Over the years, we’ve been able to work with clients on countless course launches, membership programs, product offers — you name it. Essentially, we’ve been able to see our clients make these massive, massive moves (with the help of Facebook ads), and it’s been, quite simply, the BEST.

Lately, though — while we’ve still been doing lots of launches, memberships, and offers — we’ve also been supporting clients on their podcasts. In fact, several System Envy clients have top worldwide podcasts (casual!), and we pretty regularly get asked about podcast ads from our audience.

So, here’s to the big question we’ve been getting lately: “do podcast ads work?”

Short answer: yes. 

Long answer: let’s talk about it.

Podcast ads work if you do them right

A consistent ad strategy can lead to hundreds of thousands of clicks to and subsequent downloads of your podcast — and when they’re done right, you can typically count on a cost-per-click of under $0.10, a high clickthrough rate of 10% or more, and a cost-per-download average of around $0.60. 

And, here’s why: if you run consistent podcast ads, you’re able to boost your most valuable content in a purposeful, impactful way — leading to new listeners, a more engaged audience, and, in turn, more earnings because of that podcast of yours. Plus, you can use your podcast to align with your business offers in themselves — and use your podcast ads audiences to retarget any of your aligned offers, too.

Win, win, win.

How to build a podcast ads strategy

When you’re running ads to your podcast, there are a few things we’ve found that really do work for maximum effect:

• Keep it timely: You can reuse and re-promote old episodes, but make sure that this isn’t your focus! The more timely — AKA, new episodes, please! — the better, especially when it comes to building a highly engaged audience.
• Video works well: We really recommend recording your podcasts live, and then utilizing snippets to run ads. We’ve seen great podcast ad success by showing audiences an inside look, pulling small teaching moments, and sharing the funniest pieces of an episode. 
• Run multiples in a cycle: With our clients, we’ve noticed the biggest success — and ROI — by running multiple videos (3-4 at a time, typically) for about a weeklong cycle. Then, within that cycle, you can A/B test everything from video length to copy to see what’s really working and what’s not. 
• Keep track: There’s nothing more important (well, besides testing) than keeping track of your ads, consistently taking note of your findings, and reporting final numbers. Don’t leave this step out, okay?!

So, my podcast pals, here’s your job: run some podcast ads! They’re easy to start, low-cost to run, and maximally effective with the right strategy — and you will grow your podcast with ‘em.

Ready, go!

At System Envy, we have a lot of clients who have 2 important things:

1. A business with a successful, popular, and profitable course or product offer.
2. A personal brand that they love just as much.

Chances are, you fit in that category, too. After all, you’re not just a businessperson — you’re A HUMAN! And, the way we see it… that personal brand matters just as much.

Here’s the thing, though: likely, your personal brand and your business brand are going to have different strategies when you’re planning for a launch — and approaching them both with different strategies is key to making an impact and staying sane… especially when it comes to content planning.

So, let’s break it down.

Courses vs. personal brands: How to plan content for each.

Course content planning: Business brand So, you’re prepping to launch your course — and you’re wondering how the heck to plan the content so it’s not the same as your personal brand? I got you.

First off, you need to have an understanding of your funnel (essentially the journey from freebie to offer to checkout). What does each step look like? What do you want each click/each engagement to turn into?

Then, since you’re running a business account, you need to focus — and focus heavily — on building engagement and rapport with cold audience members. Plan content that adds serious value (freebies, educational videos, small learnings, etc.), and create a schedule that pours into those who may not be too familiar with your brand yet. (Psst — any warm audience members are going to love this, too!)

For bonus points, get personal on your business account, too. Talk about why you created this course/offer, share testimonials, and give your audience insight into the results and wins YOU have achieved from it.

Course content planning: Personal brand When you’re prepping to launch your course as a personal brand, you want to approach the strategy a little differently. However, the overarching idea is the same — to encourage people to float through your funnel and, eventually, make that big-ticket purchase.

To do this, niche your content down to the people following your personal brand who are raving fans of yours (and will, in turn, buy from you). Focus on nurturing them, adding value to them, and simply being yourself. Feel free to share freebies and educational videos, but also take the time to invite them into your life through the lens of your course — and take the time to appeal to them through that personal connection you already have.

