Krystal Proffitt is a Content Strategist and Coach, and her show, The Proffitt Podcast, helps podcasters and aspiring podcasters get past the overwhelm to start creating confidently.
I’m happy to share that I was recently on her show, and the conversation is live. We chat all about podcast automation, monetization, AI, and the future of podcasting.
Joe Casabona is a podcast and automation coach who helps coaches, course creators, and authors grow their podcasts into authority-building lead generators. He does that through expert-tested systems that come with 10 years experience podcasting, 15 years teaching, and over 20 years working the web.
I wouldn’t call myself an avid Jurassic Park fan. I was a little shy of 8 when it came out, and being a young boy I did enjoy dinosaurs…and man did those dinosaurs look real at the time.
There are a few scenes I remember vividly from the movie. One is the scene where they’re in the car, the water rippling as the T-Rex approaches. The other is a commonly memed (is that right?) scene of Jeff Goldblum’s character, Dr. Ian Malcom, saying this:
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could…they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
What does this have to do with podcast ads?
The main reason I went to Transistor.fm was because it had to important monetization features for me to leverage:
Private podcast feeds
“Dynamic” Ads
“Dynamic” is in quotes because it’s not really dynamic. You need to upload the ad, create a campaign, then explicitly mark a time stamp for each mid roll ad in the campaign.
Oh…and you can’t make changes to live campaigns. Which means if you want to change the ads in an episode, you need to either disable it, or create a new one to swap in.
Now, I can’t speak to how other — let’s call them “dynamic content” — systems work, but that’s not really DAI, which should require much less intervention to change ads once you mark the spots.
The whole reason I liked the appeal of dynamic content in the first place was so I could insert an easily changeable preroll spot in for whatever call to action I had.
But I convinced myself I should do it for my mid-roll ads too. And here’s the kicker…
I’m not even selling them as dynamic ads. They are sold as “more flexible” baked-in ads. And I’m not selling my back catalog, because I’d need to manually update campaigns for each and every episode.
But, to paraphrase Dr. Malcom, I was so preoccupied with the fact that I could do it, I never really stopped to think if I should.
I Should Not Use Transistor’s Dynamic Ads for Mid-roll Sponsors
The truth is I should not be using Transistor’s dynamic ads feature for my mid-roll ads. It’s a clever way to create flexible content, but ultimately it’s inconvenient, adds an extra step to my process, and it caused problems over the summer when I didn’t mark enough spots in the mid-roll for my ads.
If I truly want to sell dynamic ads and do DAI, there are other, better services for me to do it.
There might even be better hosting options, if that were my primary goal. But it’s not.
Like I said, I don’t sell my ads based on time or impression limits. I sell them as baked-in ads.
So…is there a time a place for dynamic content, if not for DAI?
I think so.
What I (and YOU) Can Use Dynamic Content For
I think there a few good, appealing use cases for dynamic content outside of ads.
A perfect example is for my locally focused podcast, Start Local. We’re doing a live, in-person networking event, and we want to promote it on the show.
Instead of having a baked-in preroll CTA for people to register, we’re doing a dynamic one, that will automatically end at the start of the networking event. That way, we don’t have a set of outdated CTAs after the event is over.
We’re also using the dynamic content function to insert it into every episode in the back catalog, not just recent episodes.
If you’re promoting an event, or time-sensitive product, service, or enrollment period, dynamic content is a perfect solution. You can have start and end dates for campaigns, and the episodes with the promotion won’t feel immediately dated after the promotion period ends.
You could also use it to promote specific opt-ins, freebies, or products. But I think at some point, the easiest option is just mentioning it in the episode. Most downloads for an episode happen within the first 30-60 days. So unless you have a super active back catalog where people routinely revisit old episodes, dynamic content for run of the mill CTAs is probably overkill.
Ultimately, there is a time and place for dynamic ads and content, but the best thing for you to focus on is not whether or not you could do it, but whether or not you should do it.
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