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Hello. This is Kyle Bottig, and this is Timothy Kim O'Brien, and you're listening to Pod Rec, the podcast to help you navigate the podcast industry. And today we're going to agree with luminary. Podcasts don't need ads. Welcome to pod rack at April fools. Yes, I know. We're a little late on that. But hey, that's how the schedule works out. Today, as we're recording this, it is April first. And of course, we're talking about luminaries

tweets. The tweet was heard around the world where they said, they are going to be the Netflix of podcasting, and they said, podcasts don't need ads. And then the world exploded, the pitchforks and torches came out in the podcasting world. And they said, hey, luminary, we're going to burn you to the ground for your evil tweets, and they immediately apologized

and deleted the tweet. That's right. They deleted it. But that's a serious question that Tim and I really started kicking this around thinking, well, Is it true? Do podcasts not need ads? Is that the model that they wanna go to? And some would say yes and some would say no. I mean, let's think about the ad landscape as it is right now. It's host red or it's produced.

There's pre roll, there's mid roll, there's post roll. Think about a podcast that you listen to right now, 1 that you really enjoy, and tell me if it doesn't have an ad in it, And we're not talking like ZipRecruiter and Casper mattresses. How about them asking you to donate to their Patreon? Like we do, Well, by the way, pod rack dot com. Please go to our Patreon account and

click there and donate some money there because, you know, we're not making any money at this. We'd love for you to support the show that way. Look at that. That was an ad, a host red ad right in the middle of the show. Did you skip it? You probably didn't even know what was happening on you. Suddenly the ads in your face. This is the kind of landscape we're looking at. And today, we're gonna really talk about luminaries,

you know, evil tweet. Podcasts don't need ads. Well, let's talk about the very first thing. I'm gonna have Tim jump in here with our very first thing. We're gonna talk about Do podcasts need ads? Maybe they don't. What do you think, Tim? Does podcasting need advertising? What do you think? Well, Kyle, this goes back to oh, okay. You know what I mean? I love going back to episode 1 because it's where you taste everything off of.

You know, a bunch of years ago, you started up podcasting. Bunch of years ago, I started up podcasting. Some of our listeners out there are, you know, brand new podcasters and they're they're They're trying to avoid the pod fade. They're trying to avoid the podwrecks. And they're seeing, hey, monetize this, monetize that. Well, what's the easiest way to do it is to drop an ad. I think it really depends on what your podcast is about. What kind of value you're providing

to your listeners. Now for us, yes, we do have the ad. We do have the the Patreon account that it would be fantastic if you supported. And, you know, we'll read your name on the air. We'll give you something of value for that Patreon donation to us. But folks wanna clue you in on a little secret that a lot of people don't wanna think about. Uh-oh. The money and the the world is run on money. I know crazy idea.

And you would think, you know, the guy with the gray beard and, you know, the the liberal arts background is gonna go, no. No. Peace, love, and happiness. Negative. The world runs on money. Just think about it. You're listening to us on a device that you had to pay for more likely, whether it's your cell phone or whether it's your laptop or whether it's on your Alexa.

And I probably just set off a bunch of people's devices there, and that's okay. But the world doesn't run on money. And we subconsciously put more value on things that cost money. Now Kyle, I I wanna prove it to you here. Kyle? Alright. I'm ready. I'm ready. Ready. Approve it to me. What's a better car? A Kia Soul or a Lamborghini? Which car would you rather have?

Well, if it was an insurance, I'd rather have the Kia Soul, but I know you're going here. Italian manufacturing of the Lamborghini is by far superior than the Korean Kia. Exactly. But, actually, the Kia has a hundred year, 10 year, hundred thousand mile warranty on it. I've had mine since 19 oh, sorry. 09:19. Sorry. Since 20 13, and I've only had it in the shop for oil changes, couple of things here and there. Really minor stuff. But if I go get a Lamborghini,

yes, I'm gonna turn a lot of heads. People are gonna go, oh, it must be a fantastic car. Those things are in the shop forever. They are just hogs. They're just horrible to work on because there's 5 people in the United States that can work on them. And they're gonna charge you an arm and a leg for it. So is it worth it? Not really because the Kia Soul gets me to work. Well, it gets me to the train every day, which the train gets me to work. And there we go. And then I have a Fiat.

And Kia and Fiat, that's a hundred bucks for each of you. Thank you so much. Gets me back and forth to work so that way I can pay for the microphone that I'm talking into for the Internet service that I have. So that way, I can reach out with Kyle to you and educate you on how you're doing it. Focuses takes cash. It takes money. I'm not here. Wait. Wait. Hold on. Hold on. I gotta hear. Are you telling me that podcasting isn't free? You mean it's cost money? No.

No. This cost money. It really does. Let's break that down a little bit. Let's break that down. Come on. The okay. So microphone. Okay. That that cost my laptop. That cost money. I have Verizon. So my Internet bandwidth, that cost money. I have a mixer. That cost money. It's podcast. That ain't free. Let's see. Well, Comcast will be a hundred dollars, please. Oh, Comcast hundred bucks is. Right? Let's let's add a little bit more you got some hosting. Right? So that's not free.

If I add that all up, there's a there's a monthly cost to this, not just not just the gear and not just the hosting, There's also all the prep work and the amount of time it takes to to think about the show content, create the show, to put the time and effort into trying to make this a a real value for you.

I mean, this is I mean, that all costs money. And we would love to do this forever. At some point, however, we would like to be able to at least meet our meet our costs and this is kind of the dilemma that podcasters run into is you have to start making Well, I would go, hate to say monetizing your cup podcast. But at some point, you have to you have to make some ROI. That way, you called it in the in the pre show. Return on investment? Return on investment. It's a business term

that everyone in the business world, marketing world knows. It's it's the return on your investment. You're we're porting out some some capital here to help you out But in return, it would be we would think that the content that we're providing would cause you to go, hey, you know what? I really needed that.

