My mowPod Boost Advertising Experiment

What is mowPod, and what are your offerings?

MW: mowPod is an audience development platform for podcasts — we are the largest driver of engaged listeners and followers to many of the most prominent podcasts in the space. Our unfair advantage is a relentless focus on performance and transparency. Our clients only pay for actual downloads vs. the industry standard of paying for clicks (CPC) or impressions (CPM).

How does mowPod Boost differ from your premium service?

MW: mowPod Boost comes in two flavors: Self-serve and Enterprise. In both cases, there are no fees outside of performance. However, Enterprise requires a minimum spend and includes a dedicated Account Manager. It also comes with custom creative creation, robust targeting options, and customizable reporting. Both products include a client dashboard with near real-time campaign statistics showcasing daily performance, top geos, top devices, and a downloadable excel report that dives far deeper into the data surrounding who listened, where they came from, what strategy was used to find them, demographic data, and more.

I ran an experiment for both of my podcasts, and I'm a satisfied customer. I just want help understanding how it all works. I’m seeing 140 mowPod downloads for Bleeders via Spreaker. It's harder to track for Private Parts Unknown via Megaphone — it looks like it's labeled either "unknown" or Mozilla. Can you explain how you track the downloads?

MW: mowPod’s player is listed as an approved User Agent in most hosting platforms (Omny Studio, Spreaker, and many others), and you can find us in the OPAWG Master RSS User Agent list. We are working with the team at Megaphone/Spotify to ensure transparency in attribution there as well, and expect to be listed by February (give or take). If a hosting platform is not indexing our player, downloads will show as a browser in the stats (i.e. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and similar). We expect to be indexed on every major platform by the middle of next year, if not much sooner. We track downloads from each campaign both in the mowPod player based on the latest IAB standards and in the client’s hosting platform.

Obviously, as a podcaster, I want these new mowPod-driven listeners to return. Will they show up as mowPod month-over-month?

MW: We don’t have a mowPod app and have no plans to develop one — so outside of a campaign focused on retargeting someone who listened, it is unlikely that a listener will return to our play pages to listen to a new episode. That said, any new downloads or engagement from a repeat listener would show as the listener’s preferred platform, such as Apple, Spotify, and similar in host platform stats. We link to the show on both Apple and Spotify by default on every play page.

What do the ads served by mowPod Boost look like to the consumer? Are these new listeners encouraged to follow or subscribe to the show on any platform?

MW: Native and display ads targeting the listener, not the web property, and each is comprised of the same basic elements: an image, a call to action (“Listen Now”), a title (with PODCAST clearly called out), a description, and “ad by” or “sponsored by” mowPod. The play pages, as mentioned, also feature links to both Apple and Spotify, where the listener is encouraged to follow the pod.

I ran these ads on episodes that had been out for several days. Would it be more advantageous to run the ad on a brand-new episode for charting purposes?

MW: For charting on Chartable or Podtrac rankers, sure — it would likely be more advantageous to run a mowPod campaign in tandem with other marketing efforts for the most impact possible. I’ve never really felt that charting was critical for the success of a podcast — ultimately (in most cases) it’s just bragging rights, a neat LinkedIn message you get to send out to the universe telling everyone how amazing your pod is and thanks for all the amazing support. For discoverability in-platform, being at the top of Apple is still the clear winner.

Do you have any recommendations for mowPod Boost copy?

MW: With Enterprise, our creative team will put the copy and creative together (for client approval), but typically we focus on the short-and-sweet approach. The same should apply to Self-serve. No one wants to read a novel when discovering something new on the open web, so treat it like an elevator pitch. Short, clear, and enticing. When in doubt, message our team, and we are happy to help.

Any other tips for how to optimize your advertising experience with mowPod?

MW: With Enterprise, share as much actual data (not gut instinct) as possible about your successes to date — what audiences have performed well, what efforts have tanked, etc. With mowPod Boost Self-serve, as mentioned before, keep your messaging short and succinct. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our support if you need any help putting a campaign together. With both products, if you are running with an episode featuring a well-known guest or a hot-button topic, it certainly makes the effort more effective all around.

Anything else you'd like podcasters to know?

MW: Don’t rush into paid acquisition (on any channel — not just mowPod!). Growth simply for the sake of growth means nothing and isn’t worth spending money on — there’s no difference between 50 downloads per episode and 5,000 if there is no clear goal or plan. This could be a path to monetization, joining a network, attracting investors, partners, or high-profile guests, or some kind of similar goal. Focus first on organic growth and build your own organic engine for identifying and engaging a core community of listeners (ask me how we did it for my podcast, Friday Night Karaoke!). Paid acquisition is best introduced when you need to:

- Join a network.
- Stay in a network.
- Hit specific goals or targets for sponsors, guests, or stakeholders.
- Set a guaranteed baseline for new seasons.