How do you measure a b2b podcast campaign? (includes a better way than promo codes)

[00:00:00] Hey, you're listening to Innovators Can Laugh, the fun startup podcast. I'm your host, Eric Nelcher. On ICL, we interview an innovative entrepreneur in the European tech startup scene every week. My goal is to have my guests share their wisdom while having a little fun in the process. Now let's dive in.

[00:00:19] Hey everyone, Eric here from Innovators Collab. What's the ROI of a B2B podcast sponsorship? This is the question I get most often from potential sponsors who are considering advertising on the Innovators Collab podcast media network. Having utilized podcasting as a growth channel for startups I worked at, such as Bonjuro and OptiMonk, the best and easiest way to assess the impact of your podcasting efforts is to ask, how did you hear about us?

[00:00:46] And your signup flow. Yep. That's it. How did you hear about us? This way? You can directly attribute podcasts to new leads or customers. If you want to take it a step further, you can ask, where else did you hear about us nowadays for B2B buys? It takes an average of 35 plus touch points. On multiple channels for buyers to make a purchasing decision.

[00:01:06] So it helps to ask that additional question. The effort to implement this is minimal and this is something I ask all of our sponsors to do. But if you rather do things the hard way, here are five other ways to measure a B2B podcast sponsorship. Number one. Promo codes. When I hear the phrase promo codes, I cringe.

[00:01:25] Promo codes can easily be forgotten. And most of the time they won't be remembered by the listener, especially if like most listeners, the person is listening to the podcast while working out or driving in traffic. But if you insist on trying to track podcast efforts, you can ask the host to read the promo code alongside the ad and include the promo code and the show notes.

[00:01:46] Number two, vanity URLs. Vanity URLs work great if the podcast you are advertising on is Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss. Those names are familiar and the listener will more likely remember to enter forward slash Tim or forward slash Joe on whatever landing page you created for the podcast. But if your vanity URL is hard to remember, then it will be difficult to accurately assess podcast ROI.

[00:02:11] Similar to promo codes, this involves creating and providing a vanity tracking URL that links to a specific landing page you created for the podcast. Like promo codes, you need to have the technical infrastructure to support vanity tracking URLs. Number three, segmentation, tracking, and Google Analytics.

[00:02:30] If you are advertising on a very popular podcast, you may expect a spike in website traffic. To directly attribute a lift in traffic to a podcast you can set up segmentation in Google Analytics. Here's how. Step 1. Open a report in GA and select plus add segment. Step 2. Click on plus new segment. Step 3.

[00:02:51] Name your segment using the name of the podcast, then add filters, for example, podcast domain, landing page you're promoting, and the on air mention. Step number four, monitor the segments you created by filtering your traffic down to source slash medium or by simply applying the segments to all traffic view in GA.

[00:03:11] Number four, trial offer. Another way to measure the impact of a podcast sponsorship is to provide an exclusive offer to the audience of a specific podcast. A trial offer can be a straightforward way to measure the results of your podcasting efforts. An exclusive offer or discount code can be read on air by the host or included in the show notes.

[00:03:32] And number five, a UTM code. A UTM code is basically a snippet of code added to the end of your URL to assist with tracking the performance of content and social media campaigns. There are five URL parameters available for tracking, including content, term, campaign, medium, and source. You can Google UTM link generator.

[00:03:55] To find out how to set one up sometimes potential sponsors or actual sponsors provide UTM codes for our podcasts and podcasts in the innovators can laugh B2B podcast network. For example, here is a URL it's www. leadfeeder. com forward slash question mark UTM underscore source equals podcasts. And UTM underscore campaign equals B2B marketing.

[00:04:24] So Lead Feeder wants to measure the source. Where are this traffic coming from? In this case, the source would be podcasts. And what specific campaign? This would be B2B marketing. And this is for the B2B marketing and copywriting podcasts in our network. So, to wrap up, the easiest and best way to measure the success of a B2B podcast sponsorship is to add the question, where did you first hear about us, in your sign up form.

[00:04:49] You can either leave the field blank or have multiple choices to choose from, with podcasts being one of the selections. When it comes to podcast sponsorships, there are many benefits. An increase in brand awareness with your ideal target audience, new relationships built with podcast listeners and the hosts, and then of course, new revenue.

[00:05:07] Remember though, it's best to run sponsorships on multiple podcasts and be a frequent sponsor of the show over a long period versus just doing a one-time ad on one episode. To learn more about the Innovators Can Laugh, podcast Media Network, just go to innovators can laugh.com. All right. Thank you for listening.

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