And Tim needs a new shirt and to, you know, shave his back hair. So let's go toss him some money and then maybe he'll do a video of of himself doing that. Exactly. I mean, not every podcasters in this to to make money, and not every podcaster has to make money. And I've granted you know, this is this this started off as a hobby, bought some equipment and do this thing. I mean, it's really marginal kind of cost right now. We could turn this into a big dollar business if were under, like, you know, we were selling books and courses and that kind of thing. And we really are are we're working our way toward doing some of that stuff. And we do Gagele pod and the Fibota meetups and stuff like that. That's free thing we give away. We help consult people all the time. A lot of times, we don't do that for very much. If anything, it's like, you know, barter or or, you know, cup of coffee.

But if you're starting to to really make this into a business, if you're trying to replace your income, with podcasting, you're going to need something that actually creates the monetization. If you don't have a book, You don't have courses, if you're not selling a product, you're doing anything yourself.

1 thing you can do is sell other people's stuff. Now this can be affiliate marketing, this could be straight up advertising, and that is where podcasting really has in the monetization world come into its own is

they know that if they like a product and they back a product and they talk to you about a product, you probably are going to buy it. And how do I know that? Well, in the show notes, I'm gonna have a whole lot of articles that talk about this because we know that in the world going back 2017 because the data still being crunched, 314000000

dollars of advertising dollars are in podcasting right now. Why, and we expect that to to grow. Right now, there's like an 86 percent year to year growth in the amount of money going in there. Now it's nowhere near TV and digital marketing in its own. In fact, I think digital marketing is part of this, but digital marketing is like 200000000000 dollars. It's crazy. 300000000 dollars that is a peanuts right now.

Why is it peanuts right now? Because The people who are in there, people who are actually the ones who are interested in in advertising, well, they're like ZipRecruiter and GEICO. I mean, these are commercials you see every day on the TV. You see cast for mattresses. You see stamps dot com see progressive insurance. They're also in the podcasting space. They're slowly realizing that podcasters, 1, buy what people advertise.

The engagement is far greater and they can kind of, you know, judge whether or not their advertising dollars actually got them something where on TV,

not so much. Right? You see a you see a TV ad. And the thing about this, Tim, you see a progressive ad. It doesn't say, you know, go to progressive dot com slash t v ad. But if you have a host read progressive ad, chances are only gonna say, hey, go to progressive dot com and enter the promo code, Kyle and Tim. And if they do that, they know exactly where that ad came from. They know exactly who's podcast.

Created that ad. And that is the kind of ROI they like. Is is they can kinda slowly start to trace this back. And people are not ignoring them. Because what's the first thing you do, Tim, when a commercial comes on a TV? What what do you pull outs are looking at when you're if you even watch commercial on TV, I DVR, the heck out of all of my shows. Right? My wife and I don't even watch stuff live anymore.

But when you're sitting in front of the TV and an ad comes on, what's the first thing you pull out of your pocket? Well, I'm pulling up my cell phone tabs. You're checking my, you know, my Facebook account. I'm gonna be checking my MySpace account. Oh, wait. No. It's There you go. And so that that really funny KFC commercial that's on there. KFC, a hundred bucks. You don't even see it. You don't even know it's there because you've already seen it 15 times and now you're looking at your phone and you're looking at something else. They or the eyeballs

people are realizing that that's where people are looking at. And so they're starting to go, well, where else can we start spending money? Podcasting is starting to grow as a place for advertisers. So we go back to the luminary quote we started the show with. Podcasters don't need ads. Well, if you're turning this into a business, you wanna exchange a 50 to a hundred thousand dollar a year job with,

you're gonna have to make some money. And we know because of 300000000 dollars in in in growing of ad revenue in podcasting that you can make a living just on ads and podcasting. And we know this, how? Because there are a lot of really good shows that we know if people people making their living off podcasting that have ads in it.

So the proof is is there everywhere. I mean, might be answered vertical right now. But as we start as you start if you take a look at some of our show notes, you'll see that the proof has data backing this up. So if you think about this, Tim, I mean, talk about a little bit about so we've got we went from the listeners or buying the product. Why?

Is it that listeners buy products? And that you have a very good story about this talking about your experience as a listener with buying a product. Why is it that podcasting is making better customers than any other kind of medium? Well, Kyle, the thing of it is is that The story that you're talking about is I I purchased a Casper bed.

Now we had talked about this a long time ago. Right. It wasn't it wasn't episode number 1. I'm not gonna go back there. I think it was. Yeah. I don't remember which 1 it was. Yeah. It could be 3, but it was it was 1 of the early episodes, but I bought a cast per bed. And the reason why I bought the cast per bed is I kept on hearing the ads for the Casper bed when I would list a podcast as I was going to sleep.

Throughout the day at work, I continually heard it and heard it and heard it. And I heard it from people that I had a perceived relationship with. Now, a lot of the podcasts that I listened to. I don't have a personal relationship with Seth Godin or Jordan harbinger or Dallas Taylor with 20000 hertz. But all these guys have my respect. They have my attention. I know what to expect from them. I trust them.

So they're kind of like the spokespersons of the fifties and the of the forties, the fifties, and the sixties. Where they would come on TV or they would be in the movie. And they would say, hey, buy lucky straight cigarettes. You'll be more of a or less of a woman. And then hack up along and there you go. But I that's how I look at podcasters today. They're the branded spokespeople of of whatever it was. Think of Orson Wells in the Mercury Theatre. That was sponsored.

