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Benjamin Shapiro
The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the Ihear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, iHear everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com.
From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate.
Glenn Rubenstein
Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.
Benjamin Shapiro
Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours. If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.
Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's a host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.
Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a live edition here on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all of the places, all of the things. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro. We're changing around the Martech Podcast a little bit. We're starting to do more things like this live stream and today what we're going to be talking about as well. Live streams, YouTube, podcasting, all the things surrounding new media. Joining me, I've got a special guest. His name is Glenn Rubenstein. He is the founder and CEO of Adopter Media, which specializes in podcast advertising and YouTube sponsorship. Adopter Media is a leader in the industry shaping the future of audio and video endorsements and advertising, focusing on results at scale. Glenn, welcome to the Martech Podcast.
Glenn Rubenstein
Thanks for having me.
Benjamin Shapiro
First off, thank you for joining us in this experiment that is us starting to do our live streams. I will preface this up front. We are testing all sorts of fun things. I'm going to hit some buttons here and just see what happens. Oh my gosh. We jump all over the place. We've got our handyman here, Phil, who's going to help us figure out the right buttons to press. But if you're listening to this on LinkedIn, if you're on YouTube and you're following us, any of the channels, we do get your comments and we will react to them in real time. Let's start off. Anybody here tell us what your role is so we know who we're talking to. We'd love to hear from you, we'd love your comments. We're going to dive deep into what's actually Happening with podcast advertising. What's happening with YouTube and this first segment that we're going to do. We're going to start with what we call our elevator pitch. So, Glenn, let's start off at the beginning. I'm going to press the button. We're going to go up an elevator. We have 37 floors to go up. Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do for a living.
Glenn Rubenstein
So my name is Glenn Rubinstein. I'm the founder and CEO of Adopter Media. We are a dedicated ad agency specializing in podcast advertising and YouTube endorsements. We've been in business for eight years now. We've placed well over a hundred million dollars in ads on behalf of our clients and are responsible for doing highly effective, highly engaged direct response ad campaigns across these very rich, very impactful mediums.
Benjamin Shapiro
So, Glenn, what I'm hearing from you, direct response advertising campaigns in podcasting and in YouTube. Now, look, I've been podcasting here for seven years, just starting to get into this whole YouTube new media thing. And direct response is something that we've always found to be a little bit challenging in the podcast space. I just don't understand how you're supposed to measure a podcast when people are hearing it and they're not clicking on anything. Tell me a little bit about without actual direct response before I get off at my floor.
Glenn Rubenstein
Yeah, well, it's really, really important to have multiple methods of attribution when doing any sort of advertising, especially in this medium, which is really a hybrid of offline advertising and digital. And with that in mind, you want to have your promo codes for each podcast that you sponsor, your landing pages so you can track clicks and traffic, see how that's converting. You want to have pixel attribution on the audio so you can match up the listener versus the website visitor by IP address. And then lastly, you want to have that survey at checkout, which tells you if nobody entered a code, if they used a different device, it's your last chance for them to express themselves and pledge their allegiance to the influencer that helped them convert and make that purchase. So I think having those four methodologies really helps give you a complete picture. It's still not going to be 100%, but you're going to get an idea of what is contributing to that top of funnel brand awareness versus that direct response last click conversion. And figuring that out with this X factor, which is different for every brand, really helps triangulate the overall impact that this is having on a brand's bottom line.
Benjamin Shapiro
Now Glenn, as the doors open for our elevator and we're hearing a little bit about who you are and what you do. What I'm hearing is when you're thinking about podcast advertising specifically, it's about triangulation, right? Direct response is very hard to understand. So you're looking at, well, can I pixel and try to find a match? Can I give you some sort of a promo code that you use? And at the end of the day, it's a post purchase survey mostly. If you're in B2B, how do I understand somebody is completing my conversion? You can actually go through. When you're doing your demo, call and ask them, hey, what got you here? So, Glenn, it's good to know that you're an expert in this space. Podcast advertising and YouTube, something that I'm getting more and more interested in. I want to do another little segment here, another little gimmick that we're going to call trend or trash. Now, for brands that are interested in leveraging influencers, new media, other people's audiences, and they're thinking about podcasting, they're thinking about YouTube, maybe even social media. Tell me whether this whole notion of artificial intelligence influencing those channels, is that a trend or is that trash?
