Testing a post-roll Ad for my newsletter
I’ve been thinking a lot about podcast calls to action lately. I even talked about it on my new daily podcast, Podcast Workflows.
Increasingly, I feel my stance on a pre-roll CTA, before you deliver any value, is bad. It’s like asking for the sale before someone knows who you are. It’s like asking blind date.
Some people are OK giving it a try and hoping for the best. But most people want to know a little more before they’re in.
I’ve also stated that calls to action at the end of the episode generally don’t work, as most people have left by the end.
I still think that’s true — but I’ve decided to experiment with post-roll ads. Here’s why, and how I’m doing it.
First, I’m limited this experiment to Podcast Workflows, in part because 4/5 episodes each week are less than 7 minutes long. Listeners are much more likely to stick around until the end.
Next, I’ve specifically created a post-roll ad — calling attention to the listener that this is the last thing they’ll hear, by saying “ Hey before you go…”
I tell them they just listened to something to help them improve their podcast processes, and I have something else for free that can help them do the same thing.
I deliver the value, then I make the ask.
Initial impressions are good. There aren’t that many listeners of the podcast yet — I want to build the library before I really start promoting it — but it seems like about 1/10 listeners are signing up after hearing the post-roll.
I’m tracking this 2 ways:
- UTM codes on the URL:
https://podcastliftoff.com/freebie/?utm_source=podcastworkflows&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=postroll&utm_content=CTA - A Gravity Form that passes the referring URL to a custom field in ConvertKit
This combo allows me to create a segment of anyone who came from the Podcast Workflows podcast.
I’ll mostly use that segment to quickly get a number of subscribers (since November 1st, when I rolled out the post-roll) are coming from the post-roll ad.
My hypothesis is that I’ll capture about 5–10% of listeners this way, for the exact reasons I stated before: the episodes are short, so consumption is high, and I’ve delivered value.
For other shows, my goal is still to find a good place in the mid roll for the CTA — but I’m guessing it will actually be better to do it towards the beginning, or more organically.
I’ll use the same method to track efficiency: UTM codes and custom fields.
In-fact, UTM codes will be such a crucial part of my linking strategy moving forward that I’m thinking of building a text expander snippet or shortcut to easily build them.
More on that at another time though.
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