I can't remember off the top of my head. All this would be a great thing for the show notes, but that was sponsored by somebody. And and, you know, worse than Wells, it it was early in his career, but he was kinda trusted in the area. And they believe that we're being, you know, invaded by merchants. Fantastic. You know? We we haven't had a podcast do that yet. I mean, we've had cereal that, you know, brought a lot of attention to podcasting. And brought out this whole True Crime thing, which

I'm not a huge fan of. I don't listen to them as we all well know. Back when we talked about True Crime, but it's somebody that we know and we trust and we have that relationship with. That's why I bought a Casper mattress. I could have bought a purple or I could have bought a Sealy,

but I was like, you know what, these guys? They're talking about the Casper. They're saying good things about it. I'm seeing a lot of good reviews about it. Heck, I'm gonna give it a shot, and I did it with a promo code. And I got, like, 10 percent off, which that's I mean, if you're if I'm very conscious about my budget, and if you're gonna say, hey, Tim. I'm gonna give you 10 percent off.

Internally, I know that you can make that price wherever you want it to be and go, oh, it's 10 percent off. When it's actually the actual cost, you know, it's only 5 percent off or it's 10 percent off of a price hike that's 50 percent. But I'm gonna, you know, think instinctually

with my heart and go, oh, wow. They're giving me 10 percent off this bed. I'm gonna give it a shot. And it's gonna knock off this amount of money off the off the price. I'm gonna go for it. You've got my hook line and sinker right there. And I know and I'm intelligent enough to know that that's what you're doing. But yet, I've got a relationship with you, and I would go ahead and do that. Well, I mean, this podcast not brought to you by Casper mattresses, the the really good soft mattresses from the castroom mattress people. Visit castroom mattress dot com.

And well, you know, visit castroom at com because we don't have a product over that because they're not a sponsor. But if they were his sponsor, how do you sleep Tim on that cast or mattress? Do you did you did you believe everything the podcast host told you about that mattress when you got it? Yes, I do, actually. I I it's the best mattress I have ever slept done.

Now, are there other mattresses out there that might be better? They could be, but those podcasters, I believed, and they delivered on their promise. Now if they If I bought that mattress and it was a crappy mattress, like the 1 I had before, because the 1 I had before was a sleep number. And I know they'll never be a sponsor of the show because I'm saying this now, so I'm, you know, putting it out there. Horrible mattress. I got it from free from my mother-in-law. Thank you mom in law

for wedding gift, but I was a horrible mattress. I had back pains all the time. Now, lower back pain is a thing of the past. I've got that Casper mattress and I'm loving it. It's fantastic. I highly recommend it to everybody. So if you're listening to this podcast, go check out Casper go get a promo code from somebody else,

and do your back a a world of good. So really, you're kind of you're kind of proven the point. Do podcasts need ads? Well, if if they believe in the product and the product then and the the they have a relationship with the actual sponsor, That sounds like a good relationship.

So we go back to luminaries, you know, their little thing. The podcast don't need ads and everyone said, alright, Well, it kinda depends. Right? Because if the the the sponsor and the host of the show are not a good match, I mean, if you're the if you're stacking Benjamins

and you're and you're doing, you know, financial average, you know, show and you're like, oh, well, obviously, someone who does, like, mutual funds or who, you know, who wants to do, like, you know, really risky investments or junk bonds and all these stuff should be advertising on that show.

Chances are, they're not getting on that show. Those people will will kick them right off. Same with with some of the other places, you know, there are there are certain advertisers that will not get on you. You don't you're not gonna get the the the people who lives it. There was upon a time there was that that website that would you could, like, anonymously

cheat on your spouse type stuff. And you're not gonna get that on, like, the, you know, the Christian, you know, daily podcast or like that. But that seems like That's a complete the values don't line up. So when you have a business model that just happens to be podcasting as 1 of the outlets, that seems like a normal thing to do is to match an ad with the host and therefore your listeners are buying a product that you endorse the advertisers are making money, this is a good business model.

Now the business model that people like Luminary want you to do is something we talked about in episode 3 back on the paywall side. They want the Netflix business model where they're gonna say, hey, we're gonna give you podcasting and not put ads in it. Well, forever, I mean, Hulu, we know, didn't do that. Right? But let's talk about let's talk about really kind of something before we even get into that

is What is the what is the big deal with ads? Why does everyone hate ads so much? Right? What's the big deal about skipping ads? And of course, If you can skip an ad, what's the whole point? Is you know, the Epoptic has apps have skip buttons. They can skip everything. Then why haven't ad in the first place? I'm gonna put some money into podcasting, and you're just gonna skip it anyway, making my ad irrelevant. So obviously,

ad if listeners don't want ads, they've already learned how to skip all your ads, then what's the whole point? Do skip do listeners skip ads. So if you say, they don't need ads, why?

Well, because maybe their business model needs to be a paywall. Okay? Well, that's not really true. Right? Because a lot of people don't wanna do that. Well, you don't need ads because listeners Skip them anyway is the second argument you always hear. How true is that, Tim? When you think about about people skipping ads, what do you do? I know. I

I've skipped some ads. Right? I've skipped You're you're an ad skipped time, but that's done. Depends again. I like the whole, like, Dave Jackson thing. It depends. Right? Some podcast, I know when they're coming. They're predictable. Others, they sneak up on you and you just kinda like let it fly. What do you think? Well, I think I'm gonna give Dave Jackson a idea for an ad. I'm gonna help Dave because Dave helps us all out So, Dave, your next sponsor should be depend on yourselves.