Glenn Rubenstein
Well, I'm a big believer in AI, believe it or not. I think the technology is getting scary good. If you listen to what it can do with music, what it can do with the written word, and what it can do with voice, it's really impactful. I think it were past the tipping point where you can't detect, is this a real person or was this generated? And I think that the danger, though, is when we start talking about this business of influence and this business of endorsements. Already some of your most popular influencers, their endorsement has gotten a little diluted, it's a little thinner because of the sheer number of deals that they're doing. I mean, look at Instagram, how many videos with, you know, hey, everybody's asking me about my skincare routine and I want to tell you about this product. Hey, everybody's been asking me about my morning routine and I want to tell you about this product. You can over dilute your ability to sway conversions and the impact of your endorsement. And with that in mind, AI poses a danger. Because if this is already happening across influencers that are overly monetized now, it's taking the human element out of the equation, which is this danger that some of these larger companies, larger networks, start saying, we can make a very fast set of dollars on the bottom line. Here, if we were to take this influencer's voice and Persona and then essentially generate a thousand different variations on these ads and just pump them out there. And I think that that's really going to get it to where the audience no longer trusts anything that listener has to say. So it's always trying to run that balance of like, what are opportunities? What are opportunities at scale, what are opportunities to monetize and effectively maximize the profit potential of any medium or any influencer's brand. But that being said, you don't want to minimize the credibility of that influencer because that's ultimately the business that we're all in. It's like it's not from. From my point of view as an advertising agency, the content is sort of pass fail, like in its objective. Even the likability of some influencers pass fail are subjective. But what I'm really buying is that influencer, that podcast host, that YouTube host. I'm buying their relationship with their audience.
Benjamin Shapiro
All right, can I show you one of my favorite new live stream tricks that are using because we did Trender Trash, but I created a graphic for the question that you answered, which is buy or sell. When it comes down to using artificial intelligence for new media and creators, you're essentially saying, look, I'm buying it. I think that people are going to use artificial intelligence to manufacture creative on some point. I'll go back to my trend versus trash. The trend of using artificial intelligence to enhance things like podcasts. Right. Quickly doing edits, using somebody's voice to clone, like using artificial intelligence to mine data to learn, look for subjects. I used artificial intelligence to come up with all sorts of examples of game show gimmicks. And that's how we got our buy or sell. Right. Like it basically said, hey, there's. Pardon the interruption. Why don't you take all the segments out of that Martech podcast. That's exactly what we should be doing. But the reality is the trash is we're just going to replace you as an influencer or a creator and we're just going to make a fake person that's doing this stuff. I don't think anybody wants that.
Glenn Rubenstein
I think some people that sell their business to selling ads would actually love that. Yeah.
Benjamin Shapiro
I don't think the consumers. I would.
Glenn Rubenstein
Yeah, consumers, Trash. Yeah, but it's different than seasoning, right? It's like a little seasoning is great. Too much seasoning can ruin a dish.
Benjamin Shapiro
Yeah. Hey, look, you can artificially take my face and make it suitable for video. That'd Be wonderful voice and face for radio here. That's why we didn't do live streams for a long time. But the world has changed. The cameras got better. And look, hey, here we are. What I'm hearing from you is little trend, little trash.
