From the Desk of Our VP, Nick Gryniewicz
If you’ve spent any time exploring podcast advertising, you’ve probably noticed something pretty quickly. It doesn’t behave like other channels.
There isn’t one standard way to buy. Pricing can vary more than expected. And measurement doesn’t always come in a neat, last-click package.
For a lot of marketers, that can feel like a barrier. In reality, it’s just a different kind of ecosystem, one that actually works incredibly well once you understand how the pieces fit together.
At its core, podcasting is built on trust. That sounds simple, but it has implications for everything else, from how campaigns are structured to how they should be evaluated.
Take something like RON, or run of network. It’s often one of the first entry points into the space because it offers scale and flexibility. Instead of choosing a single show, you’re running across a curated group of podcasts. For brands that are testing or looking to reach a broader audience, that can be a really smart way to get started.
But where I see people go wrong is thinking of RON as a shortcut. The best-performing campaigns still treat it thoughtfully. They consider the types of shows included, how audiences overlap, and how the campaign is paced over time. It’s not about removing strategy, it’s about applying it differently.
That same idea shows up when we talk about pricing. Most of the time, conversations start with CPMs, which makes sense, it’s the easiest number to compare. But podcasting isn’t a channel where the lowest CPM wins.
A host-read ad, delivered in a show where the audience trusts the person speaking, carries a very different kind of weight than a more commoditized placement. So while the CPM might look higher at first glance, the actual impact, whether that’s recall, engagement, or conversion, tends to be stronger. Over time, that’s what really matters.
And that brings me to ad types, because this is where podcasting really distinguishes itself. There are a lot of ways to run ads in audio today, but the thing that continues to stand out is the host-read format. When a host integrates a brand into their content in a way that feels natural, it doesn’t come across as an interruption. It feels like a recommendation.
That doesn’t mean other formats don’t have a place. Announcer reads and programmatic can be useful, especially when scale is the priority. But if you’re looking for what makes podcasting uniquely effective, it almost always comes back to the host and the relationship they have with their audience.
Even placement plays a role here. Mid-roll ads, for example, consistently perform well because they sit within the listening experience, not outside of it. By that point, the audience is engaged. They’ve chosen to be there. That context matters more than people realize.
Measurement is probably where the most questions come up, and understandably so. We’ve all gotten used to very direct attribution models. Podcasting doesn’t always fit neatly into that box.
What I often tell people is to think less about a single data point and more about directional signals. Are you seeing lifts in traffic? In branded search? Are customers mentioning the podcast when they convert? When you start looking at performance that way, patterns emerge pretty quickly.
The brands that tend to succeed in podcasting aren’t chasing perfect attribution. They’re looking at the full picture and making decisions based on how the channel is contributing overall.
And maybe that’s the bigger point. Podcast advertising isn’t about plugging into a system and expecting instant results. It’s about building something that compounds over time. The combination of the right shows, the right creative, and the right expectations tends to create a kind of momentum that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.
There’s a reason so many advertisers stay once they get it working. It’s not because it’s simple. It’s because it’s effective.