Introducing Anchor Sponsorships, the podcast advertising platform for everyone
Today we’re streamlining the entire process of podcast advertising. Anchor Sponsorships gets podcasters paid by matching them with sponsors and helping them easily create custom advertisements for their shows. It’s a new world for podcast advertising, and anyone can be part of it.
Anchor’s mission is to democratize audio, so we built the most complete podcasting platform ever. But even with easy, free creation tools, there’s one more big hurdle to getting a successful podcast off the ground: most podcasters still have a hard time monetizing their work.
Money is pouring into podcasting, mostly through advertising. Podcast ad spend in the U.S. has been steadily increasing year over year, and is expected to double to nearly $700M by 2020. But there’s still a huge disconnect between the majority of podcasters and what’s happening at the top of the market: nearly all of that money is going to only the top ~1% of podcasts due to a highly fragmented market and lack of innovation in the space. It often takes around 50,000 downloads per episode before a podcaster can catch meaningful attention from potential sponsors. Once they do, it’s a manual, highly inefficient process to broker a deal and get ads published.
This leaves a massively untapped market of amazing creators who aren’t able to monetize their podcasts, despite putting in a ton of work and amassing real listenership. The entire system is antiquated, it’s unfair, and it’s limiting the potential of the podcast market. So we built a solution.
Enter Anchor Sponsorships
Sponsorships revolutionizes the entire podcast advertising process by streamlining it into a single platform. It connects podcasters with brands that want to sponsor them, guides them through easy creation of custom ads, and facilitates payments when their podcast is heard. It’s the first and only podcast advertising platform open to all podcasters and sponsors of all sizes, regardless of how many plays a show gets, or the size of a marketing budget.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Bridging the gap between podcasters and brands
Any U.S.-based podcaster can opt to turn on Sponsorships in any (or all!) of your episodes. Once you do, the platform will get to work finding a sponsor match based on factors like subject matter, audience size, location, and more. Anchor is committed to making sure matches are a great fit for everyone, and giving every podcast the opportunity to get sponsored.
You’ll be notified when you have a sponsor match, and always have the choice to opt into that sponsorship or decline and wait for a new match if you feel it’s not the right fit.
Simplifying the ad process
Once you accept your sponsor match, publishing an ad takes just a few minutes and is built directly into Anchor’s easy creation tools. You can either record through Anchor’s website or mobile apps, or import a pre-recorded version — so anyone can take advantage of Sponsorships, whether or not you use Anchor’s recording tools.
You choose exactly where ads will fit into your episodes. Whenever you publish a new sponsored message, Anchor automatically updates all episodes that have ad slots, across everywhere your podcast is heard (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other major platforms) via Anchor’s new dynamic ad insertion technology. Campaign timeframes are set by the sponsor, and we’ll start looking for a new sponsor as soon as one campaign ends.
This is a great opportunity to make money from episodes that you’ve already published — we’ve found that back-catalogues of podcasts get high engagement, and now you can easily monetize all that content.
Authentic, host-read ads
In creating the model for Sponsorships, we made sure to maintain the integrity of host-read podcast ads — which have been proven to perform better than any other form of digital advertising.
With Sponsorships, you have the opportunity to record your own custom ad that fits your show’s style and tone. Sponsors submit script guidelines so you know the exact message to communicate, delivered in your own voice.
Get plays, get paid
You get paid as soon as your ads are heard by listeners. Rates are based on a CPM (cost per mille, or cost per thousand impressions) set by the sponsor, competitive with podcast advertising standards.
We count any and all plays, whether people are listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, or anywhere else. Anchor takes a 30% share of transactions facilitated through the platform, which is how we keep Anchor free for creators. By helping podcasters monetize their work and sharing in the revenue at a rate that heavily favors the creator, we’re able to build a sustainable business model that benefits everyone.
At any time, you can cash out the total balance directly to any bank account or debit card through our payment partner and the standard for online payments, Stripe. Stripe takes a $0.25 fee on withdrawal transactions. You keep all the rest.
Real money from real brands
Podcast advertising is a proven, highly effective marketing channel that’s being leveraged by some of the top brands in the world. We’re thrilled to be partnering with world-class brands for today’s launch of Sponsorships. Squarespace, SeatGeek, Cash App, Dirty Lemon, Baboon, Living Proof, Roman, and The Citizenry are some of the brands already sponsoring podcasts on the platform, and top media agencies like Veritone One are using Sponsorships for their clients.
Through Anchor’s massive and rapidly growing catalogue of podcasts (we now power 40% of all new podcasts), we’re determined to level the playing field for podcast monetization by enabling new creators to get paid and new brand dollars to enter the market. Podcast advertising has for too long been an opaque and complicated process, and we’re excited to make real and much-needed changes to the industry starting today.
People are already listening to your podcast. Now you can get paid when they do.
Ready to activate Anchor Sponsorships? Head to your Anchor Dashboard to get started or learn more here.
Haven’t started your own podcast yet? Check out our handy How to Start a Podcast guide for tips and tricks on how to make something awesome with Anchor. And as always, we’d love to hear your feedback, via email or on Twitter.