Glenn Rubenstein
Yeah, I think like anything, somebody's going to overdo it and step in it big time. And then there will be a pullback. Right. We saw this with Programmatic. How many people said, oh, my God, this is going to be amazing. You can now buy ads and we can listen to a podcast. And if they're talking about a trip to Hawaii, the host wants to go to Hawaii. What if, then the ad that we automatically insert says, you know, here's a deal to go to Hawaii. And won't that be amazing what they'll do for audiences? And what happened was an alcohol brand placed. Not one of our clients placed a buy with Spotify. Spotify was like, oh, yeah, we can do subjective targeting. And they ended up placing an alcohol brand on an Alcoholics Anonymous podcast. So there's always going to be like these high profile missteps with technology, and that's what re centers people to say, okay, maybe we need some safeguards in place. Maybe we need to not go all in on this. I think as an agency, whether it's dynamically inserted ads, programmatic ads, or AI creation for ads, I think we've always been very cautious because we believe in the old school magic of this medium, which is the connection between a host and the listener. And the more we can do to do authentic, engaging ads, where the host truly loves a product or service, uses it, and communicates that to their audience. That's the magic of podcasts and YouTube advertising. And I think that we've seen people try and dilute this in myriad ways to squeeze a couple extra dollars out of it and prop up this industry. But we have found that for advertisers, the advertisers do not have that demand. It's people on the sell side that see this as an ability to impact their bottom line. They're not actually trying to provide more value for anyone except themselves.
Benjamin Shapiro
I want to move on to our next segment, which we're going to call Double down or Diversify. So if you're a media buyer, right, if you're a brand marketer and you're starting to think about what roles podcasting and YouTube and let's just call it creator content or influencer content, should play in your marketing mix. And you've been traditionally relying on things like SEO, ppc, cold outreach social ads, let's call those traditional digital advertising channels. Should you be doubling down on your existing channels now and just using artificial intelligence to make them more effective, or should you be diversifying into different media streams like podcasting, like YouTube, Double down or diversify?
Glenn Rubenstein
I think that if you have a product that is sticky in nature, and what I mean by that is something that when people hear about it, they're going to remember it and they're probably going to tell other people about it. Think about all the products, Ben, that you've bought and loved before and that you tell your friends, your family about, your colleagues about, that you're excited about. Those are the things that do best in any medium that is talkable this way. I think that there are some purchase decisions that are a little more binary, that do benefit more through search intent, that benefit more from like a really slickly produced social ad. But I think that I'm literally in the business of word of mouth advertising. It just happens to be paid word of mouth advertising. And so I think that for any brand that thinks their product is inherently shareable and can get people excited, I mean, I think this is the best medium for that.
Benjamin Shapiro
I think it really depends on what the product is. And you're saying, well, if it's sticky and you can rely on word of mouth, that's great. I think of the challenge that you're trying to solve. If you have a product that requires a little bit more of a description that is best suited showing a use case, then things like podcast advertising, where you get 30 to 60 seconds of audio, which is more information than you're going to get from a flash. Here's the Instagram ad. Your two seconds that you're going to scroll through that impression is going to be more valuable just surely by the amount of information and context that you can give. If you've got something that is a commodity product and it's just about raw tonnage of impressions and staying in front of the consumer and reminding them that they need to buy their toothpaste or whatever it is, then things like your social media, your ppc, right? Grabbing the demand when people are looking at it, making sure that you're optimized on Amazon, if you're in E commerce, like that's the stuff that makes the most sense. It really depends on where you are, not just what type of brand, but where you are in your life cycle often. What I found specifically with podcast advertising is that initial like credibility and awareness when people hear the ad and it sounds Credible, you can establish that more with the new media than you would with the sort of short format, high impression type marketing activities that you'd be getting with your PPC or your social ads. So double down diverse. Maybe it's double down, diversify or it depends.
Glenn Rubenstein
Yeah. And I think social proof of a host, of a trusted host talking about their experience with something, you have to almost kind of look back at the last six years in the context of things, or really the last 10. But think about how many of us as consumers who are easily excitable about new products. Think about how many of us got burned by like a Kickstarter or Indiegogo over the years of something that like never even made it to market. Or we're like, oh my God, this looks so cool. But they had no business plan, no way to actually do it. So if you're an emerging DC brand and you have actual product and you've cracked it and it's shipped and it's good, and then you have a host getting someone exciting about it and saying, oh no, you can order this right now. I've been using it, it's amazing. You have to try this. Like that social proof goes a long way. Because I do think that when it comes to Instagram advertising or other social media where you see, I mean I've seen this, I still see this. Someone announces a product and they're like, yeah, shipping in 2026. And it's like, yeah, I'm not like, maybe I'll get my money once this is out. If people actually like it. Like I'm not pre ordering anything.
