Overcast

Hey guys, I wanted to share our experience with advertising on Overcast and Podcast Addict for August 2021. Hopefully this can help people with their own decisions regarding in-app ads.

For context, we run a gaming website called Goodnight Groofs that currently has 2 podcasts:

1. GG Replay is fully centered around gaming news and comes out 3 days a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday).

2. Game Groofs features more in-depth gaming discussions (not necessarily news), trivia, and mini-games. It's a weekly show.

We decided to go with GG Replay for our advertising effort because we felt as though it was an easier sell (the idea of gaming news is pretty straightforward), and it already had a large backlog of episodes since it's 3 days a week (we started in mid-June).

Both ads were in the leisure category. Our Overcast ad cost $240, and our Podcast Addict ad cost $215. From what I can tell, that's about as low as you'll see in the leisure category for Overcast. We caught it at a good time, price-wise.

Expectations: Overcast tells you that you can expect somewhere around 400-600 taps and 30-35 subscriptions. Meanwhile, Podcast Addict predicts 1,000-1,500 taps and 20-70 subscriptions. Obviously these aren't guarantees, but we were very excited at the idea of even coming close to these numbers.

Here's how things broke down for us:

RESULTS | Views| Taps| Subs

• | - | - | - Overcast | 82,255 | 609 (0.74%) | 24 (3.94%) Podcast Addict | 418,813 | 345 (0.08%) | 8 (2.32%) Total | 501,068 | 954 (0.19%) | 32 (3.35%)

We were pretty disappointed, especially with the Podcast Addict results.

With Overcast, we exceeded the expected results for taps, but were a bit short in expected subs. That's fine, I can deal with that. At least people were taking a look. I know our cover art isn't the best in the world, but I thought it was enough to catch some eyes, and I think that the tap numbers here backed that up.

With Podcast Addict, however, we fell way below the expected number of taps, and our sub count obviously suffered as well. In fact, with Podcast Addict, we were hanging around 1 or 2 subs for most of the month up until the end. It was incredibly disheartening, and felt like a total waste of money.

Would we do this again? Maybe, but it would have to be for the right price, and we'd probably only do it on Overcast. Right now, we're definitely looking into other avenues for marketing.

Please feel free to ask about anything I didn't cover in this post.

We decided to buy an ad for our show on the Overcast app. This was our experience, though presumably results may vary.

Category: TV & Film

Price: $350

The estimated performance of the ad for this category is 800-1000 taps and 60-75 subscriptions over the course of the campaign (30 days). The ad is a small rectangle within the app that leads to our show in their app. Our thumbnail was our podcast logo, and our copy read "Reviewing literally every major film release of the 1980's in real-time as they turn 40!"

7/30

• 5:06PM: Notified slot was available by email.

• 5:35PM: Submitted text and bought and the ad.

• 6:18PM: Ad was approved and began circulating. Views almost immediately.

• 10:20PM: First tap.

7/31

• 9:35AM: First sub.

8/29

• 5:02PM: Notified of campaign expiration.

8/30

• 1:11PM: Last sub. (Campaign has continued running about 48 hours past the end of the campaign)

Within an hour, it was already getting views. We got our first tap at around 86 views and our first sub around 1138 views and 18 taps. All the numbers and graphs related to our results are available . The provided daily stats are a snapshot of our results at noonish each day.

Conclusion:

The campaign was advertised as a way to bring in a (non-guaranteed) low-end estimate of 60 subscribers at an average cost of $5.83 per subscriber. We exceeded that estimate with 119 subs, managing an average cost of (350 / 119 =) $2.94 per subscriber. Therefore, I would say the campaign was worth what we paid for it. Based on their pricing system, whenever a slot becomes available in a category, it starts above the previous sale price and then after two days, comes down in price each day until it is sold. I would recommend this service for anyone in a position to spend this much on an ad looking to kickstart their listenerbase early in the life of their podcast. Keep in mind that results may vary and the provided results don't account for people who subbed and, soon after, unsubbed. There are no stats for subscriber retention over the life of the campaign, but we have seen a general increase in our weekly download numbers above and beyond the organic growth we were seeing at the start of the campaign.

I hope this is helpful to anyone.

Next Up: Podcast Addict Ad (as soon as I can talk my wife into spending more money on the show).

Hi, I am using the latest version of Overcast. When I put episodes into my Overcast queue, and then close the app, and then re-open the app, the number of episodes decrease. I have the option in settings set to manually delete Episodes. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this same problem, and if you have, what if any work around you have had or if any solutions you have come across. I have attempted to email, and tried to get a hold of the developer, with no luck. Thank you for any help.

Hello all, I’m a Stitcher refugee (I guess) and I’m having trouble setting up my daily morning news playlist.

On stitcher, I had a set of news podcasts in a specific order that would only download/play the newest episode of each podcast, and skip a podcast if it didn’t have a new episode.

On Overcast, I have my playlist, and I have it set up in the specific order, but I’m running into an issue where it’ll keep playing the next unlistened episode from the same podcast, even if it’s old. This doesn’t happen all the time, though, so I haven’t been able to catch it or anything. I just really miss getting to wake up and press play and not have to build a playlist or babysit the app while I’m still waking up and dealing with coffee. A couple are afternoon news, but I listen to them the next day in the same lineup.

