u/TheDarkivesPodcast

As the title describes, after 56 weekly episodes our show has legitimately made a dollar. We do not plan on doing dynamic ads because we feel it devalues the podcast. We have been doing quarterly banner ad campaigns for our show across overcast, podcast addict, Spotify ( and two attempts at Apple features that have been fruitless so far). Last week we decided to open up a patreon and we offered a free membership ( which only has the rss feed) and a $1 support only membership ( literally stating it exists to help cover expenses and keep the show ad free) and we got our first $1 supporter 3 days after announcing it. We Just wanted to share a small success and let people know to keep going. This is hopefully the first dollar on the road to this pod becoming self sufficient and a bit of truth to the theory that if you just don’t stop, someone other than you may see the value you bring. Keep hitting record and keep having fun ✌️.

In March we decided to try out paid marketing. We figured we'd start as niche as possible so went with Overcast because it's specifically a podcast only app and it was an easy banner ad setup. We'll get into the numbers now and let everyone know what we got out of this campaign.

30 days prior to ad start (February 9th- March 10th)

• All downloads for past 30 days for podcast= 888
• % of downloads from overcast app= 4.52% (about 40/888)
• 4 episodes dropped in time frame

30 days of ad (March 11th-April 9th)

• All downloads for 30 days of campaign=1480
• % of downloads from overcast app= 42.64% (about 631/1480)
• 4 episodes dropped in time frame

30 days after ad ending (April 10th-May 9th)

• All downloads for 30 days after campaign=1096
• % of downloads from overcast app= 31.75% (about 348/1096)
• 5 episodes dropped in time frame

Ad cost and assumptions

*The ad cost for us was $380 for a 30 day banner ad

*The assumed clicks for the ad was 1000-1500 (actual clicks 2063)

*The assumed subscribers for the ad was 75-100 (actual subs 202)

Bought the ad with assumptions of a $4.34 CPA (cost per action, action=subscriber) and ended up with a $1.88 CPA

Take aways for us...

1. We definitely increased our presence on overcast.
2. We saw a real surge during the ad and were extremely happy to out perform the assumed metrics.
3. It was super easy.

Was it worth it?... idk, it didn't hurt but it also didn't really move the needle for us in a huge way either.

We just didn't see a lot of info on how ad performances worked/impacted smaller independent podcasts so we wanted to share some info for ya'll.

Hope it helps somebody some how.

Keep pressing record everybody.