Comment by prions | Hacker News Reader

Comment by prions | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I work in this space (podcast ads) and the podcast ads tech maturity is years behind other media, like video, due to RSS. This lag is also reflected in that advertisers generally spend less on podcasting.

RSS makes it very difficult to measure the performance of an ad. Most players in this space wrap a publishers hosted podcast link with their own tracking link, and the main metric of engagement is a download. Downloads themselves are a pretty crude measurement and don’t hold up to something like minutes watched/listened.

Placing ads into the audio directly also just isn’t as performant as streaming it into the media like in video. Publishers and advertisers want more fine grained control over where the ad is placed, when it’s placed, and how it’s consumed by the listener. Podcast ads currently don’t deliver on that.

> podcast ads tech maturity is years behind

... and? From the perspective of whom?

> Publishers and advertisers want more fine grained control over where the ad is placed, when it’s placed, and how it’s consumed by the listener.

There you go.

Ad tech is behind when it comes to podcasts? Who fucking cares. Not the audience. Podcast advertising is the closest thing to traditional broadcast ads for TV and radio—when ads were still inert instead of sentient. There's not a damn person on this side of the divide that sees the things you mention as being a significant downside. Not having the self-awareness to realize it is pure déformation professionnelle; this entire comment reads like a burglar lamenting the fact that people keeping their money in the bank instead of at home under their mattresses makes it harder to break in and take it.

The podcasters care? Because if the advertisers can't quantify ROI and audience, then they're less likely to spend their money with you, and your potential revenue is capped.

You, like the previous commenter, are stating the obvious. What's mystifying is the general tone suggesting that what either of you are saying is supposed to be insightful.

The link I think you’re missing is the strong impact podcaster revenue has on what podcasts are produced and the audience that consumes them.

If that's an argument you want to make, then perhaps you should make it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com