I really like everything else about Overcast, but my morning news lineup is important to me so I’m hoping I just have to tweak my settings. My current settings are:

Include All Episodes

Sort Newest to Oldest

Included podcasts in a random order

Priority podcasts in my desired listening order

I went from using Apple’s problematic podcast app, to Overcast, for the main reason that Apple Podcasts could not recall my timestamp between devices. Overcast worked perfectly. It never fails.

I recently read in this sub that some are still having that problem with Apple Podcasts. Given its long history with issues, I’m wondering why Apple can’t just hire Marco Arment, Overcast’s sole developer, and pay him a few mill to fix their app.

What does he know that an entire team of software engineers doesn’t? Or does the issue have to do with scale?

I’m not sure when this started happening but it’s really annoying.

When I have finished listening to the latest episode of a podcast, Overcast will immediately attempt to download the next (older) episode that I haven’t listened to. In this instance, I don’t want Overcast to download anything until a new episode is made available.

Anyone have any idea how to do that?

Without changing anything (including not upgrading the Apple OS version, or the version of Overcast which is the latest) my podcasts have stopped loading. When I poke around, I get an "Sorry, Overcast's sync service returned an error" message. I've tried the following: shutting down and restarting the app itself, the phone itself (each a few times). I have plenty of memory left although there are too many podcasts downloaded but that is my own issue.

For me, the issue started this morning (2/6/23).

Ideas? Suggestions?

Much appreciation in advance.

I’ve used Overcast app for years on iPhone and love the features. For months now the app for me is very sluggish and less than responsive when doing simple things like navigating and play/pausing to the point I prefer Spotify or even Apple Podcasts app. I spend a lot of time stuck with just a white screen and overcast logo while it’s doing something in the background. It’s to the point where the time savings of smart speed aren’t worth the time I spend battling the unresponsive app.

I deleted all downloads and blew away some rather long playlists but it didn’t seem to help much. Anyone experience this and have suggestions? Thanks.

Intro - Why a Castro Pocketcasts user started looking into Overcast

I have been a long time user of Castro, and while it started to show signs of decay, I have also been using Pocketcasts as an alternative. I am not sure Castro will ever recover. Next to the several outages, I also noticed that podcasts don't become available as fast as on other players. It has been mentioned new owners for the apps are being searched, but who knows, tomorrow it might be gone for good. So I am looking into alternatives, naturally.

Pocketcasts is quite close in functionality to Castro, but somehow I just don't feel comfortable with it. It is small things: they switched ownership several times, they suddenly increased their yearly subscription fee big times!, not being able to easily delete / archive the current playing episode in "Up Next", all the UI elements are relatively small, it doesn't really feel native to iOS.

I also looked into other podcasts players mentioned here on Reddit, but quickly abandoned them, at least for now (Airshow - no trim silence, interface not suitable for one handed use, Podurama - completely overwhelmed by the UI, there's so much going on, I don't see how to quickly pick and play my favorite episodes, to be fair, I had the same with Overcast initially, more on that later, so maybe I need to give it a try in the future).

On the other hand, when I started to look into Overcast, there was a certain magic around the app. No big corporation, but one devoted developer, , who pays attention to the smallest of details! When I read Marco's and other forum posts about how he designed and perfected smart speed and , and how he , my heart suddenly went wild. Marco also really . This is the kind of perfectionism that I am looking for in something as intimate as my podcast app. An app that accompanies me several hours a day usually. I don't see that any other podcast player puts so much thought into audio quality, and the effects might be subtle, but just enough to make a difference between the audio being clearly audible and understandable or not, while remaining time efficient.

Now, I downloaded Overcast several times before, but always gave up, as I just didn't see how to do even the simplest things (in the eyes of someone coming from Castro / Pocketcasts). But this time I decided to force my way through until I at least understand how it is supposed to work.

As there is no explanation, manual, guided tour or best practices that I could find, the first steps in Overcast were very, very painful for me.

How to use Overcast as a Castro / Pocketcasts replacement

So how is Overcast different from Casto / Pocketcasts. Well, Castro and Pocketcasts work with filters on your entire podcasts library (the Inbox in Castro), where you select episodes for listening by sending them to the Queue (Castro) or Up Next (Pocketcasts). You listen to your podcasts playing this queue. There is no other way to listen.

In Overcast however, everything is playlist based. You organize your podcasts by playlists. and you play from those playlists. What makes it even more confusing for someone coming from another podcast app is that there is a default playlist called "Queue", but it does not at all behave like the queues in Castro / Pocketcast.

