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Bringing More to the Table

Bringing More to the Table

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Written By

Bryan Barletta

Know the Author

April 25, 2023

We're going transatlantic! The Sounds Profitable Business Leaders Summit is coming to The Podcast Show London. Partners of Sounds Profitable are invited to join us on Tuesday, May 23rd. For more details, get in touch to learn more!

At the beginning of 2023, Tom Webster and I took stock of what Sounds Profitable is and what we want it to become tomorrow. We did that right in the thick of the roughest economic point in the podcast industry to date. Our entire purpose is to educate and empower those in podcasting so that we can collectively grow the whole pie, which can be challenging in those conditions.

When Tom joined last summer, we laid out our mission statement, to set the course for the future of the audio business and we don’t take our opportunity to better this industry for granted. It’s why neutrality is critical to us, with neither Tom nor I holding equity, advisory, or board seats with any company, working on commission, or managing our family investments. It’s why we chose to remove nearly all advertising from our content. It’s the driving force behind our goals to innovate, expand, and swing for the fences.

The core of what we do will always be freely available, without signup requirements, built specifically to empower those of you who are unlikely ever to be able to expense attendance to a conference or even a paid newsletter. The managers looking to keep their team up to speed or the salespeople looking for a neutral explanation of a topic to share with a client. And, of course, the leaders of these companies, to help them see what’s next.

It’s why research became such a major focus of ours. Tom has been the face of podcast research for just about as long as podcasting has existed. But together, with partners like Signal Hill Research, we’ve been able to bring it one step further. Every single quarter we’re poised to arm each of you with the latest research that will enable you to win the business that grows podcasting not just 2x, but 10x. And it’s not solely about the research, but about the materials provided to help you bring it to life in your own sales deck effectively, without needing a research degree.

We’re a newsletter, podcast, and YouTube channel by necessity. It’s the easiest way to communicate consistently  with all of you on your terms.  But the podcast news market continues to move from reader-supported hobbyists to mass-appeal publications like Bloomberg, The Hollywood Reporter, Digiday, and more. What’s important now is understanding what to do with that information and, just as importantly, what is happening in the world of content and advertising that surrounds podcasting. And we accomplish that with the community of partners we’re building and the 1:1 time we have with each of them.

Sounds Profitable is first and foremost a research and advocacy firm. We’re partnered with nearly 130 companies whose logos you see on our website and in every article and newsletter we release because we’re proud to work with them. Those companies and all of their employees, those leaders of industry from startup to enterprise legacy companies, are who we are best positioned to grow this industry with, through the benefits we’re able to provide them as partners.

So, Tom and I agreed that our number one priority is to continue providing new benefits for our partners, existing and new, whether directly or in collaboration with other experts, to set them up for success. And today, I’m incredibly excited to announce the first of *many* new products and offerings included with partnership in Sounds Profitable: our Partner Perks Series.

Education – U of Digital

Starting today, all employees of all Sounds Profitable partners receive free access to U of Digital’s course Buying Programmatically plus 20% off of all digital courses on their site. If you’re not familiar with U of Digital, I’m genuinely one of their biggest fans. Founded in 2018 by Shiv Gupta, the company has been focused on making “[…]the digital marketing industry better through credible, digestible, and applicable education,” which aligns incredibly well with our goals at Sounds Profitable.

While their course, How Digital Media is Bought and Sold, is completely free on their site (and I highly recommend you check it out), I spoke with Shiv about the growing focus on programmatic and video in podcasting. We agreed on the opportunity we both have to educate those working today in podcasting not just on the podcasting space but again on the industries and technologies that are starting to overlap with ours. This led to Shiv offering our first Partner Perk, truly kicking off this series.

And for those playing at home, you might have noticed that over the years we’ve tried different forms of structured educational content from Sounds Profitable and haven’t fully released any of it. Turns out that’s incredibly difficult work that requires a series of truly skilled individuals to bring to life. While I’m not quite at liberty to explain more, know that this is just the start of the collaboration between Sounds Profitable and U of Digital.

Entertainment – REALM

While podcasting has grown as an industry, I still think that it’s a small enough space that those who work here likely enjoy podcasts. On the business side, we skip over that a bit. Sure, we all have our specific shows and dive into new shows, but it can be all too easy to just listen to industry content.

This leads us to our second perk: 2 months free of their subscription service, REALM Unlimited, and 15% off all merchandise. 