Was that Johnson or Johnson or something? Or That's Johnson and Johnson. Dave, you can toss me a hundred bucks. I'll I'll be happy with that. Not a problem. Or give me a free month of consulting there with Got it. And, Ed, you will probably never hear his anchor on school approach. Oh, no. I think that's a dirty word on that show. Right? That is. You get you get bleeped when you say that on his show. But as far as

skipping at, it's not like you said earlier, you know, you you get on the Netflix not NetScape, but Netflix. Oh, yes. No. You don't make that mistake.

You had me going there for a while. Net scape. Loop of an area wants to be the NetScape of Podcast. It was like, wow. That's well, that would be a bad thing to be, wouldn't it? Because they got they went out of business. Maybe illuminate well, okay. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do prediction on illuminate because III really don't know that much about them yet.

As far as their business model and everything. But but, yeah, if they're the netscape of podcasting, IIII hope the people working there have where the resume is ready. And if they don't, they can contact me and I'll help them out with the resume. There you go. Coverage.

Oh, hey, wait, that's an ad for me. Never mind. There's an ad, a Tim Brian resume writer. If you need your resume written, because you're about to lose your job, because the business model your podcasting company went to was a paywall, please contact GagalPod, and Tim will hook you right up. Need your resume written in a hurry? Tim's your guy. Now back to Tim. So thank you for the the ad count. No. But really, So I will freely say this. I am not your typical your prototype podcast listener.

A, I'm a podcaster. B, I have a weird household situation, you know, living where we live, so close to DC and the commute that we have, you know, everyone says, oh, the 20 minute commute blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. I wish I had a 20 minute commute to the train station that's 5 minutes from my house, but that's not the case. So I get up at 4 in the morning, hop in the shower, boom, I'm listening to podcasts. Now I'm usually listening to Todd Henry or I'm usually listening to Dave Jackson.

So, you know, guys, when you pop out your podcast at 4 in the morning, you've got a big hairy naked guy taking a shower listening to your podcast. Okay. I'm putting that image in your head. There you go. Run with it. But that's how I listen to it. So I can't skip an ad because I'm not touching my phone and wrecking my Samsung Galaxy Note Note 8. Because the note 7 used to blow up on me. So I'm not wrecking my note 8. Thank you. A hundred bucks Samsung.

To do that, also, when I'm sitting in traffic, I'm not hitting Skip because I got 2 hands on the wheel, 1 at 10:00. 1 at 02:00. And sometimes they're at, you know, 6 and 08:00. Sometimes they're at 9 and 3. But I'm not taking my hands off the wheel to do that. Now when I'm at work, when I'm listening to podcasts in the background at work, I specifically listen to podcasts that I can have playing in the background, and that's okay.

Now if I hear something, I'm like, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Hey. I got it. I gotta write that down. I'll stop the podcast. I'll rewind. And rocket out. Ads, I don't worry about because they go right by me. If I need something, I'll listen to the ad. I was just listening actually this morning on April fools of all day. Hey, there we go. But I was listening to Todd Henry's on daily creative, and he was mentioning tools that he uses. And this afternoon.

He he had some writing tools and and and all that kind of jazz. And I responded back to him saying, hey, I like this kind of pen. It's fantastic. And he was saying about a certain notebook and a a certain program and all that kind of jazz for diary entries. And what did I do? Well, Todd Henry, I trust. So I went and got the the

the diary thing and the notebook thing that he had and I'm very happy with both purchases that I made because and he wasn't even doing it at for those. It's just the relationship that he has, that he reaches out to his listeners, sets up a whole social network for them to talk directly with him And is did he get paid by those advertisers? No. He's not running ads for those 2 those products that he was talking about.

It's just the trust that I had in him that he knows what the hell he's talking about. He's a successful creative type person. That I'm gonna listen to him because he's doing it full time. With podcasting, I'm doing it in my off time. Alright? But for him. He's doing his stuff full on, full time, all the time, and he's successful at it. So I'm gonna listen to him because I trust him. And that's why I'm not the prototypical

podcast listener. But I know that there's people out there that, hey, their time is precious. Okay. So is mine? And add, it it it takes me too long to skip the add because I gotta flip on the phone, hit the skip button, for so many seconds and then hope that I got it right and start listening to it again. For me, it's not worth it. I can I can deal with the ads? It's fine. And that's an excellent segue to that because

speaking of ads, this podcast brought to you by squadcast. Squadcast is the peer to peer network that helps us do our podcasting without having to be in the same room. Yes. That's right. We podcast using squadcast FM. That's right. Squadcast FM. And not a sponsor, but we are fans. So there's another see, fan red, it's a a fan, it was a host red ad, slipped it right in, you didn't see a comment.

Because we know and we know because of the the the data that that has been coming out of very, very well metric to measured type of things in the podcasting world that host red ads are far more successful and making a purchase, making an engagement, then the interrupting ads. In fact, it's as funny as I just happen to see, was it Saturday live? Did they the puppies? Where they had the worst worst time to interrupt

a podcast with an ad awards is their first round of awards. And 1 of them was like some serious hardcore crime drama and they they interrupted the ad with something really, you know, like, hey, blue blue blue apron or something like that. Right? It was just

totally outrageous. Now that's the type of true crime podcast that I just like it. And then they found his bloody body Now, Blue Apron will be the greatest thing you can have for dinner tonight. It was like what? Yeah. That was really hilarious. Because why? Because some of these ads don't match the host. But when they do, they're successful.

And that's what they're finding out. Is that the interruption ads don't work, the host red stuff works because when you trust where it's coming from and they're believable, they're gonna have a better conversion rate. And they're even measuring stuff like, okay. It's not just going to the website with a special link. It's not just, you know, sign in for news later. It's actual dollar changing hand, actual transactions.

However, that being said, there is still things that podcasters still dislike about ads and podcasting. And I don't think okay. We go in, go back to or go back to our touchstone here, luminary, little post, little tweet saying, podcasts don't need ads.

