FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

(🇩🇪deutsche Besucher klicken hier)

Podcast advertising is a relatively young marketing field. In order to help you understand podcast advertising as quickly as possible, we have collected and answered the most frequently asked questions below.

QUESTIONS ON IMPLEMENTATION

Usually our commercials are about 40 to 60 seconds long – story ads (our premium advertising format) are sometimes a bit longer. This length may sound short, but actually surprisingly long and offers plenty of space for information. Our credo anyway is: Better to be concise and relevant than long and uninteresting.

In case of our regular podcast advertising, the customer sends us a briefing that contains they want their product to be presented (pronunciation, USPs, landing page, etc.). We then script a spot, which we have the client approve, agree with them on the publication dates and orientation (target audience, format, etc.) and then go into publication.

Our premium advertising format „Story Ad“ is an interactive advertising format where the client also sends us a short briefing, after which we send him three or four questions. The customer answers these questions via audio recording (e.g. as a voice message or voice memo). We then record our questions as an audio file and edit them with the answers to one continuous shot . This creates an advertising block that gives the impression of a telephone call and is much more interactive and interesting to the listener.

Our advertising is „host-read“, i.e. it is spoken by digital kompakt maker Joël Kaczmarek. This has the advantage that podcast advertising has a very native look, obtain the moderator’s credibility and requires very little effort from the client to create the relevant advertising material. Above all, we implement our advertising in a crisp, entertaining and informative manner. Meanwhile, we do not use audio advertising supplied by clients. Here is an example of an advertising spot:

This is the sound of a regular podcast advertisement:

This is what a Story Ad (our premium advertising format) sounds like:

digital kompakt uses dynamic ad insertion, which means that the podcast advertising is not fixed in the audio track, but a server decides which commercial should appear in an individual episode at the previously defined advertising locations.

This has the advantage that not every listener hears the same commercial, but our customers can filter their desired target group – for example, based on gender or age. Above all, this ensures that the booked amount of advertising is always actually reached.

A pre roll is an advertising placement at the beginning of a podcast, a mid roll is placed in the middle of a podcast and a post roll is at the end. digital kompakt offers pre and mid roll positions for advertising placements.

Which one is best depends a little on your own strategy: The pre roll gives the impression of a main sponsor, reaches slightly more listeners but has a higher probability of being skipped. The mid roll reaches slightly fewer users, but users are more attentive and less likely to skip the ad. The post roll tends to be the weakest advertising position, as it reaches fewer listeners and is more likely to be reeled off. We recommend a mixture of the different positions to most of our customers in order to reach the listeners at different points.

Yes, this is possible quite extensively. With digital kompakt, it is possible to target an ad to the gender, age, location or device type of the listeners. So, for example, it is possible to play out a podcast ad only to women in Hamburg between 25 and 35.

In addition, we also have various focus topics, such as „e-commerce“ or „digitization“, which we can also target.

A Story Ad is our premium advertising format in which we merge studio-recorded questions from digital kompakt and smartphone recorded answers from the client to create a commercial break. For the listener, this advertising format feels like a mini-interview and therefore seems more interesting.

This is what a Story Ad sounds like:

Here you can find further examples and background information on Story Ads.

digital kompakt uses dynamic ad insertion, which means that not individual episodes are  booked, but rather a certain amount of advertising impressions. If, for example, 30,000 ad impressions are booked, this means that the customer’s advertising is played 30,000 times to listeners. However, these are not unique listeners, but each listener hears the advertisement several times (which is intended for memorability).

Our minimum purchase is 10,000 ad impressions, in order to reach as many different listeners of our subscriber base as possible and to create a certain memorability through repetition. Most customers book 30,000 to 50,000 ad impressions per campaign.

An ad impression means one playback of an advertising spot. However, this should not be confused with unique listeners, i.e. ten ad impressions do not equal ten listeners, but as a rule a listener hears an advertising spot five to seven times. This is also intentional, so that the advertising message is deepened, but it is sometimes advisable to vary your own commercial a little, so that the listener doesn’t get too used to it.

No, this is not the case with us – on the contrary. For most of our podcasts, 90-93% of the listeners (!) actually listen to an ad. Our skip rates are at a maximum of 15%. If you look at other advertising categories in comparison, these are extremely good numbers. Or who could say that 93 out of 100 website visitors intensively look at a banner?

If awareness, branding, thought leadership and high-quality leads are relevant for a company or product, podcast advertising is very well suited. digital kompakt offers this for a digital-affine B2B target group with a high proportion of decision-makers. In our experience, practically all products and services can be well positioned – the clearer the USP and benefit for the listener, the better.

This also works for products that ask for more detailed  explanations, provided that care is taken when creating the advertising material. The only type of customer for whom we have found it difficult to stage this so far are agency offers that are not clearly positioned. Here, too, we have to invest a lot of time in the conception of the advertising material.