REALM is a fiction podcast and audiobook company with their extensive catalog of original content, a growing network filled with amazing new voices, and their own app. I highly recommend our partners check out this perk, not just for the great content (Orphan Black!) but also to try out a network-specific podcast player and experience the consumer side of subscribing to a podcast which a staggering amount of you have not experienced yet!

Events – Sounds Profitable

At Podcast Movement Evolutions we launched our Sounds Profitable Business Lounge, a semi-private space made exclusively available for partners of Sounds Profitable and their guests to hold meetings without having to leave the expo hall. The lounge was such a huge success that we’ve signed on with Podcast Movement to host our lounge in Denver this year and both of Podcast Movements 2024 events.

This isn’t a replacement for our quarterly live events, something we continue to be focused on holding at or around events where the buy/demand side of advertising can easily attend. Instead, it’s a perk to ensure that our partners have the space they need to conduct business without leaving the expo hall or sitting at the coffee shop in the lobby.

And speaking of quarterly events, our collaboration with Podcast Show London is right around the quarter, so if you’re attending, let us know.

Wrapping It Up

Our goal at Sounds Profitable is to work with every single company in the industry. I mean it, we can make time to support all of you. Each partner you see on our site benefits from our monthly consulting, our digital and live events, our content, and more. We see ourselves as an augment to groups like the IAB, ANA, and more, by participating in them as members and pushing for the progress that drives podcasting further into the mainstream. We’re connector and facilitators here to benefit everyone.

As we rapidly approach our three year anniversary in September, we have a sizable amount of announcements that we’re excited to share. They range from products to services to resources and more, all built to benefit every partner we work with, truly putting the more powerful tools and information directly into all of their hands. They’re collaborations with some of the biggest names in the industry, to share what they’ve learned in a tangible form. Most importantly, they’re built just for you.

In our soft launch, we received a good number of submissions for Partner Perks, all of which Tom and I vet directly. We’d love to hear your pitch and consider featuring them in upcoming issues of Sounds Profitable.

And, if you’re an employee at any company partnered with Sounds Profitable and want to take advantage of any of these perks, hit reply so we can get you set up on our Slack channel and have those codes sent your way.

We’d truly love to have you onboard.

New Partners

Sounds Profitable exists thanks to the continued support of our amazing partners. Monthly consulting, free tickets to our quarterly events, partner-only webinars, and access to our 500+ person slack channel are all benefits of partnering Sounds Profitable.

  • FM13 works with podcasters and advertisers to distribute podcast video beyond YouTube to blue chip web sites and streaming channels driving scale, engagement, and improved attribution.
  • Founded in 2021 by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, Project Brazen is a global journalism studio creating podcasts, documentaries as well as TV and film.

Want to learn more about partnership? Hit reply or send us an email!

About the author

Bryan Barletta (He/Him) is the founder of Sounds Profitable, and a widely-cited expert in adtech, sales, and monetization of podcasting. He founded Sounds Profitable in 2020 after a successful career working with some of the leading companies in advertising technology, including AdTheorent, Claritas, and Megaphone. Barletta helped to design some of the tools in use by podcast platforms today for attribution, measurement, and serving audio ads, and uses that expertise to help clients and sponsors get the most from their sales and advertising efforts. He founded Sounds Profitable initially as a platform to help educate persons working in the podcast industry about advertising and sales technology, but has since expanded the brand to become the industry’s premiere source for education, advocacy, and insights designed to grow the entire space. He is an avid gamer and father of two boys, neither of whom have their own podcast, yet.

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The Ad Bargain

For 2024, Sounds Profitable will once again lead the industry in producing research studies designed to help grow the podcasting space and increase monetization opportunities. The year kicks off very aggressively with what will be sure to be a widely-cited study, The Ad Bargain. The Ad Bargain is a broad, cross-platform survey of American consumers and their attitudes toward various ad-supported media channels. The title references the “deal” consumers make when they watch or listen to ad-supported media: a few minutes of their attention to brands, in exchange for free access to content they love. Podcasting has historically been the best “bargain” for consumers AND brands, with attention, willingness to consider, purchase behavior, and positive perceptions for companies that sponsor podcasts leading amongst other ad-supported media. This study will reflect the current state of the perception of ads in podcasts compared to CTV, social media, and other platforms.

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