better Show

The below are the highlights, which are lightly edited for clarity:

Do you prefer ad copy to be very scripted or give you a lot of freedom to personalize?

The majority of hosts liked when the ad copy isn’t overly scripted, and especially liked bullet points or the “must-say” copy so they know what they have to hit and can make the rest of the copy unique to their audience or possibly even what they were talking about in that episode.

Shannon (Fluently Forward): I personally really like when it’s not scripted. I feel like I know my audience better than anybody else, and sometimes the script can be so dull, and I know my audience will resonate best with a certain feature and I’d love to hone in on that, or add in a joke when it’s appropriate. If anything that’s going to make people listen to the ad, but some advertisers want their ad reads to be exactly word-for-word, and I really don’t feel like that’s going to get people to engage with it more. I love bullet points, especially when it includes statistics I might not be aware of, but otherwise I like to make it my own. Any brand who makes you read the ad like an AI robot… it’s just not as fun.

Do you want to get on the phone with brands for kick off calls or do you find them not very valuable?

Surprisingly, even with their busy schedules, most podcasters were fans of the onboarding calls, because of the human element of podcasting and putting a face to the brand they are working with. They did reiterate that if there are multiple hosts of a show you may not be able to get all of them on a call every time, but the response to the calls was overwhelming positive.

Paul (The Not Old Better Show): I’m surprised more brands don’t do the calls. I jump at the chance every time it’s suggested. Whether it’s confirming or reassuring or it’s a chance to narrow down on the key points and messages and find out where the wiggle room is, to me it’s essential.

Priyanka (What A Day): It is difficult, since we have four hosts on our show, so you almost certainly won’t get all four of us, but for the ones that I’ve been on, I leave and I genuinely feel like “I’m on these people’s team.” I know them. I know their faces. I know what they’re about. I like them, so it gives me more incentive to give a more personal, fun ad read. All in all, from a relationship perspective I find them lovely, and I feel they result in better ads.

How often do you get insight into your ad reads and/or ad performance when it comes to hitting a brand’s goals, especially customer acquisition goals?

The feeling here was almost universal that feedback is rarely, if ever, provided but hosts were eager to receive more feedback, either on the quality of their ad reads or how they are performing relative to a brand’s goals.

Katie (A Date With Dateline): I don’t feel like we get a ton of insight at all, but it would be super helpful. I remember the couple times we have gotten feedback, positive or negative, it’s been super helpful, especially when we have a lot of leeway in constructing the ad.

Jordy (MeidasTouch): For me, transparency on how the campaign is doing is so important. The way I view the relationship between buying group, podcast, and brand is we all want the same goal. We want the brand to get the sales that they need, we want the buying group to look good for picking us as a podcast to work with, and from a podcast perspective that’ll lead to more buys, renewals, and ultimately annual deals. Plus, if I know a campaign is slow for one of our shows, I can more easily give added value to help improve results.

Getting samples to hosts to try out a product is a laborious process for everyone involved. Do you feel the need to use a product before approving a brand? Before kicking off your first ad read? Or do you feel like using a sample to get the benefits of a product is overblown?

Again the hosts felt, even though it is time-consuming, that the benefits of physically trying out a product matters a lot. Audiences are smart, and they can tell when a host actually has tried out a product and seen its benefits.

Kimberly & Katie (A Date With Dateline): I like knowing something is legitimate and high quality. I wish we could try before we commit to the ads because I would hate to commit to the ads and then sell something to my listeners that is low-quality, so I try to look at reviews and make sure the company isn’t problematic. Nothing we’ve received has ever been not good quality, but sometimes it’s just not for us, like a deodorant that works for everyone else but not for you, but either way we need a sample to find out.

Priyanka (What A Day): I’ll also add that I know it’s not possible with all expensive products, but for something that’s at a relatively higher price point, that’s really helpful because we can vouch for its benefits and give our audience a little more incentive when they say to us “Hey that’s pretty expensive”, we can say its money well spent because of specific benefits we’ve experienced in our lives.

Especially in direct-response, many brands are buying 60 second ads but podcast hosts typically do longer than 60 second ad reads. Do you truly aim to finish at 60 seconds or is that a challenge with the amount of copy you receive?

The hosts universally felt like an ad that was purchased as a 60 second ad was never actually 60 seconds, and usually closer to 2 minutes if not longer. It sometimes even affects their listenership, so they strongly felt keeping the ad copy shorter or more appropriate to the 60 second time period would be best for them and their audience.

Jordy (MeidasTouch):. The most important part of clearly communicating copy is ensuring we get the talking points / scripts in a clear and easily digestible format. The last thing our audience wants to hear is a host drone on and on about a product that’s not being clearly articulated. To that end, incredibly long talking points and PDFs will only have negative impacts on the conversions for the brand because the host will not know what to focus on. That’s why it’s so helpful to get bullet points so I know the points to hit and I can edit it down to where the ad read needs to be. I’ve still never hit 60 seconds (I’ve been closer to 1 minute 30 seconds), but I know people have short attention spans, so as close to the 60 as we can get it to the better.

What is one thing you wish brands knew about your shows?

Paul (Not Old Better Show): I love when brands lean into the age of my audience. A brand recently included “I’m no spring chicken anymore” and I just thought “Perfect!” It made me feel like they knew who my audience was, and that helps me with credibility to my audience and makes the spot that much more powerful.

Kimberly (A Date With Dateline): On a totally different note, I wish there was a phonetic pronunciation of every brand and every name in it (Ex. The Founder’s name) because we’ve gotten it wrong, and sometimes you go online and you find people pronouncing the name in different ways. It’s something so easy, and they pronounce it so strange, which is totally fine, but you just need to know that so you can get it right.

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If there’s anything to take away from this conversation, it’s simply this. Podcasts are a human advertising channel. If you want to do host read ads, you can’t click a few buttons and get an ad campaign live like you can on Google or Meta, so make sure you treat the campaign that way. It’s definitely manual sometimes for everyone involved, but with the right balance of scripted versus ad-libbed ad copy, samples, kick off calls, and a true partnership mentality with your podcasters, the sky is the limit with the podcast channel.

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We’re the Podcast Ad Buyers United, a group of acquisition-focused media buyers representing some of the largest spenders in podcast advertising. We assemble once a quarter to discuss a trend happening in podcasting, how we feel about it, and then we publish an article like the above with a more fleshed-out overview of our thoughts.

If you are a client or agency buyer who spends meaningfully on podcasts and are interested in joining a future Podcast Ad Buyers United session, email Eric Smith at esmith@incrementalmedia.com or Adam McNeil at adam@adopter.media.