Benjamin Shapiro
Shipping in 2026 is speculation. It's not actually a product that you're selling.
Glenn Rubenstein
Exactly. But I think that's the problem with a lot of what you see on social media. Right. Because anyone can produce a great Facebook ad.
Benjamin Shapiro
You have to have produce a great podcast ad. You're talking about 30 seconds of audio as opposed to images. No, no.
Glenn Rubenstein
But if you're doing a host for an endorsement one, you're getting minimum of 60. Most of the time we end up being like two minutes. Sometimes we get five minutes or 10 minutes. But like if you're advertising with Joe Rogan, you've got a minimum amount of money to do that buy in and you've sent him a product.
Benjamin Shapiro
I'm thinking of programmatic ads where no.
Glenn Rubenstein
Yeah, and that's not the business we largely trade in because those aren't effective. In fact, radio style ads on podcasts, maybe I shouldn't say this. Radio ad style Ads on podcasts, I mean, I find particularly annoying. And I don't recommend any brand do a radio style ad where it's just a pre produced 30 second injected in there. Like when I'm listening to a show and I love that host, I love the sound of their voice, I love their sense of humor, I love the way that they talk about something. When I hear them go into an ad that is smooth, I'm excited to hear what they have to say about a product. I'm excited to hear about their experience. But when I hear standard voiceover artists giving me an ad for car insurance or telling me about, you know, I don't know, there's always something in your area, everyone in your area is very excited about lawn care. When I hear one of those, like I cannot hit the skip button fast enough. Which is again funny for me to say given that I work in the advertising.
Benjamin Shapiro
I couldn't agree with you more. And for me, for my consumer taste, not to say that the ads aren't effective from a marketing perspective, but when it's not a host red ad, it is an immediate like Apple watch fast forward 60 seconds for me. And the other thing where I'm always skipping is I'm a big sports fan. So it's like if I'm listening to the Bill Simmons podcast, I'm a regular listener. I've already heard the ad 10 times. I already know Simplisafe is where Bill Simmons thinks I should go to get my home alarm system. Or Michelob Ultra is the beer that he Michelob Ultra. Maybe it's Michelob Light. Maybe, I don't know. But moral of the story is that the repetitive nature of the ads, if you're not cycling through them, to me it's an instant skip. Let's move on. I want to go into our next segment which is we're going to call the secret sauce. You're an expert when it comes to making podcast advertising and YouTube advertising actually works for brands. And these are not just the integrations getting onto the shows. We're talking specifically about host red advertising. So give me the recipe for success when it comes to cultivating growth. When you're working with somebody else reading a host red ad, what are the components you need to get a host read ad to be effective for your brand?
Glenn Rubenstein
I mean first and foremost is making good show selection. So to walk you through our process and like what we do, first thing we do for a brand is we try and understand their demographics. Then we want to find innovative ways to reach that Demographics through a diversified test of different podcasts, all doing host reads. But if somebody tells me that their target demographic is women in their 30s and 40s, I will say, okay, we want to look start looking at true crime because that over indexes there. We want to start looking at parenting because that over indexes there. We want to look at some key lifestyle news, comedy podcasts over index in that demographic and then figure out which hosts that we've worked with before do a really good job. For brands, we tend to see strong results across multiple clients. So we will then look there, figure out where there's alignments and opportunities the brand has sign off on that. We work with the brand on copy and talking points to make sure that their messaging is in the format that that's going to work best. We make sure we get the addresses together so everyone's going to have access to the product ahead of time. We do onboarding calls with every single show that we work with to make sure that they've received the product, tried the product. We answer any questions they have about the product. We make sure that they've looked at the copy and reviewed it. And then as the ads go out, we're tracking those for the client. We make sure all the pixels are set up, the landing pages, the offer codes. But then we're looking at those results and figuring out, okay, is there something we can optimize here to make future ads better based on the results we're seeing? And then from there it's wash, rinse, repeat, double down, triple down on one.