I think really what they're I think what they really wanted to say or maybe they didn't know they wanted to say this, but I'm gonna say this. As a podcast. And again, again, Tim and I are the, you know, we're atypical podcasters. Right? We're not your atypical podcasters. It's not the ad we dislike. Or the ad that we don't really enjoy or the reason why we skip. The reason why we skip ads is when they overdo it. Oh my god. Take a listen to any episode of Pod Save America

Now politics aside or whatever you believe in doesn't matter. That's not my point. My point is 9 to 11 ads per episode. Why? Because those 4 knuckleheads gotta get paid. That's why. So they've got they've shoved so many ads in there. It's ridiculous.

It's almost to the point where it's like a poorly made radio show. There's so many ads in there because I'd almost take the radio format where I know I get, like, 15 minutes of monologue and then an ad, and then some callers call in, right, and another ad, and then there's, like, a wrap up to what we're gonna talk about next hour and then the ads at the beginning of top and bottom of the hour get the traffic and the weather. Right? That I'm used to because, you know, I've grown up with radio my whole life. K? And my dad was hardcore AM radio. I know exactly how those formats work. Right? And coast to coast, man, I'm I'm right there with you with heart bell. Right? And the other guy who can never mirror his name. Right? George Norris. There we go. George Norris. I saved me right there. Yes. But George Norris was doing it.

I would drive an hour out of the town that I was in just so that I could hear coast to coast. There you go. That's when I was in the middle of Texas.

Now when George Norris took over and a lot of ads came into it, I said, the heck with this. I'm done. I'm done. Well, then they started shifting the format round where you have 20 minutes of monologue at the beginning and then you have this 15 minute block and then you had like these 5 minute chunks where they talk a little bit and have an ad ad adblock, and then try to popular and have an adblock. Pod Save America has this weird, like, 11

ad, just they're thrown, they're sprinkled. Some are ad most of them, I think, are post red. But it's just almost like it's like almost too much. And they and they play with it. They have fun with it. Right? So there's some of the ads are kinda funny. That's that's an overdone kind of production. The flip side of this Maybe not the flip side. Maybe just another version of this. Is the the Joe Rogan or the Chris Hardwick? Now, Chris Hardwick used to do nudist and then he he's doing now ID 10 t.

They do a block of stuff at the beginning. They talk about where they're gonna be, showcasing of the chuckle luts. They're gonna talk about their next special coming out on Comedy Central. They're gonna do, like, 3 ad reads. They're gonna talk about their who's coming up in their guests, they'll talk about maybe another Adri, then then some theme music, and then it happens, then the show kicks on. That can take between 5 to 9 minutes before you ever get to the show. Sometimes,

that's just too much. I just want to get to the show. Just get me to the show. And that's a skip skip skip skip skip skip skip skip until I get to the show. That's just the way I've learned to listen to that show is I know that unless I'm in the car, like Tim saying, my hands and they're doing something wrong and I'm doing a lawnmower and I, you know, I'm just listening. Right? And I I know it's coming. I just gotta I gotta eat the ad. Sometimes, I'll just do it. But other shows,

they'll introduce everything that's gonna happen. They'll do an ad. They'll talk all in length. They'll do another ad. They'll talk in length again. They'll do another ad. They'll closer show up. There might be an ad towards the end, and they're done. That's a nice, you know, 3 to 4 ads in the show. I'm okay with that. I won't skip that. I'm expecting that. And if the ads are a minute or less, that's even better. Mhmm. It's placement and it's overdoing it and it's too much of a good thing. If you are

your entire podcast is dedicated to almost 15 to 20 percent ads.

Man, you missed the point, dude. You missed the point. Maybe you need stamps dot com because stamps dot com will help you save on postage because postage is a great thing, but you don't wanna pay for it or go to the post office. Wait long lines. You can just do it right there at home at stamps dot com. Not a sponsor, but that's the kind of stuff they slip in. That's okay. And then we go on to the next show. We go on to the next topic. Look at that bang. I just I hear the ad and I move on.

Those things matter and that I think is what the industry isn't paying attention to. It's not that the ads are what it's upsetting people. It's the force fed of too much of a good thing. So it's just like it's like when your kids wanna eat ice cream or Oreo cookies. Can I just have 1 or 2 Oreo cookies?

Sure. Unless they find the package on top of their refrigerator, and then both of them are eaten the whole sleeve of of Oreos and then their bellies hurt. It's the perfect formula. It's like when my brother and I were kids like that too, and we found the cookie jar full of cookies up on top of refrigerator. We weren't having 1 or 2. We would have like 5 and then mom didn't notice and go back and then 5 more and mom didn't notice and they said that the cookie jar is empty and we're sick to our comies. This is the same thing with ads and podcasting.

And podcasts don't need ads. Should really say, podcasts don't need a thousand ads. Podcast can deal with a few. There we go. There's the Kyle's, you know, Kyle's cholary to the luminary tweet, non tweet, delete tweet. Twitter. Twitter dot com. A place where you can do 255

characters and enjoy some messaging between your friends and family because only good things happen on Twitter. That's not a dumpster fire nor is it full of murder robos. Nope. Twitter brought to you by Twitter dot com. Not an advertisement, but just a segue to Tim's point. So Tim, too many ads? Not enough. What do you think? Kyle, I'm dying over here. I'm just

I am dying over here. I'm just Like, dude, go go go go. Dying. You're not you're right. The county church. The county church who wants to put you on sacred ground. Yes. Go visit your county church. To be put away peacefully, brought you by Jesus, and now back to Tim. I could do this all day, buddy. I know you get it, and we're not gonna let you do this because we love our listeners too much. I love it too much. So here's what III

kinda like what you're saying. I'm kinda digging your response to to to luminary. I'm gonna add it I'm I'm gonna just adjust Oh. The Tim the Tim edition. What what would you call that? It's like a like a the Tim the law of Tim. The the Well, I like that. The the law of Tim states that we're not against ads. We want better ads. You want -- What? -- like that

that relates to the topic that we're listening to, the podcast that we're listening to. So if we're listening to, something that is about Veterans issues. I don't wanna hear AAAA thing for Greenpeace. On Veterans issues. So okay. I would like to hear something that's very true. That's about to hear something from the DAV. I would like to hear about some health care, some, you know, the the suicide headlines, something along those lines.

