Beyond Hosts & Shows: How to Advertise on a Podcast Network

Podcasts are celebrated for their loyal audiences and high-impact host reads. But thanks to recent industry-wide innovations, including programmatic, enhanced targeting, and self-serve, the opportunities and best practices have grown and evolved. Now, advertisers can access tools to increase scale and target more specific listeners in tandem with the show-level sponsorships they know and love. 

Let’s look at three ways brands can leverage podcasts. 

Look Beyond the Top of the Podcast Charts

Podcasts have grown exponentially, with shows reaching and staying at the top of the charts for months, weeks, or even years. But despite millions of listeners tuning into shows like Crime Junkie, Joe Rogan, or The Daily NYT, the majority of podcast listening is happening elsewhere. In fact, 70% of podcast listening happens outside of the top three podcasts. Advertisers looking to reach more listeners miss out when they focus all their ad spend on the top shows.

With our brand-new targeting capability, Curated Collections, brands can tap into a targeted catalog of content in one easy buy. With these collections and genre and inventory targeting options, advertisers can reach a specific audience across a roster of shows to reach the right listeners. No matter a brand's approach, we have the tools to help you scale your campaign while still connecting with the right audience.

Define Your Desired Audience

For advertisers that have found success in podcast advertising at the show-level with host-read ads, expanding into network-level targeting unlocks additional scale, added customization, and a more diverse audience. Although the top podcast shows get brands in front of large audiences, the demographics they reach are more general and may lack diversity.

Take gender for example; if brands advertise only on Joe Rogan and The Daily, they reach an audience that’s 77% male, a 140 index for men compared to the broader podcast ecosystem. And the top podcast shows tend to skew toward white male hosts, which attracts similar demographics. When brands expand their podcast spend beyond the top of the charts, they also broaden the demographics they reach, like young podcast listeners, retirees, women, multicultural audiences, and more. 

Leverage Programmatic Capabilities 

Advancements in programmatic, self-serve, and network buying have made podcast advertising more streamlined than ever before. With programmatic functionalities, brands can safely navigate the medium and take ownership over listening content, allowing advertisers to implement certain safeguards so they can set it and forget it. 

Whether a brand’s goal is to connect with comedy enthusiasts or target a younger audience, programmatic tools precisely identify varied listener groups, granting brands access to exactly the listeners they want to reach. And when brands leverage the SiriusXM Media Podcast Network, they align with the podcasts that draw in the valuable audiences they’re looking for with unparalleled scale—reaching two in five monthly podcast listeners.  

Further Your Reach with SiriusXM Media

There’s no doubt the top podcast shows create a lot of buzz (and you see many of them on our slate), but advertisers may be missing out on a more streamlined opportunity to reach the listeners they want when they overlook other shows. Get invested in the SiriusXM Podcast Network, and see what our tools and capabilities can do for your brand. Let’s chat.