🔴 Meet: Georgina Holt and Christiana Brenton of Telling

SS: Telling focuses on podcast marketing and consultancy. Can you share a podcast marketing campaign you’ve worked on or observed and loved?

CB and GH: Absolutely! During our time in the US, we worked on a performance campaign for Orangetheory via The Trade Desk (programmatic transaction). They wanted to drive incremental reach and encourage class bookings with impressions geo-targetedto Orangetheory locations. This campaign leveraged 1P data onboarding (a new podcast innovation) and content and signal reporting in the bid stream to optimize results in real time. We applied CPA measurement and cost per booking confirmation was 16% more efficient compared to all other audio inventory tested.  We loved this campaign for a few reasons:

• It once again, demonstrated the stronger performance of podcast impressions vs streaming audio.

• Orangetheory embraced new technology (1P data onboarding + content & genre signals optimized in real-time).

• It demonstrated that 30-second audio ads (with the right targeting and attention) can deliver conversions.

In a similar vein, we conducted another 30-second audio ads test in the US with a financial brand and equally achieved their CPA goals within the first 60 days.

SS: With the emergence of new audio formats, like interactive voice ads and programmatic advertising, what are your thoughts on how these innovations will shape the future of audio advertising.

CB and GH: AI-powered creatives could remove the production barrier to partnering with more shows, enabling more advertisers to find new listeners and untapped ad environments, and for creators to scale revenue faster. Likewise, the technological innovations in programmatic podcasting are attracting more global brands to test the medium within digital buying structures they’re already used to – so essentially, these new innovations only serve to remove more barriers to entry and help us scale the industry faster.

SS: For young salespeople seeking to enter the podcast advertising industry, what advice would you give them to navigate this rapidly evolving market effectively? 

CB:  I’ve spent most of my career in sales and I think curiosity is the most important attribute to succeed.  I’ve been fortunate enough to manage sales teams in three markets worldwide and there are generally two types of sellers; those who take the brief at face value and those who take a little more time to ask about the client. They’re curious about the client’s brand proposition and creative platform, how they’ll be defining success, and how we can measure it. These types of people generally have a much higher success rate and position themselves as trusted consultants vs. sales reps.

And this curiosity spans all areas of work (and life)! I would encourage young salespeople to remain curious about new updates and innovations within the industry.

Thank you and congratulations to Georgina and Christiana! Also, big thanks to Sarah Jackson for setting this up.