The following is an interview with Sounds Profitable’s Bryan Barletta and Robert Tuchman, co-founder of Amaze Media Labs, conducted after the release of the Publisher Data Transparency feature for podcast growth platform AudienceLift.com (owned by Amaze Media Labs).
The text has been edited for clarity.
Bryan Barletta: Will this new transparency feature will be included in all campaigns?
Robert Tuchman: I am super excited about this feature as it has been something our clients have been asking for since we launched AudienceLift. This feature will be available on all campaign investments of $2,500 or more. Clients will now receive full visibility into which publishers their show’s trailer is being advertised across. For smaller spend campaigns the feature won’t yet be included by default, as we roll it out and work to scale it. We wanted to make sure that when the transparency is provided, the data is robust and meaningful, so we set that threshold to ensure we’re delivering value rather than partial or incomplete information.
I think this really is a game changer to be able to now let our clients know exactly where their downloads are being driven from and what sites combined with our technology seem to work best for their specific podcasts. As I mentioned we took this past year and built this out because most of our clients have always asked “where exactly is my show being promoted?” and we felt that to answer that credibly, we needed to include the feature in campaigns of a size where we can guarantee the process, data verification, and value are all optimized. It is exciting.
Bryan Barletta: Is there an added cost for podcasters to use the Publisher Data Transparency? In other words, if I opt in to see the full placements, do I pay extra for that feature?
Robert Tuchman: No, absolutely no additional cost for our clients. We believe transparency is a baseline expectation, not an upsell and something that is needed as we grow. When you run a campaign with AudienceLift, the Publisher Data Transparency will be included as part of the overall service. We are definitely not charging a premium for it. It’s part of our commitment to give creators trust and confidence in how their audience is being built. This is a big feature for us and is now a core part of our product. As I believe trust is the foundation of growth especially in our industry. Providing the publisher breakdown is just one but one important part of how we build that trust.
Bryan Barletta: Will podcasters see every single publisher name in which their ads ran?
Robert Tuchman: Great question. That’s a really important point, and the honest answer is: we will disclose placements where the publisher has allowed themselves to be identified and the traffic is positively matched and verified. If this is real transparency we need to give the podcaster a clear list of “confirmed placements” on the highest-traffic publishers. That said, there will be scenarios where a publisher chooses to hide their data or the placement cannot yet be completely verified. In these cases we would never force the name to appear as “unknown.” You will not see generic “unknown publisher” listings. You will only see a meaningful, verified breakdown of where the campaign was delivered.
Bryan Barletta: How do you vet the sources that are running placements?
Robert Tuchman: Our verification process is a two-fold process. All the traffic generated from your campaign is coming through our programmatic ad exchanges, the same ones used by many premium digital publishers. We capture publisher IDs, domain IDs, and we match them to our internal list of brand-safe and premium publishers. We then filter that traffic through our “positive match” criteria. This means the publisher matches our verified inventory source, the domain or publisher ID is confirmed, and the ad unit is valid. We also leverage bot-protection and fraud-detection via Cloudflare to ensure that it’s a real person seeing the ad. This has always been a major part of why AudienceLift has been successful with clients. The best part is from a podcaster’s perspective, you’re no longer in the dark about “where” your show’s trailer ran. The publishers we show you are those that passed our verification criteria and chose not to hide their identity. That gives our clients a reliable signal of placement quality. We plan to continuously refinine the verification pipeline to support more transparency over time.
Bryan Barletta: Finally: What is the goal of sharing this kind of placement information with podcasters? How do you expect it to help those looking to grow their audience?
Robert Tuchman: This is all about confidence and clarity. It is paramount for our industry at this time. For podcasters, running a growth campaign can feel like a bit of a leap of faith sometimes. You are trusting someone else to advertise your show, deliver listeners, and help expand your audience. But unless you really know where your trailer is being seen, you can’t gauge the quality of that audience or the value of the placement. By sharing a verified breakdown of the publishers, especially when many of ours include household names like Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Politico, and others then the podcaster gets a meaningful view into placement quality. Also not to leave out from a strategic viewpoint when you know your audience is being reached on top-tier, brand-safe publishers, you can be more aggressive and more confident in scaling your campaigns. You’re not just buying “some ad impressions,” you’re investing in known placements that reflect your specific demographic and brand-safe environments you want for your show. The best part is that this all supports better listener growth, better engagement, and better ROI for podcasters.