We don’t think so. Podcast advertising clearly has its strengths in building awareness, branding and thought leadership, but it also delivers very high quality leads. Above all, the retention of this form of advertising is very, very high. The trick is to make these leads measurable, because there is a certain media break between the podcast app and the click in the browser. Nevertheless, podcast advertising is not performance marketing. If you expect podcast advertising to be controlled CPC etc., you will become rather unhappy.

We charge between 400 and 600 Euro per thousand ad impressions. The more impressions booked, the lower the price, while specializations such as story ads, multiple ad versions, longer spots, etc. increase the price. This price already includes a preliminary discussion, the creation of the ad, a follow-up loop and a reporting – and the target group we play on is incredibly specific, with a strong purchasing power and digital affinity.

We are always happy to provide information about our prices in a personal meeting, because prices on the website simply become outdated on a regular basis, and they are sometimes also based on the type of client, the implementation and the current reach. If we should ever speak, you will find our contact form at the very bottom of this page.

QUESTIONS ON DISTRIBUTION

On all common podcast platforms, i.e. Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Deezer. Via RSS feed, our podcasts can also be subscribed to all popular podcast apps such as Castro, Pocket Casts, Overcast, etc. SoundCloud is currently no longer actively used.

We are very transparent with the number of our listeners and subscribers, but since we do not like to publish outdated figures here, we are always happy to inform interested clients about the number of listeners in a personal conversation. Yet, a look at our guests, partners and advertisers hopefully shows that we know how to attract and inspire many listeners in a very valuable target group (see the following point).

Our target group is around 70% male, covers an age range between 20 and 50 years (with a focus on the 25 to 35 age range) and lives primarily in German metropolitan areas. Surveys among our target group tell us that it consists of 60% decision makers (managers with personnel and budget responsibility), 20% junior decision makers (managers without personnel and budget responsibility) and 20% service providers, agencies, founders, students and employees.

Our different formats allow us to target individual areas of focus (e.g. e-commerce, FinTech, SMEs or technology), which will be explained in more detail in the following point.

Yes, this is possible quite extensively. With digital kompakt, it is possible to target an ad to the gender, age, location or device type of the listeners. So, for example, it is possible to play out a podcast ad only to women in Hamburg between 25 and 35.

In addition, we also have various focus topics, such as „e-commerce“ or „digitization“, which we can also target.

With advertising sequences a listener will hear different ads that build on each other. For example, once a commercial has been played for a particular product feature, the same person hears the second commercial for a different product feature the next time. In this way, uplifting advertising messages can be

Our main reach is in the DACH region with Germany as our clear main market.

QUESTIONS REGARDING THE PRODUCTION OF ADVERTISING MATERIAL

For the client, the effort is very low: he only has to provide us with a briefing via digitalkompakt.de/ad-briefing. For this, the essential information about the product (USPs, pronunciation, landing page, etc.), the desired orientation (target group) and the contact person for the cooperation are required. A suggested wording for the podcast advertising is also particularly helpful.

On the basis of the briefing, we script a commercial, which we send for approval and then create in our studio. The client can listen to it again and we then place this spot into those podcasts that we have agreed on via phone and our briefing form. By filling out the briefing form we are enabled to make suggestions to the client as to when and where we would recommend an ad. However, a customer can just as well give us a time frame and we will plan the publication.

Approximately three weeks after the last advertisement is placed, there is a joint evaluation call of the campaign, during which digital kompakt also provides a report on the performance of the individual episodes.

Very simple: You would just send sound recordings containing the answers of a previously agreed dialogue. These can be recorded as a voice memo with the smartphone and then sent to us. The rest is done by digital kompakt: We record the corresponding questions in our studio and merge them with the client’s answers.

An example: The customer tells us that he would like to communicate the free trial of his product solution. digital kompakt then writes him an SMS with a question like „Is there actually a possibility to test beforehand?“ and the customer answers this by voice message. 

This is how a story ad sounds:

Here you can find more examples and background information on Story Ads.

As a rule, we ask about the customer’s objectives, the desired target group, and the time period in an introductory meeting and in our briefing form. We then configure the campaign in our ad server on this basis.

This ensures that exactly the desired target group is reached. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to know in advance in which episode your advertising will appear, as this is decided by the ad server’s algorithms.

As we sometimes produce six weeks into the future, it is advisable to allow for a certain amount of lead time. Often we can also arrange for short term production, but to avoid stress and uncertainty, an inquiry should be received three to four weeks before your desired production date.

This is possible, but often means a lot of effort on our side, which is why we charge a delay fee of 250 EUR for unscheduled changes received after the acceptance of a spot.

Of course. We send our podcast ad to the client once again before publication. Since we usually also provide the script of the spot in advance, however, acceptance of the audio track is usually not critical.

We want our clients to have a smile on their face when listening to their spots and commercials are of course supposed to create a maximum benefit. Therefore we let clients submit a content proposal in in our briefing form, on the basis of which we then script the spot. The script can be improved by the client and the audio spot is send out for approval as well (e.g. to check for pronunciation). In every phase the client is offered an approval loop. Completely new requests for improvements after this acceptance loop are then charged with a flat rate, as long as they are not related to the previous change of the spot.