Sound simple? That’s because, my friend, it is. If you’ve been building an engaging personal brand, you definitely have people who want to support you on it — you just have to reach them in the right way.

Also, keep your audience in mind. This is of utmost importance when you’re balancing posting about your business, but also about your life around your business. In most cases, if you feel like you’re overdoing it, you’re probably right on the money. But do consider your audience and how well you’ve trained them to hear from you while launching. Our clients have done a phenomenal job of teaching followers that we WILL be emailing and posting about offers.

For example, if you’re currently launching a course, think about the phase of your launch, and how many posts you want to make for each phase

• Webinar
• Cart Open
• Cart Close

If you create 8-10 posts for each phase, your webinar phase is a week, and your cart period is a week, then you could have the following organic content plan:

• reel with long-form copy about the benefits and learnings from the webinar/course
• image with short copy about how to join
• reel with long-form copy about your personal expertise and the results from the webinar or course learnings
• image with long-form copy sharing a sneak peek of the strategy you’ll share in your webinar or course
• personal reel about your lifestyle, learnings lately, etc. with CTA to engage in the comments (for example: “Comment below if you agree” or “Tag that person in the comments”)
• carousel with testimonial images for the course or webinar takeaways
• personal image about your life and hobbies, more casual, storytelling
• reel with b-roll footage and a thought-provoking text on image, explain the text in the caption long-form and then invite people to the webinar/course
• reel sharing answers to any objections your audience might have about joining
• personal reel about how you created the course content or webinar

This is a pretty good mix of content for your audience to digest, and not feel like they’re being overwhelmed with your offer. Keep in mind, that you should be posting consistently with your previous posting schedule. If you rarely post and then turn it into high gear during a launch, and post 3x/day, your audience miiiight notice, and not take kindly to this strategy. Post what feels right for your regular routine!

— And, there you have it — our simple tips for creating course-friendly content, regardless of a business or a personal account! As usual, remember: the key lies in testing, engaging, and adding value to your audience. In all honesty, THAT is what matters.

Do you ever feel like you’re on a constant content wheel that’s spinning and spinning (and spinning some more), only to never really go anywhere? It’s like between Instagram stories, TikToks (ugh), the ever-elusive video content, the grid posts, and the blogging, it never, ever stops.

It’s exhausting.

But, tough love here (and I’m heavy on the love part, because I feel the same way you do)… content creation is a necessary part of growing a business today. Continually pushing out (quality) content is key to helping grow your organic traffic and followers, and it also leads you toward highly engaged audiences.

Good news, though: you can take that content hamster wheel and put it to some seriously good use. I promise. Here’s how:

1. Use your content for between-launch ads!

Instead of just sending your content into the SEO and social media stratosphere (which, don’t get me wrong, you should still do!), integrate it into your ads content as well. We do this a ton over here with our clients by using IG posts and Reels as engagement ads — which keeps an audience highly engaged and helps the Ads Manager learn more about what works for your specific audience.

2. Remember that quantity > perfectionism = key to good content

There are two important things to remember when it comes to your content: original content is being prioritized by the Facebook algorithm, and ads do fatigue. Remembering those, it’s definitely easy to remind yourself of the importance of content creation – and of creating content that your audience will love, even if it’s not professionally produced or exactly as perfect as you might want it to be.

See, here’s a quick case study:

One of our clients is such a content queen, and she’s always pumping out the Reels and the content for us, which gives us SOSOSO many options for ads and allows us to continually engage her audience. With that, we have so much to pull from that our ads allow for tons of testing and have much better optimization.

On the other hand, we have a (still incredible!) client who isn’t much for posting on IG. She posts maaaaybe once a month, and we have to ask for Reels pretty often. The engagement rate isn’t as high as our other client, and it is a little trickier to test.

But…

Here’s the thing, though: This is a common problem — because creating content can really go hand in hand with a lot of perfectionism, especially as an entrepreneur. It can be so easy to never want to post or act unless something’s perfectly branded, and done. I get that, and I’ve felt it, too (like, daily).

And guess what? Perfectionism can limit your growth opportunities. Don’t do that to yourself! Instead, create content that feels good — and then TRUST in your own expertise and in your audience.

That’s all it takes.

Hamster wheel no more. 🙂 Just have fun with it, and then put it to good use!