We collaborated with Sounds Profitable to highlight what makes a good podcast ad by breaking down real examples from popular podcasts.

This week's anatomy of an ad: -  Ep. 186: The Night Before -Murder or Suicide?  -  Court Junkie x Squarespace

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Hosted by: Jillian Jalali

Ad placement: Pre-roll

Ad type: Dynamic insertion

Start point: 00:02:50

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Ad copy: 

“Pretty much everyone needs a website nowadays, whether it's for your business, your blog, or your personal side hustle or hobby. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that can help you build a beautiful online presence and run your business from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics. Look no further than Squarespace. Not many people know this about me but I used to build websites kind of as a hobby. Back in the day, I built a fashion one for my friend, built another for my ex who was a musician, and one for a friend who was renting out property. For all three, I used Squarespace. I found it really user-friendly and actually kind of fun to use. Now, I'm no pro at building websites. But, I was able to figure it out and make them look really good using Squarespace's tools. Squarespace is great no matter what you're looking to do online. Their e-commerce features gives you everything you need to sell anything - including e-commerce templates, inventory management, a simple checkout process, and secure payments. Collect email addresses through your website and send subscribers the information you want them to know about and for you bloggers out there, the Squarespace blogging platform lets your visitors share your content across social media which can grow your viewers. Head on over to Squarespace.com/court for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code ‘Court’ to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is a great deal - that's Squarespace.com/court”

Let’s break it down to see what works:

The hook: 

“Pretty much everyone needs a website nowadays, whether it's for your business, your blog, or your personal side hustle or hobby. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that can help you build a beautiful online presence and run your business from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics.”
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Right after highlighting the premises of the episode and just before diving into the good stuff, Court Junkie’s host Jillian Jalali goes over the sponsors of the episode - Shopify and Squarespace. The host attracts listeners' attention to Squarespace by noting: “pretty much everyone needs a website nowadays”. This hook causes those that were already considering starting a website to listen attentively and those that weren’t even thinking about creating a website to reconsider.

The pitch:

“Look no further than Squarespace. Not many people know this about me but I used to build websites kind of as a hobby. Back in the day, I built a fashion one for my friend, built another for my ex who was a musician, and one for a friend who was renting out property. For all three, I used Squarespace. I found it really user-friendly and actually kind of fun to use. Now, I'm no pro at building websites. But, I was able to figure it out and make them look really good using Squarespace's tools.” 

This part of the ad highlights the brand’s services and unique selling points, which include its easy-to-use interface - which shouldn’t hinder your ability to create beautiful, complex-looking websites. Squarespace emphasizes the ability to create a website for pretty much any industry - allowing users to “sell anything - including e-commerce templates, inventory management, a simple checkout process, and secure payments”. The host strongly highlights this point by revealing that she created three different websites, each for a different industry, using Squarespace.

The offer: 

“Head on over to Squarespace.com/court for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code ‘court’ to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is a great deal - that's squarespace.com/court”

By using Court Junkie’s code, listeners can give Squarespace a try for free and then, when they’re ready to launch their newly created website, listeners can use the code ‘court’ to save 10% off their first purchase of a website or domain.

Landing page: 

Although Squarespace’s landing page is beautifully designed (obviously), it isn’t customized for Court Junkie listeners. Listeners are directed to the main Squarespace website and can immediately ‘get started’ on creating their own website/domain. There is also no mention of the 10% discount Court Junkie’s highlighted in the ad-read. 

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Hits the spot:

Although the ad-read isn’t seamlessly integrated, it provides listeners with a clear understanding of the brand’s service. Also, thanks to the host's personal annotation - “Not many people know this about me but I used to build websites kind of as a hobby. Back in the day, I built a fashion one for my friend, built another for my ex who was a musician, and one for a friend who was renting out property. For all three, I used Squarespace” - the ad read feels a little bit more relatable. Also - this ad-read took place at the very beginning of the podcast episode (right after grasping the listeners attention with a quick recap of what to expect in the episode). This increases the chances that the listeners are paying attention. 

Room for improvement:

There are two aspects that could be improved for the future:

1. Including two ad-reads one after the other - although Shopify and Squarespace can be placed in the same industry/realm, it was quite annoying to dive into the episode and then, just 2 minutes in, listen to not one but two brand sponsorships. 
2. There was no clear connection between the brand sponsorship and podcast content - It was enjoyable to hear the hosts personal experience with Squarespace but it would have been interesting to see Jillian Jalali lead to the podcast episode with her brand partnerships. 

Partnership track record:

Over the last year, Squarespace has sponsored over 190 podcasts and has sponsored Court Junkie twice.

Where else has Squarespace sponsored?

Savage Lovecast, Answer Me This!, Whiskey Ginger with Andrew Santino, The Read, This is Why You’re Single.

What other brands have appeared on Court Junkie?

Daily Harvest, Progressive Insurance, Stamps.com, Best Fiends, TalkSpace

Key takeaways:

True Crime podcasts are a great place for brand sponsorships because listeners are attentively listening trying to catch all the gruesome details. However, it must be done right in order to be successful -  otherwise, it may just frustrate the listeners wanting to get to the nitty, gritty content. 

I must admit that the podcast episode introduction immediately grasped my interest and attention, causing me to be much more attentive to the ad-read (which is unlike how I felt listening to ad-reads in the middle of the episode). However, the brand sponsorship felt random and not connected to the content of the specific episode and podcast in general. Although the personal touch definitely helped, the personal experience mentioned by the host was far removed from the ‘true crime’ vibes.    

Have you heard a great podcast ad recently? Tell us about it.

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