Make the ads fit the content, make the ads, fit the podcaster. And here's the thing that that I think is really important for folks to get a hold of. In the podcast world, we've sat and met and shaking hands with the guys that owned squad cast. Zach and the rock and the gang. Yeah. They are. Yeah. Super nice guys. Nice guys.

I have sat and shook the hand of Dave Jackson. The hall of fame podcaster Dave Jackson, another super nice guy. And he works for lip synch, and he did he worked for you know, he used lip synch 10 years before he started working for him. I had a problem with my lip synch account called up customer service, overnight, called up customer service, email customer service, and guess who was answering my ticket? Dave Jackson. And he had it fixed, like that. That's awesome for quick.

Double checked it, made sure everything was a okay. I said, hey, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Even went on Facebook. Now this is something else that we didn't talk about here on the Facebook groups that that you'll see us on for podcast editors and all that, you know, all that creator stuff that we do. People ask a question, hey, who should I be using? Immediately, we'll jump up and go, hey, squadcast. You know, we we've we've done it

real good. And we'll say, you know, hey, Lipson is a fantastic product as well for your media hosting. And that'll just, you know, not only do they advertise on their own shows on different podcasts, but they have loyal followers like Kyle and myself that will pop out there and spread the word for free. We don't get a dime from them, but we'll spread it for free. Absolutely. And you're talking about loyal followers is an excellent way to say that.

Is is, and I hear someone I trust and who I've listened to their show, it's it's weird. Podcasting creates a level of intimacy that is not normal with video. With video, I know they're talking at me, not to me. When I'm listening to a podcast, it feels like they're talking to me. If a host says something, I'm gonna tend to believe it because I have this relationship with that host that I don't have with someone on video and they don't have with someone on TV.

Unlike TV, I mean, some people can be like, you know, oh, that's a real person, like, when they meet them in meet the actor in person and they were playing a role and you meet the actor and you find out the actor is nothing like the character they're playing on TV. When people are on podcasting, unless they're doing audio drama, they're exactly like in most parts exactly

like they are in real life. It's the weirdest thing when you meet the Dave Jackson and you go and find out that Dave Jackson on his podcast and Dave Jackson and and ask the podcast coach. Is exactly like Dave Jackson, the real person standing at the lipson booth. Or Dave Jackson in the hallway at a convention. He is the same person. So if Dave Jackson tells me, hey, microphone x is a piece of junk and microphone y is awesome, guess what I now believe.

Because Dave Jackson told me, that is powerful. And if you're an advertiser who is selling Pateau, microphone y, You just found your next advertiser because that's who you wanna advertise with as someone who not only loves your product and use your product, but we'll then talk about your product endlessly.

You definitely don't wanna be microphone x, but then maybe you do because maybe you wanna find out why does he not like my microphone? Maybe they should find out, maybe they should inquire. Maybe it's something silly. Maybe the microphone 1 point of time, you know, zapped him because of static electricity, and that's why he doesn't like it. It's something really simple. They're like, you know what? We're gonna redo our little thing here and make a better ground. I mean, completely fictional

approach, but it has a point and the point is is that if you have loyal followers, and those loyal followers converts because we have the proof way better than TV and way better than than other media. That is where you should put your money. So my question then is is not, but again, luminary podcasts don't need ads. My question is, Why are these ads? Why are these companies the only ones who get it? Where are the rest of them? Why aren't they here yet? And maybe I'm

talking too soon, maybe they're coming. They just haven't bought into this thing yet. They're still thinking that podcasting have had. That there is no real money in podcasting blah blah blah. It's just 2 guys in their basement. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

Well, I'll tell you what. I've got a whole bunch of equipment here. Some of it I bought because I tried and tried stuff and it broke and I bought new stuff and this stuff didn't break. And I've beat the whole living tar out of it and it's still working. And now because of that, I've become a loyal fan or a customer of that product.

And if someone asks me, Kyle, what kind of mixer you use? I'll tell them, I use a Mackie. Why do I use a Mackie? Because it's built like a truck and he can take a punch. That's why I use 1. Now, I've used a whole bunch of other mixers. They couldn't take a punch, but that I use this 1 because it does that. It's the same thing with the podcasting when a when a host says, I like this because there's probably a reason

they like it. It's probably not because and we're talking about podcasting gear at the moment, but you can so you start to spiral that out to other things. I mean, what kind of car do I drive? What kind of TV did I buy? What kind of couch do I own? What kind of bed do I own? What kind of house did I buy? What neighborhood do I live in? What city? What say? You started getting, what kind of clothes do I wear? What kind of headphones? What kind of, you know, what kind of eyeglasses do I I mean, you could really get this down to the point where you can really match stuff

really well with with things that I love and I buy because I listen to because I okay. Because I heard it on a podcast. Right? But, asterisk. You're absolutely right. Match the ad with the host. Make the ad fit the content. Make the ad fit the podcast. I think I just had this crazy idea.

