Podcast Advertising in Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)
Which podcast advertising data Sellforte uses, at what grain, and how to deliver it.
Introduction
Podcast advertising places paid audio messages in podcast episodes, usually bought through a publisher, a network or an agency. No single platform holds this data in a standard form, so Sellforte models podcasts as their own media channel based on the spend and delivery data you provide. This article describes what the dataset covers, which fields Sellforte needs and how to deliver them.
What this dataset covers
The dataset covers paid ad placements in podcast episodes across shows, networks and agencies. Each placement is reported with its cost and the audience it delivered. Audio advertising bought as radio or digital radio belongs in its own dataset.
Grain and sample
Each row represents one placement: one campaign on one show on one air date. Spend and delivery are booked to the date the ad aired. Sellforte needs the data on a daily level. If only flight totals are available, deliver the start date and the end date of the flight.
| date | campaign name | advertising channel | ad platform | country | currency code | media investment | media investment gross | impressions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-03 | Spring Offer | Show A | Network A | DE | EUR | 1 800.00 | 2 400.00 | 21 500 |
| 2025-03-05 | Spring Offer | Show B | Network A | DE | EUR | 950.00 | 1 200.00 | 9 800 |
| 2025-03-10 | Spring Offer | Show C | Network B | DE | EUR | 2 200.00 | 2 750.00 | 30 400 |
Dimensions
| Field | Importance | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Must-have | Air date of the placement. All data needs to be on a daily level. |
| End date | Important | Needed only when no daily level data is available, to place a flight on the calendar. |
| Campaign type | Important | Maps modeled results to campaign types such as brand, seasonal, sale or product launch. |
| Media type | Important | Maps modeled results to media types. |
| Media group | Important | Maps modeled results to media groups. |
| Media channel | Important | Maps modeled results to media channels. |
| Account name | Optional | Confirms that the right accounts are included in the data. |
| Country | Optional | Required if each country is modeled separately. |
| Campaign ID | Optional | Used to map campaigns. |
| Campaign name | Optional | Shows campaign details in the Sellforte interface. |
| Ad platform | Optional | The publisher or network that sold the placement. Shows media details in the interface. |
| Advertising channel | Optional | The show or title the ad ran on. Shows media details in the interface. |
| Advertised product | Optional | Needed to create strong links between marketing activity and sales of a product. |
| Target audience | Optional | Used to target and validate investments. |
| Spot length | Optional | Needed to analyze the impact of different spot lengths. |
| Format | Optional | Needed to analyze the impact of different ad formats. |
| Currency code | Optional | Validates investments. Needed for ROI calculation if several currencies are used. |
Metrics
| Field | Importance | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Media investment | Must-have | Net cost of the placement. Modeling metric, and needed for ROI calculation. |
| Impressions | Must-have | Delivered impressions or downloads as reported by the podcast measurement provider. Modeling metric. |
| Media investment gross | Important | Gross cost before discounts. The preferred modeling metric, because gross investment reflects the market price of the media. |
| Conversions | Optional | Conversions reported by the measurement provider, when available. Used to validate a maximum cap for modeled results. |
How Sellforte receives the data
Podcast Advertising data is delivered through customer-managed delivery. See Sellforte supported data delivery methods for the available routes.
Customer-managed delivery
Podcast data is usually assembled from the media plan or the publisher invoices, which give dates, shows, networks and cost, and from the measurement provider's delivery report, which gives impressions or downloads. Deliver one row per placement at the grain shown in the sample, with the fields in the Dimensions and Metrics tables. If a placement is invoiced as a flight rather than per episode, deliver the start and end date. Add currency code, account name and the media channel value used for podcasts as constant columns. Sellforte's offline data template contains these fields as ready-made columns.
Keep the definition of spend the same through the whole history, and spell show and network names the same way every time so that a show is recognized as one.