Software to Monetize Your Podcast

Eric Beels 0:01
which software should you use for ad monetization? Let's get into it.

Eric Beels 0:09
You're listening to Practical Podcast Tips. My name is Eric Beels. And today I'm going to cover tip number 25 software to monetize your podcast. Before I get into it, I got I gotta admit, this is the third time me recording this this episode. Oh my gosh, I've just had a couple of times the first time was a user error, I made a mistake in my content. And it was not completely wrong, but it was somewhat wrong. And so I redid it again. And then I realized lately, I've been recording over Riverside mobile, and I haven't been fully reviewing the all my episodes because I have to have an editor do them. For me. One thing I noticed is that the recording quality actually gets a bit worse, even if you use the same microphone over the Riverside mobile app, which is what I use to record these episodes. So now I'm just in my office now. So it might sound a little bit different from the previous ones. But hopefully, it should sound quite a bit better. So I'm gonna start using the desktop app. And I'll probably make a separate episode on that later. So I wanted to mention that because you know, it happens, even professionals like myself, make mistakes and have to redo stuff. So, you know, if you feel like that happens, sometimes, hey, it happens. So this is my third time recording this. So all right, let's get into it. Lots of people, they have the dream of monetizing their podcast, and a lot of them, they don't know where to start. And there's lots of different ways to do that, like selling something on the back end, or even taking like donations doing lightload like a patron method. But in this episode, I'm going to talk specifically about D AI or dia, it's kind of a tomato tomahto situation there, which basically means dynamic ad insertion. Basically what that is, is a method of automatically embedding ads on your podcast and collecting ad revenue from that. Now, before I get too into it, some things to keep in mind. First, you really shouldn't think about AD monetization until you're about 5000 downloads per month. Okay. Some of you that might be oh, well, I'm way past that. And other other might be I'm way behind on that. And that's okay. The reason for that, though, is because dynamic ad insertion is tracked on a cp n basis, which basically translates to the cost per 1000. Okay, so the cost per 1000 downloads, and the interest interest three standard at this time is somewhere between 18 to $25. Cost Per 1000 downloads. So the advertiser would pay you approximately $20 or so to put their ad on your podcast per 1000. So if you have 5000 downloads per month, then that would be approximately $100 per ad. And you can have multiple ads as well, too. So it can be several $100. Now, the reason I say 5000 is kind of your minimum. But that's because if you only have like 500 downloads per month, then you're you're only going to be making like, you know, 15 bucks or something like that 15 bucks, 20 bucks, so maybe it'll pay for your host, but you also will be inconveniencing your listeners as well. And so you have to kind of justify, does inconveniencing, my listeners justify the revenue I get from it. And so generally, you're it's not until you get about that much. So, which softwares should you look into to doing this? Well, one of the most common ones that most people are pretty familiar with is anchor.fm. So they can do this, you can turn on ad monetization, and it'll automatically put ads onto your podcast, I'm not sure if you have to approve them or not, or if you give that ability, but I do know they offer that. But when they do it, they take about a 30% commission from it. Okay. That's kind of an industry standard. I've seen a lot of these things like this example that comes to mind. That's also in this 30% Commission area is like iPhones and Android apps. Like if you open up your iPhone, and you've probably done this before, unless you have an Android then it'd be the same thing on Android as well. If you do an in app purchase on your inside an app, right, so maybe it's to remove ads or something right or maybe it's to get an upgrade within the app. Okay. Apple or Google will

Eric Beels 5:00
actually take a 30% commission from that purchase. So if you pay $10 To upgrade an app, Apple or Google would keep $3 of that, and then the developer would get $7 of it. Okay. So that's the 7030. Commission. Now, that's a fairly high commission. And in the case of Apple, you do get the benefit of the ease of use, right. So that's a pretty important factor when it comes to upselling these things is, how easy is it for the user to do the upsell? Well, in the case of an iPhone, a lot of iPhone users already have made purchases on the App Store. So they already have their account setup. So doing that in app purchase takes like two seconds. So you hit the button twice, and it scans your face and boom, you did the purchase, right? You don't have to put in card information or doing any of that. So a lot of developers will justify that that 30% Charge simply for that they can get a lot more sales easier. In the case of podcast advertising, I don't necessarily agree with that 30% Commission, simply because anchor is not necessarily doing anything other than it being a free platform. Okay. So that's why they have a fairly high charge. Red Circle is a similar amount, in fact that they can get up as high as 50%. Okay, there's also another platform called pod core. Now, this is not dynamic ad insertion, but they do act as kind of a middleman to help facilitate and find advertisers. And they only take a 10% commission. So it's a lot better than that 30% Commission, but it's not dynamic ads, though. So that's something to keep in mind with a service like popcorn. So after doing some some research into looking at all these different platforms, one thing I realized is I found one of them. That has a pretty fantastic rate with no minimums. Okay, so, before I mentioned what it is a lot of advertising platforms they require you have like a minimum, like megaphone, for example, that's only owned by Spotify. Now, they require you have, I believe it's 20,000 downloads per episode, okay, that's the minimum like they they won't even have you on board unless you're unless you have that much. And I'm not sure what megaphones rates are, they don't publicize that they might change actually to based off of the off of the podcast as well.