True crime podcast, you know? Well, the guy came in there and murdered a bunch of people with a knife. And now brought to you buying the knife company. The knife company from Chicago cutlery. We we provide fine knives and cutlery for all sorts of household and kitchen I mean, that's twisted, but, you know, help. Take me out of this hole here. Right? If I'm doing like a the monster truck if I'm doing the monster truck podcast,

oh, I better be selling tires, my friend. Mhmm. And they better be the tire, like a firestone, and the Bridgestone or whatever kind of male gator backs. I I mean, you know, I had jeeps. I mean, Michelin's. Okay. Well, but a perfect podcast What do you want to talk about? Right? A perfect podcast that demonstrates that is fueled by death cast, which is, you know, the death which coffee you know, the death with which coffee podcast.

They they do talk a lot about their stuff. As a matter of fact, I was listening to today. I don't know if it was today's episode but they were talking with 1 of their employees. Now if we're not getting the advertisers in part of it could be, like you're saying, Kyle. They don't know. I did return on the investment podcasting is a new thing. Due to 15 years ago, it was a new thing. But what part do we play in that as well? Mhmm. Are we educating and that's part of our job

We need to educate the public. We need to educate podcast listeners because we gotta have an audience. And then we need to educate potential podcast advertisers. And we can't be necessarily doing it by, you know, downloads per episode because you can download an episode. We've talked about this before. And it doesn't mean that somebody to listen to it just means that it's I've got 53 hours of podcasts waiting for me to listen to. 53

hours. So I would have to, you know, stop what I'm doing for over 2 days to listen to all this stuff while more content is being built up on it. It's only because I had listened to 70 different podcasts. Some of them are daily, some of them are weekly, some of them are monthly. But we need to go out there and do it for ourselves because if you look at TV, if you look at radio, you look at movies, they went out there and did that

already. Print magazine, they went out there and did that. They've mined that area. So we need to go out there and show them, hey, listen. Okay. A magazine is fantastic, but, you know, magazine gets thrown away. A podcast can live forever as long as we have an RSS feed. And we can keep on doing this ad for you for forever in a week. Or even better, I can pull that file, I can put in my new advertiser and put that file back on to

my host. And then the next time a new punch person shows up and goes, oh my gosh, I need to put so 3. And guess what? Now I got the new advertiser plugged in there that's a host read as well. It's it's I think when when these people these people. These these radio, media, big wacky people all say that that podcasts don't need ads. And they immediately shifted their focus to the paywall. I think what they're what we are really kind of hitting on the whole we're not against ads.

We're we just want better ads. We want conscientious ads that match the content, match the host, and we just want better placement and we want these ads to not overwhelm us to the point where we feel like we're being we're in an infomercial or it and and it's no longer good content. Because even even even a show with great content, if I have to listen to 10 ads in a row,

I'm gonna check out. I I can't do that, especially if they they spend the first 10 minutes trying to sell me. That doesn't doesn't work for me. And maybe that's not maybe it's just me, but I've talked to too many people at too many conferences for too many years that all say the same thing. If you're if you're trying to make a podcast where you want advertisers to buy

space on your show, Well, first off, you need to create good content that brings in an audience because they won't talk to you without an audience. Rule number 1, don't expect to have ads on your show for like 2 years. Rule number 2, if you want to have the advertisers on your show, you better pick them then you better be selective. Rule number 3, if you get greedy, people are gonna walk away.

That's just I mean, that's the short and tall of it right there. It's it's just the same as any other place. If I have a magazine full of ads, that's called That's called the coupon page in the newspaper. And how often do I use that to line my birdcage? Mhmm. But every 2 weeks.

Sometimes there's an ad in there I might see or not, but maybe most part that that's kinda like what's going to happen to your podcast is they're gonna treat a like birdcage liner. And they're gonna walk away. I think kind of we're at that final thought, I think so, area for us here. And I'm I'm just gonna chime in with my final thoughts on this. I want ads because I see they're necessary I don't even wanna call them a necessary evil. They do serve the purpose.

I wouldn't have really considered getting a Casper bed unless I had heard it on a podcast from people I trusted. I wouldn't have made the purchases that I made today, both at the the the the office supply store that I was at and online for the apps that I got, if I hadn't heard it, from a podcaster that I trusted. So they are necessary. Money makes the world go round. It really does even though we hate to admit it. But I think as long as

you're giving me good content, as long as you're not doing the whole NPR, doing the whole, you know, the whole hey, it's the pledge week. You know, and hit me with that first. If you're not doing that to me, I'm gonna sit through an ad. If I don't like it, If I don't want it, I'll let it bypass me. But I'm not gonna let 5 minutes of ad bypass me. I'm just not gonna listen to you anymore. Because then you're doing it for the money. I think there's a lot of good people out there, Seth

Seth Golden is 1 of them where he talks about, you know, you need to give and a lot of other podcasts talk about this. You need to give, give, give, give, give, give, give, and then give 1 more time, and then you ask. So you're doing a lot of giving, a lot of information, a lot of content, and then you ask, I gotta see the value in what you're saying, and it may take me a while.

But as soon as I see that value, when you sell me something, you got me hook line in Saint Croix and I'll go for it, and I'll know that I'm getting, getting, got hook line and snicker, but I won't feel bad about it, and it'll be something that it'll enhance my life along with the content that you're providing. So now to get its ads. I want better ads. And I'm gonna toss it on over to you, Kyle, and give us a good ad to go. Hold on.

Well, I mean, I would've I would've first, I wanna just kinda work off your point there is is also I want the content that's being created, the great content. Want those podcasters to get paid so they're incentivized to keep creating new content. So I want them to have ads.