Benjamin Shapiro
Let me jump in here. The first thing you're doing, you're talking about show selection. And a lot of it is onboarding with the host to make sure that they're going to be ready for the ad. They understand the product, they're actually communicating with some sense of authenticity when it comes to the ad read, which I'm assuming is part number two. Correct me if I'm wrong, how do you actually get them to create a good ad?
Glenn Rubenstein
So the key, believe it or not, is you don't want to provide a script. You want to provide talking points that leave the host room to interject their own thoughts, their own experiences, their own ideas, and really make that ad their own, because that's what's going to make it relevant to both the content and the context of that show. And I think that a lot of the magic that happens are things that cannot be foreseen, that could not have been scripted. And there is nothing more disappointing from my perspective, with an actual Ad execution. When you listen to an ad that's overly scripted and you could just tell it, it sounds like somebody reading that's not what you want. You want somebody making that one to one connection with the listener, with the viewer. And to do that, you have to give them breathing room to personalize this and make it their own.
Benjamin Shapiro
So am I doing this wrong? Because when I am working on a ad read, I sit down and I write out what I want to say. Often consumers will give me the bullets, right? They're hey, here's. Or they'll give me a script and then I'll rewrite it in my tone. But I actually write out what I want to say. And I am reading it, but I am very clearly, word for word, trying to get it right to make sure that I have something that is well thought out. As opposed to shooting from the hip. Should I just be, hey, I work on this product and here's what I think about it? And actually now that I think about it, there's this thing that's kind of cool about it, or should I be like, hey, check out this product. It's got A and B and C. And here's why I love it.
Glenn Rubenstein
I think it's always great to be able to refer to your notes. I think that's helpful. I think if there is something that needs to be tightly scripted or read verbatim like a call to action, you could certainly specify that. But I do want to leave that breathing room. One, because you often end up getting a longer ad. You get an ad that feels better. You get an ad that's not rushed. I mean, imagine if you're looking at two pieces of copy and it's like, hey, read this like a script. You're just trying to power through it. The audience at that point isn't going to have an easy time with it. It's not a comfortable listing experience. I want to provide a framework more than anything else because what I'm buying with that connection between the host and the listener, I'm buying their ability. And I'm not waxing poetic here, but I want them to create magic with that spot every time. Yeah, sometimes people have an off day. Sometimes people need to lean on the copy a little bit more. But the best ads are ones that have a level of unpredictability. The good thing is if we provide the right framework for a host of saying, hey, please emphasize this but oh, by the way, per the FDA or ftc, don't do say these five things. As long as you provide that framework, they can work within those limitations and often produce something that's wonderful and absolutely delights advertising.
Benjamin Shapiro
I obviously record a lot of B2B ads.
Glenn Rubenstein
Yeah.
Benjamin Shapiro
Host of the Martech podcast. We do the voice podcast as well. And whenever I am doing an ad, and most of the time, actually when I receive ads, people will try to script it out. I am making sure that I am writing it in my tone and words that I feel comfortable saying because they have to sound good. But often what people will do is be like, hey, here's the introduction. You have to say this. It describes our company and what we want you to say. Then here's a section for you to put your own story. And then make sure you read the part at the bottom. I think that's a reasonable format, which is like, hey, let me tell you about athletic greens. It's got blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I can tell them about my experience. Be like, I actually do use athletic greens. This is not a sponsored post, but.
Glenn Rubenstein
It'S a wonderful product.
Benjamin Shapiro
I finally got the subscription. I buying it one off. I use it now. I have it every day. I feel better. It keeps things moving, if you know what I mean. And now I can go back into, here's how you get it and all the calls to action. You get that stuff there.