This depends on the number of ad impressions booked and the advertising target. Up to a number of 10,000 ad impressions, most customers use a single spot version; larger packages usually include different versions of the ad so that listeners don’t get too used to it.

Since our ad server plays out the podcast ads independently, the ads are always played out in the designated booking period. If a booking period is not sufficient to achieve the desired number of ad impressions (for example, because the target group was selected very specifically or there is a lot of advertising demand in this period), digital kompakt informs the customer in advance.

Indeed, yes. Since our reach is mainly in the DACH area and our podcast language is German, English language commercials would probably miss their impact.

QUESTIONS ON MEASURABILITY

The short answer is yes and no. There are ways and means to bring measurability to the topic (see next question), but podcast advertising is definitely not performance marketing. We assume that about 20% of podcast traffic can be measured by landing pages, coupon codes, etc., while 80% of listeners simply search directly for the corresponding advertisers in their browser. The challenge is therefore to establish the measurability of the media break between podcast app and browser call. At the end of each campaign, however, our customers receive a report that shows the number of ad placements and unique users, as well as their gender and age.

To measure the effects of our podcast advertising, we rely on various measures:

  1. VOUCHER CODE: When the client gives us a voucher code, we announce it in the audio track, which often animates the listeners.
  2. TRACKING-URL: As the client’s URL we always announce a digital kompakt address with the partner’s name attached, e.g. „digitalkompakt.de/sevdesk„. We measure the clicks on these URLs and let our clients provide us with a landing page of their choice that these URLs redirect to. For example, a client can share a web address with UTM parameters and also measure the traffic on this URL herself.
  3. LANDINGPAGE: We create a landing page for each client in our sponsors section (which is also announced at the end of each podcast ad).
  4. POST-PURCHASE-REQUEST: We recommend our clients to ask their customer at the end of the process how they became aware of the offer and to provide „podcast“ as an answer there.
  5. GATED CONTENT: In some cases, gated content can be a useful measuring instrument, for example, when a client refers to a white paper or case study at the end of his ad, which listeners can download by providing their email address.
A typical end of a podcast ad would be something like this:
If this is interesting for you, just go to digitalkompakt.de/sevdesk and check out the details there. As always, you can find all the information on our sponsors page at digitalkompakt.de/sponsors.

Yes, it is common practice in our business. The client simply sends us the corresponding voucher code when she submits her briefing. We are informed about the voucher’s effect and incorporate it into the spot accordingly.

We always recommend two things: First, the voucher code should be easy to remember, for example „kompakt“. And second, it should grant a noticeable, but not too high discount. For example, 10 to 15% can be a good start, or a free month or extra features. If the discount is too small, the incentive to enter a code is too small. If it is too high, it could lead to negativ image effects and may be picked up by couponing portals.

Yes, this is no problem. The easiest way is for the client to send us a landing page is via the briefing. We always announce a digital kompakt address as URL, which is followed by the name of the client or product. So for example „digitalkompakt.de/sevdesk“. We measure the clicks on these URLs and enable our clients to provide us with any landing page that these URLs then redirect to. For example, a client can send a web address with UTM parameters and also measure the traffic on this URL himself. 

Theoretically this is possible, but not recommended. It is possible to create an advertising campaign in such a way that commercial version A leads to one URL and another commercial version b to another. Kind of an AB test, actually However, experience has shown that effort and return are often not in the right ratio here. And announcing two URLs within one and the same campaign usually confuses the listener. It may make sense to include a deep link (to a white paper, for example) in the shownotes. However, the main address should be one single URL.

No, the use of these measurement methods is already covered by our podcast prices. Costs for these services only arise under these circumstances: 

 
  • If a voucher code is delivered much too late or requested after the first spots have been published – in this case a flat rate of 250 Euro will be charged
  • If more than one URL or several coupon codes are to be used in different spots – this is also charged with a rate of 250 to 350 Euros depending on the amount of codes/URLs
Yes, three weeks after the client’s last ad, we conduct a 15-minute evaluation call with each client to review a previously sent reporting and take feedback. The reporting includes the number of ad plays and unique listeners as well as their gender and age.

BOOKING QUESTIONS

Yes, every customer receives an offer by mail and can sign it digitally.

Either with signing the offer or submitting the podcast briefing.

We always prefer clients to book directly through us, because this saves us money and the customer usually gets better conditions. Above all, our processes work more smoothly with direct bookings and we are able to respond better to individual wishes.

BILLING QUESTIONS

Yes, this is not a problem. These are to be transmitted by the customer before the offer or invoicing.

As soon as we incur expenses, usually after the completion of the creation of the advertising material – in other words: when the commercial has been recorded, a lovingly designed invoice flutters into your mail box.

Our payment term is 14 days after the reception of our invoice.

Contact us

We take the time to better understand your product and its advertising objective. Therefore, please tell us a few facts about yourself here.

Joel Kaczmarek

Managing Director

I'll get back to you as soon as possibly to get started.

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