Some of the ads in order so they are staying business. And they keep doing this stuff because we all know from from what we know about podfading is when you lose your incentive to do this, if you don't have, you know, the deep burning passion and fire to do this. Right? Do the goodness of your heart. Some of us are doing this to replace our day jobs so we can do this full time and do create all sorts of crazy content. And that's something that definitely I know that that we've we aspire to do. We wanna be producers of content, producers are great shows, and we would love for this to be a full time gig. So advertising helps pay for the full time gig so we can create content and give it away for free. That's really kind of the thing. We don't wanna be buying no paywall.

You know, I I understand how paywalls work. But hey, advertisers are selling our own stuff, I think works better. That's just me. And of course, to go out on an ad, let's see. How can we go out on an ad? Let's I mean oh, wait. Okay. Let me think about it. I got it's on the spot here. It's like, what do we think about a good ad? Okay. Tim, give me give me give me an idea. What's it? Give me good at it.

So Kyle, you know, every day I come home and I put my wallet on on the on the table there. And it's burdened with all this heavy heavy money that's in my wallet. I've got way too much money, and I need to offload some unmarked bills that are not in sequential order. What do I need to do? I need to go online. Get get that money into my bank account somehow. Get on to Patreon and go to

pod rack dot com and toss some of that heavy money. I'm talking I'm not talking 1 dollar bills. I'm not talking 2 dollar bills. I'm talking fives, tens and twenties. That's really heavy. It weighs down on your back. It will throw out your back. Which you'll need a Casper mattress to fix. But if you go to podwrecht dot com, and you go onto our Patreon site there, you can unload that that heavy money and feel the weight of the world lifted off your shoulders. And you can also email us at podrick

at gmail dot com. Let us know what you think about the ads. Let us know your favorite ad that you've heard out in the podcast world. Let us know about the ad that you thought just absolutely was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because we have those as well. You've probably heard it here on PodRecht. I don't know. But definitely reach out to us. Let us know what you think on this topic. We'd love to revisit it that we have a ton of articles

just on this that you're gonna see in the show notes that we'd like to have your feedback on. So we can reach out to you, give you the give you the space that you need to talk about that, talk about it with us, and hey, you know what? Each listener out there that subscribes to the show and does the Patreon, you're gonna get a warm fuzzy directly from me. And that's worth a lot. You definitely wanna warm fuzzy. I just I can I'm counting the money already. I'm already counting my my

my my fives and my tens. I mean, I'm looking at my mad stacks here. It's gonna be crazy. It's gonna be crazy. It's gonna be raining money, man. I just can't wait. You know? And this this last little bit brought you buy useless airtime. That's right. Use of airtime when Kyle talks and really doesn't really say anything. He just says words. Because words, words are cool. Grammarly. Grammarly helps you spell those words correctly. And don't forget spell check. Spell check's very good. Make sure you have spell check-in there too. And don't forget Chrome. Chrome the browser that everyone loves. We love we love Chrome. And if you wanna find Chrome, just Google it. Google. Google the great search engine we like to enjoy. Everyone likes to Google. So Google something today. I think that's about I think we I think we've we've added enough to this show.

Puns. Yes, puns. That's right. Puns are fun. Make sure you get a pun and share with your friends, all puns free. Is we're not against ads? We just want better ones.

Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of PodRack. Again, if you wanna find the show notes for this episode, we get a lot of good data great articles to read at pod rack dot com. And, of course, if you have a question, if you heard something that you thought was hilarious, wanna tell us something, give us a 5 star review,

or just say, hey, you know what? We love you guys because we love, you know, virtual hubs or email. That's pod rack at gmail dot com. We'd love a hug. Send us a hug. And if you wanna hug us even more, again, we have a link on pot direct dot com to our Patreon account. Sign up a b subscriber. We've got some bonus content that's coming down the pike and we answer questions,

we are all about our fans. And if you want to really invest I mean, 5 dollars a month and we will be at your back in the call. It's probably the best kind of consultant you could ever get, super cheap, super important. And I want I want it something just kind of like an in show note here, Tim, is I found out through a fan And this is from from Sheila who who told us that she listened to episode 8, which happened to be our about to our true crime podcast.

If you remember back, on on episode 8 when we started talking about the the legal ramifications about everything. Of course, we said how true is true and true crime podcasting And 1 of our predictions was, is that things you were gonna say in a podcast you might be hell liable for.

Well, it's funny, is she sent me an article from Hollywood border, and it says Alabama judge refuses to dismiss publicity rights lawsuit over s town. It turns out that 1 of the guys who these people all talked about in the TV in the the show Estown killed himself, and the family sued them because of their trail of him in their podcast, and the judge said, sorry, your first amendment rights will protect you from a civil lawsuit. Guess what? Prediction, check. That's right.

So there's Kyle and Tim. There is word from our fans. Vanchila. Thank you very much. Telling us that PodRack predicts something that came true already. So if you're looking for industry news, you really wanna know what is going on inside the industry, how it impacts you or podcast, or how it impacts how you are going to build your show. This is the place to come. Tell your friends,

tell at least 1 friend. In fact, you're dead listening to the show? Go tell 1 friend. They use on the pod rack dot com and recommended to them. Send them a link We'd love to have them as a listener because we love having you as a listener. Thank you again for listening, and have a great day. And remember, When you wanna navigate through the ebb and flow of the podcasting pad podcasting industry, except no substitute, like pod rack.

You know, if I gotta listen to an ad versus pay 5 bucks a month, I'm gonna listen to an ad. Sorry, I am. I I just am. I don't care. Add. Add everywhere. Add blocking up my podcast making me mad. Buy this. Don't buy that. I hate just stupid ass. And that's our demons. And now a word from our sponsor. No. This podcast is part of the Gagapod network. Find more podcasts like this at gagapod dot com.