Glenn Rubenstein
Delicate balance. I think sometimes to do it correctly, but kind of to your point, this is the danger. Also why it's like we don't recommend that advertisers over advertise on a podcast because let's say they're running with you every episode. Athletic greens, again, just using them as an example. You don't want to have to be like, I've told you countless times before, I've been taking this and I feel wonderful. You want to make sure also, like, if you're running a lot, man, you better hope that host has a deep bench of relevant anecdotes or gets their co hosts involved or gets Today I snorted.
Benjamin Shapiro
Athletic maybe.
Glenn Rubenstein
Sorry, Margot, we know that's not in the talking points.
Benjamin Shapiro
So we got, first off, you got to find the right shows. Second, you got to give the host the right thing to read and find the right format. What is the rest of the secret sauce? There's got to be a component for call to action evaluation.
Glenn Rubenstein
You have to have a good call to action. You have to have a good offer, right? So if you're running 20% off in your podcast promos, but you go to the website and the first thing gets A pop up that says enter your email for 30% off. Oh man, did you just set some money on fire? Your attribution is going to look horrible. So don't compete with yourself. Make sure you have a battle tested offer that's going to work really, really well for what it is that you're selling and promoting. It's competitive. And then additionally, the feedback is also important because by the way, it's like there are ads that clearly work. I can look at two days of performance and know that we have not captured 100% of the impact. But I can sense a trajectory and say, okay, this is going to level out, this is going to work. This is clearly not going to work. There's also in betweeners and with those you need to get feedback. So look, we have an entire ad ops department. I mean, we have one side of our company that's responsible for media buying and strategy. And then we've got two thirds of our company are the people that make sure the trains run on time, that do these onboarding calls. They review every ad that goes out and make sure that our clients are getting what they paid for and then some, both in terms of actual delivery of numbers and the content of the app. And there might be something where we look at it and we say based on these results, this ad did all right. But man, if they just would have leaned a little heavier on this or we like how they said this, we can give feedback and then hopefully if there are any issues, correct those for future reads. So I think honestly people have tried to make this industry turnkey. It is still a very hands on industry. And I think that one thing we have learned over the years is industry has gotten smarter as advertisers have gotten smarter is we have learned that like you have to. I mean, I think part of the reason our agency is so popular, you really have to have infrastructure to do this right with any level of scale.
Benjamin Shapiro
For everybody that's watching at home, apologies for letting my fingers do the walking. I accidentally pressed the one button which is the. Just view my face again. It's a live stream. We're figuring things out new on the Martech podcast. If you are watching this, we'd love to hear if you have any questions about podcast advertising, about YouTube advertising, we're going to read some of the comments at the end when we get them. By all means, please go ahead. And if you're on YouTube, like and subscribe all of the good things. Here's my takeaway, is that when you're thinking about podcast advertising. When you're thinking about working with influencers in an ad format, finding the right person is what really matters. If you can find someone that actually has an authentic connection to your brand, even better, if you are trying to get someone to promote your product and they don't actually believe in your product, guess what? Your consumers can understand that. They can hear it, they can see it, they can feel it. So try to find people that have good experiences with your brand. When you're thinking about how to do promotion and if they don't and you're trying to get access to an audience that is a big, important audience, build that relationship. Give them a trial. Work with the influencers to not just get them to read the ads, but onboard them to educate them. Work with them so they can help provide value. Thank you everybody for listening and watching this live stream. We've got it on YouTube, we've got it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, X whatever we're calling it. Maybe even Instagram if we press the right buttons. If you are listening to this on the podcast, thank you for listening. We're going to publish an episode every day on the podcast. We're going to do these live streams relatively frequently moving forward in all of the channels. If you have any comments, not only will we get to them now, I think that Glenn's got to take off, but we will follow up and write back to you on on any of the social media channels. We do monitor the comments and comment back. Just one more link I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to martechpod.com where we have summary of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter and you can even apply to be a guest on the Martech podcast. Of course, you could always reach out on social media. Our handle is martechpod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Or you can contact me directly on LinkedIn. My handle is Benjshap and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, we're going to publish an episode every day this year, so hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.
