So many people want to try to sell advertising on their podcast like radio does. PODCASTING IS NOT RADIO. Let's talk about advertising. You can get help, or you can do it yourself. Let's take a peak.

Well the problem is many people think Podcasting as if it is Radio where you might get $10-$15 per 1000 listeners. The key point is, you have to have the radio on at the time, and be listening. If not you miss it - you miss it. With podcasting that advertisement will be there tomorrow, and it will be there a year from now. People find a podcast and go back and download all the old episodes (with the advertisement). So if they think a podcast is the same as radio, they are HORRIBLY mistaken.

There are other things to consider. Will you put a link to their website on your website? Is there an image, banner, etc. You can use these to negotiate price with the potential advertiser.

YOU need to prove that you are sending the  advertiser traffic.  I recommend getting some sort of click tracking software ( Cloak and Tracker is my favorite ) so I can say "I've delivered 152 visitors to your site). An alternative is to have the advertiser set up a landing page (www.theirwebsites.com/podcast) so they can see the traffic and KNOW it came from you. You might also see if the advertiser has a way to produce a coupon or a special deal (again so they know that when this coupon was used, that customer came from your podcast). You have to provide the proof.

I am actually making more money with affiliate marketing instead of selling CPM (cost per thousand). When the visitor buys using a unique link from me, I get a commission. This works when you find the right product that matches your audience. You can find affiliate program at places like Share a Sale, and Commission Junction. You also need to make it easy to get to your affiliate link. So you can set up a subdomain on your website that redirects to your affilaite link. You can also set up an entire store if you are using Amazon.com's affiliate tools. To see this in action go to http://shop.growyourchurchshow.com (however Amazon requires a TON of traffic to make any significant money).

As for how much to charge, if you're going the CPM route, somewhere around $15 - $20 CPM is unfortunately very low, but typical (well actually a pipe dream). I feel this is because people don't understand that the advertisement is permanent (unless you go back and edit it out). This model pays the bills when you have 10,000 listeners per episode. That works for a chosen few podcasters.

Doing a quick google search on CPM pricing for radio. I found the following:

according to an August study from the IAB and Bain Capital, the average CPMs on ad networks ranged from 60 cents to $1.10

$9 CPM for a radio spot

$1-$2 per CPM
So you can see where when I say "$10-$15" per CPM, I'm already getting more than radio. The bad news is I don't have the audience of radio.

On the other side, I got a $200 affiliate check last week. If I was selling CPM at $20 (again, some would call that a fantasy) I would have had to have 10,000 downloads. As most of my podcasts have about 500 listeners that would've taken me about 5 months or $10 a show. The good news is I've been promoting this program for about two months (not five). I've done 8 shows in two months, so that means I'm getting paid $25 a show (or $50 per cpm 25/500 X 1000 - I think my math is correct)). I won't retire on this, but with affiliate marketing I make just as much (if not more) than CPM, and its ever green. I get paid whenever a visitor acts (not if the advertiser decides to renew their agreement).

Just remember if you have advertising, you are going to have to prove that you sent them traffic (if you want them to renew their advertising when it runs out).

This podcast originates at http://www.schoolofpodcasting.com