We (i.e., podcasters, podcast networks, and agency folks who “get it”) are making a claim to advertisers. We’re saying, “you’re getting something very valuable. You’re talking directly to your target market. Even though these impression numbers seem low, they are more valuable impressions.” It is therefore up to us to provide them with the data to back up this claim.

Right now, we’re all getting by on download metrics, a lot of buzz and anecdotal evidence of efficacy. And that has gotten alot of people onboard at least to try this whole podcasting thing out. But I think the days of the podcasting “stunt buy” (where an agency might take some very small piece of a huge ad budget to stick one toe into the podcasting ocean so their client can claim they are “doing podcasting”) are coming to an end. We’re entering a time when advertisers are going to start demanding better qualitative metrics (since our claim of higher value per impression is a qualitative one).

It won’t be anything as simple as AdSense, since there’s no trackable action directly associated with listening to the podcast. Back to the HDTV example, there’s no way to know how much listening to a podcast influenced my decision to purchase a certain product without asking me directly. This kind of information will require statistics derived from traditional survey methods.

Dave, interesting thoughts about not playing the CPM game. I wonder though if we’ll ever get that kind of qualitative data reporting. It’s not that obtaining that kind of data is impossible, but I think the majority of podcasters (who want to make money) will end up joining some kind of a network to make it easier. The advertiser deals with the network, not the individual podcasters. I think the fact that podcasts can be very focused on a specific niche makes them valuable, I’m just not convinced yet that an advertiser is going to make the effort. Unless we had something like AdSense I guess.

As for Podcast Spot, we’ve set a tentative release date of January 10th for the big update that includes all the new stats features (including completed downloads).

I’m very interested to see what the Open Metrics Initiative brings. I believe I linked to them in the first post or two of this series.

Also, I 100% agree with your comments about the importance of measuring and conveying qualitative data about the relationship you have with your audience. It’s in the queue to discuss it in this series.

I look forward to more of your input on the matter.

I think there’s a more important point to consider in this discussion that I’m not seeing here. Podcasters can’t rely solely on numbers to attract advertisers. While there are a few general interest podcasts that draw (relatively) big numbers, the strength of podcasting is in attracting laser-targeted niche markets of common interest.

By relying strictly on numbers, you’re just playing the CPM game, which frankly, at least at this point, podcasters can’t compete with the other forms of mass media. Advertising buyers have a big budget to spend and a larget target to hit. Is their time (and client’s money) better spent with an ad buy on Entertainment Tonight or on thousands of podcasts that they have to separately negotiate with?

Generally speaking, the true value of podcasting is not in playing the CPM game. It’s in reaching a targeted audience of interest. It’s in saying to an electronics manufacturer, “My 10,000 listeners who are interested in high definition TVs and home theater equipment ARE your target market. Each impression is worth MORE than on the Entertainment Tonight buy, a percentage of whom are men, a percentage of whom are in a certain age range, a percentage of whom have a certain level of disposable income, a pecentage of whom have a big empty room in their homes, a percentage of whom are interested in building a home theater.”

Now you’ve truly stepped outside of the CPM model. Numbers still count — nobody’s going to buy a show with 9 listeners, but your relationship with your targeted audience, as a podcaster, becomes your biggest asset.

Getting this kind of qualitative data — that shows in hard numbers the connection between advertising to a niche podcast audience and the translation of that into sales or brand awareness or whatever the advertiser is focusing the campaign on — is the hard part that I think the whole industry needs to be focusing on.

To that end, there is a group that I’m involved with called the Open Metrics Initiative which aims to tackle these exact questions. You can read more about it at http://www.openmetrics.org. Lee Gibbons from Podango, another company involved in this initiative, was interviewed yesterday on http://podcasting.about.com about Open Metrics.

Sorry if this plug is too blatant, however, Open Metrics is an open consortium of interested parties, this isn’t a commercial venture, and it seems to be relevant to the discussion.

Dave Kawalec
Producer
Porter Novelli

*Cross-posting on blog.mastermaq.ca