4 Easy Ways to Track Podcast Sponsor Impact: Just CLAP!

We sponsored some podcasts recently as a bit of a growth experiment. During the idea stage, one of the discussions we had was, “How will we know if it’s working?”

Podcast sponsorship as a whole can be a very effective form of advertising. In fact, when done well, it’s probably the best.

Acast’s 2023 Spanish listener survey revealed that 97% of listeners have a positive perception of brands advertised on podcasts.

I’ve also literally just finished reading a piece by Tom Webster of Sounds Profitable that I thought would be worth quoting here.

 86% of ad-supported podcast listeners recalled seeing or hearing an advertisement in the past week. That’s not just a robust number—that’s the highest recall rate of any measured ad-supported medium in this study.

So, if you’re going to run any kind of ad, a podcast is obviously a decent place to do it.

But, when you sponsor a podcast, how can you prove that it has “worked”?

After all, increased sales, sign-ups, or downloads might be purely a coincidence. Or, the result of some other tactic. You might even be sponsoring multiple shows at once – how do you know which one is the most effective?

Tracking the effectiveness of podcast sponsors isn’t watertight, but there are a few easy ways to build a picture. Let’s package them into a tenuous acronym or framework for no other reason than my own personal amusement.

If you’re happy and you know it…

C.L.A.P

… your… brands? 🤷

• C – Codes
• L – Landing Pages
• A – Attribution Polls
• P – Parameters (UTMs)

Alright, let’s get into them…

1. C – Codes

If you literally sell stuff – anything from coaching and courses, to books and beyond – then you can simply create a discount code relevant to the show you’re sponsoring. For example, “use coupon code PODCRAFT10 to save 10% at checkout.”

If you don’t want to discount your prices, set up this code to incentivise something extra instead. Are there any bonus resources you can add to your offering?

The bottom line is that these codes are highly trackable. You’ll know exactly how many people took action on the ad, and exactly where they came from.

2. L – Landing Pages

You might create a special landing page for listeners of the podcast and give it a memorable URL. Or, you could simply make the memorable URL as a redirect link (using a tool like PrettyLinks) and point it to your main landing page.

Either way, you can track metrics and get a decent gauge of how effective the ad has been. But then again, not all listeners will type in these special links. So here’s another option…

3. A – Attribution Polls

Sometimes, listeners hear an ad on a podcast but are unable to take action in the moment. Later, they might search for the product or service on Google, and any attribution to the podcaster seems lost.

Well, not quite. If you add a “how did you hear about us?” poll to your website or checkout, credit can still be assigned!

4. P – Parameters (UTMs)

UTM stands for – believe it or not – Urchin Tracking Module. So you really can enlist the help of urchins without becoming a Dickensian sweatshop owner.

With podcast sponsorship, you’re not totally reliant on folks hearing a link being read out. “All links in the shownotes” is a common phrase amongst podcasters. So when you sponsor a podcast, give the host a UTM link to insert into accompanying shownotes and blog posts.

You can easily make UTM links for free using this Campaign URL Builder tool. Here’s what they look like:

https://www.alitu.com?utm_source=thepodcasthost&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsor-tracking-tips

Definitely not one for reading out on air, eh? But you can get much more nuanced with these across multiple different pages and posts than you could with a simple shortlink.

Tracking Podcast Sponsor Impact

If you’re spending money on marketing, you want to make sure it’s working, and if it’s working, you’ll probably want to do more of it.

Hopefully, these tips for easily tracking podcast sponsor impact will help you keep your finger on the pulse of your ad-based ventures. Employing some or all of these will likely help you build the most accurate picture – there’s definitely no need to stick to one and be done with it.

And of course, there’s more to podcast sponsorship than simply tracking its effectiveness. In our full guide to sponsoring a podcast, you’ll find info on costs, along with additional tips, tactics, and best practices to set up and optimise these partnerships.

I should really round this off with a callback to “the CLAP”, but I won’t give you the satisfaction. Stop laughing up the back… we’re done for the day!