Eric Beels 7:30
But generally, it's going to be lower than like, anchors, 30%. Okay. But I found this one platform that has no minimums, so you can have like the 5000, or even less, if you wanted to add 2000. And you can even set the rate as well, too. So you can set how much your ad spots are on your podcast. So you know, the industry standard is between 18 to $25, per 1000. But maybe you have a hyper ditch that's high in demand for advertisers, well, then you could charge $50 or $100 per 1000. Okay.

Eric Beels 8:04
This platform does not do a good job at really telling you what this information is. I was actually pretty surprised when I learned that they don't, I had to really dig to find this information. Okay, I'll tell you that and I'm gonna leave a link in this description for this as well. But pod bean, okay, pod bean has dynamic ad insertion. But the thing is, they don't talk about what their charges aren't. So I dug a little bit, I first I thought there was no charge at all. Then I dug a little bit deeper and there is a small charge. They charge $1 per 1000. Okay, well, the industry standard is around 18 to 25. So let's just round and make an easy number and make a 20. If you're charging $20 per 1000, well, that ends up being only about a 5% charge. That is a huge difference from a platform like anchor now podbean is not free. So that's one thing to keep to keep in mind. If you want the advertising abilities, you do have to upgrade and pay for it. Okay. But if you have a professional podcast going and let's say you're maybe you're on anchor, and you're and you're doing advertising, and let's say you're making $1,000 a month from that, and that's that's total, so you're only keeping 700 of that, well that means anchors keeping $300. So that's basically a $300 a month charge that anchor is charging you. Whereas pod bean, if it's that that same amount and it's at five, if they're charging $1 per 1000 Well, then that's only a 5% charge. Okay? And then you pay pod Bean on top of that. So pod bean starts I think at like $9

Eric Beels 10:00
per month, I think it is. And I know that their higher end tiers kind of go up to like $30. But even so what's 5% of 1000? Well, 5% of 1000 is $50. And then if you're paying them for their higher tiered plan at 30, well, that's $80 per month. Okay, paying $80 is a lot better than 300, in my mind. So you're keeping $920 instead of 700, simply by doing your advertising on pod beam. Now, with that said, there is a caveat to this, okay. And that is it take this with somewhat of a grain of salt in the sense that if you're unable to find advertisers on pod bean, like maybe your your advertisers are on anchor, and they're not on pod beam, well, if you're having trouble with that, then obviously anchor is going to be the better platform for doing your advertising or whatever other system, red circle, whatever it might be, right? With that said, pod bean. From the research that I've I've done podbean seems like the best platform to start with. And then if you're successful with that, well, now you're on pretty much one of the best platforms to do dynamic ad insertion. And at the lowest rate, so you keep most of the of the income on it. Now you're you're set up for doing ad revenue. So I wanted to bring this up, because pod bean has, it's so hard to find this information on how much they actually charge per 1000. You had to like go into their support. And there's this one little line like one little sentence, and it says like a little asterisk looks like you'll be charged, you know, $1 per 1000. And I'm like, Okay, what why is that not front page, because that's a fantastic rate. That's an incredible rate. Especially because it's flat rate, like imagine if you know, if you have a niche, a very niche podcast, you might even increase like whether it's high in demand, you might even increase that amount to be $100. Well, now it's 1% Charge, right? $1 of from 100 is only 1%. The one to do an episode on this, because I it's not very well known information. And there's not very much out there that I've been able to find on this topic. In regards to like pod meal. It's funny because like red circle and anchor, they talked about, you know, big numbers on the front, we're like, we take 30, you take you take 70%, you know, they make it very clear in their advertising what it is, which is good that they should do that. I just think it's a it's in pod beans advantage to show that and talk about that. They do have a line in their advertising. This has like lowest industry's rate standards, or something like that. But what does that mean, right? What is that? 29%? You know, 1%? Less than then the 30%. Right? So yeah, I wanted to make an episode on this because I thought it was a good platform for doing that. While pod bean is not my absolute favorites platform, it definitely has a multiple steps up after I learned that how low their rates are if you're doing dynamic ad insertion. Okay, so I hope that helps you out. If I am wrong about something on here, or if you learn another platform that also has really good rates, I'd love to hear about it, please leave a comment on what it is. And I would love to look into it. I'm fascinated about all the difference hosting platforms and advertising systems out there. I know that there's other platforms for you know, agencies and things like that, that will go out and find people for you. But I'm always learning about new platforms. So yeah, leave a comment if you know of another platform that also has fantastic rates, just like pod bean. Alright, I will see you in the next episode.

Eric Beels 14:01
Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, feel free to leave us a review. I'd love to hear how it helped. Also, if you know somebody else that could benefit from it. Go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and see you in the next episode.