Thanks for listening to the Martech podcast and I hear everything. Production looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand, then visit. Iheareverything Combat.
MarTech Podcast™ Episode Summary: AI in Podcast Advertising & YouTube Sponsorships
Release Date: November 15, 2024
Host: Benjamin Shapiro
Guest: Glenn Rubenstein, Founder and CEO of Adopter Media
In this engaging episode of the MarTech Podcast™, host Benjamin Shapiro welcomes Glenn Rubenstein, the Founder and CEO of Adopter Media, to discuss the evolving landscape of podcast advertising and YouTube sponsorships. As live streaming becomes a more integral part of the podcasting world, this conversation delves into the integration of AI in influencer marketing, the challenges of direct response advertising in audio and video mediums, and strategies for brands to effectively leverage these platforms for business growth.
The episode begins with a deep dive into the complexities of direct response advertising within the podcasting sphere. Benjamin raises a pertinent question about measuring podcast effectiveness, given the lack of immediate interaction like clicks. Glenn responds by outlining a multi-faceted approach to attribution:
Glenn emphasizes, “Having those four methodologies really helps give you a complete picture” (04:05). This triangulation allows brands to understand both top-of-funnel brand awareness and bottom-line conversions, despite the inherent challenges in the medium.
Transitioning to the role of artificial intelligence in podcast and YouTube advertising, Benjamin introduces a segment titled "Trend or Trash." Glenn expresses a cautious optimism about AI’s capabilities, acknowledging its impressive advancements in generating content:
“I think the technology is getting scary good. ... You can't detect, is this a real person or was this generated” (06:10).
However, Glenn warns of the potential pitfalls, particularly the dilution of influencer credibility. As brands and agencies might prioritize scalability and profit, there’s a risk of overusing AI-generated endorsements, which could erode trust with audiences. He cautions against stripping the human element from endorsements, stating, “you can over dilute your ability to sway conversions and the impact of your endorsement” (07:00). The balance between leveraging AI for efficiency and maintaining authentic connections is crucial to sustaining audience trust.
In the "Double Down or Diversify" segment, the discussion focuses on whether brands should enhance their existing digital advertising channels using AI or branch out into new media like podcasting and YouTube. Glenn advocates for diversification, especially for products with inherent "stickiness" that benefit from word-of-mouth marketing. He explains, “I'm literally in the business of word of mouth advertising. It just happens to be paid word of mouth advertising” (12:06).
Benjamin adds that the decision hinges on the nature of the product and its position in the marketing lifecycle. For instance, products requiring detailed explanations may benefit more from podcast ads, which allow for richer storytelling compared to the brevity of social media ads. Conversely, commodity products might achieve better results through high-frequency, low-cost digital channels like PPC and social media.
The core of the episode revolves around "The Secret Sauce"—the essential elements that make host-read ads impactful. Glenn outlines a comprehensive strategy:
Benjamin and Glenn discuss the importance of avoiding overly scripted ads, which can alienate listeners. Glenn emphasizes, “There is nothing more disappointing from my perspective, with an actual Ad execution, When you listen to an ad that's overly scripted... you want somebody making that one to one connection with the listener” (19:54).
As the episode wraps up, Benjamin synthesizes the discussion with actionable insights for marketers:
Glenn concludes by reaffirming the significance of maintaining authentic relationships between hosts and listeners, stating, “you have to have infrastructure to do this right with any level of scale” (25:52).
This episode of the MarTech Podcast™ offers a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between marketing technology and creative advertising strategies. By dissecting the challenges and opportunities within podcast and YouTube sponsorships, Glenn Rubenstein provides valuable insights for brands looking to navigate the dynamic landscape of influencer marketing. The emphasis on authenticity, strategic diversification, and thoughtful integration of AI underscores the nuanced approach required to drive effective business growth in today’s media-rich environment.
Notable Quotes:
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