There is a couple of default playlists:

• All episodes - basically a list of all episodes of your podcasts, sorted the way that you want to (old to new, new to old). Be careful that Overcast distinguishes between "current" and "all" episodes within a podcast. Especially when you import from another player, you could find less episodes than you would expect. In that case, go to the podcast and "add them back to current" (to be honest, it's still a bit of a mystery to me what makes an episode 'current'? I don't see a clear indicator)

• In Progress - podcasts you have started listening to

• Queue - this is just an ordinary playlist that in the beginning is empty. What makes it special, is that there are buttons / swipe actions to quickly send episodes to this playlist. I think the "Queue" has been created to enable users that come from apps like Castro / Pocketcasts to configure a similar workflow (again, no real explanation anywhere to be found)

• Downloaded / Starred - can be added, I don't use them

In the beginning I started with importing my podcasts. I have around 120 podcasts in my library. Most of them release episodes regularly. Some podcasts I want to listen to EVERY episode, but many I would go through my inbox and decide whether to add them to the queue or not. I also don't bother to delete episodes that I want to skip, I just always work from the top of the filters. I have a few podcasts that are more like a serial that can be listened to out of daily context. To be honest, neither in Castro nor Pocketcasts there is an easy way to listen to those separately independent of your Queue. But Overcast is perfect for that, as you can just create a playlist and play it entirely independent of your daily queue whenever you feel like it. Clear advantage Overcast here!

After the import I could find recent episodes in the "All episodes" playlist. However, I was used to having filters for specific interests, like technology podcasts, football etc. So I set up playlists for this.

You can select for a playlist which podcasts to include, how to sort the list, and even if there is a podcast with priority, you can set this one to be always on top. Also, for every playlist there are settings for episodes to include or exclude.

So then? How do we get episodes into the Queue? In Castro or Pocketcasts, when you start playing any episode, it gets automatically added to the Queue. So this is what I did. But the Queue remained empty. This was the most confusing. I was looking and looking - how does Overcast know what to play if the Queue is empty? Well, it is simply playing the podcasts in the playlist that you play from! Duuuh! One by one.

So how to get the episodes into the Queue? Here is where it starts to get confusing even more. In Pocketcasts/Castro these would be clearly labeled, easily accessible actions, but in Overvast….

• (Most accessible, but not always working) You can swipe right an episode and there is a purple button that acts as "Play next" that will move the episode to a position where it will be played next. That means, depending on which playlist you're currently playing, that could be the Queue playlist if you're playing from it, or it could be any other playlist. I think that is a really difficult design choice as it makes the action of the button a bit unpredictable. But actually it does what it says, it ensures this episode is played next, whatever the playlist context. (Note that you can see the current playlist being played in the homescreen, it will have a thick border line as indicator)

• You can also tap an episode which will reveal a lot of buttons, and this is where it gets complicated (and there is no explanation for this that I could find, so it involves a lot of trial and error)

• Play next, same as the swipe action button

• Play last, opposite of Play next

• Add to queue - this one will always add the episode to the bottom of the queue

• Move to queue - same as Add to queue, but it will also remove it from the current playlist (what it actually does it set an episode exclusion on the playlist - and only this playlist! so if the episode is present on multiple playlists, the other ones will still contain it, which can also be confusing at first)

• (And even Add to .. Move to … which could also be potentially used to send it to the queue)

Well, now that I understood those actions, I was at least able to fill the Overcast Queue with episodes, albeit, it is much more cumbersome than in Pocketcasts or Castro. It involves more clicks, and you can send to the top of the Queue only when actually playing the Queue using the "Play Next" actions.

I don't see any use for the "Move to Queue" action. But what I am missing is an indication that an episode is already in the Queue. So when I am going through my playlists that I use for filtering, I don't easily see what is already in the Queue.

The next thing that is quite different in Overcast, when you go to the Queue, and you start deciding on which episode to play, it will stay in position in the playlist. In Castro of Pocketcasts, it would be automatically moved to the top of the Queue, which I think is the most logical thing to do, for a Queue. So if I want to retain the rest of the order, I would have to manually move the episode to the top.

Another thing, we can easily mark an episode as played or delete it from the Queue, but then the playback stops. I would expect it to swiftly play on from the next episode in the queue.

Luckily, I could implement another important feature, my absolutely not must miss podcasts should always be at the top of the Queue when released. Simply add them as priority podcasts to the playlist:

You can also see how the Queue really just is another Overcast playlist heavily making use of the "Additional Episodes" playlist setting.

Other noteworthy things: As mentioned earlier, I was able to make a playlist with serial type of podcasts that are mostly older and should be listened to episode by episode. Just add them to an extra playlist, sort by podcasts, oldest to newest, and done! Can't do that in Pocketcasts / Castro. I could imagine creating playlists for other purposes too, like meditation, sleep podcasts etc.

Also, at the bottom of the Overcast homescreen there is a "Recent / Current / Archived / All" section. These are all different views on your podcast library. I have too many podcasts that I don't interact with any of them on an individual basis, but when I need to look one up, I need to go there. This is also the easiest way to go to the settings per podcast, to set for example how many episodes should be kept, whether to receive notifications etc.

For my global settings, I have set all podcasts to use streaming as I don't want Overcast to download any episodes outside my Queue. Actually I am missing an option on a playlist basis to decide that episodes should be downloaded, which I could activate for the "Queue" playlist, and maybe Serial, but definitely not for the "All Episodes" playlist. In Castro there is an option to download queued episodes, in Pocketcasts for the "Up Next". So for Overcast, I only set my priority podcasts to download automatically. I could also imagine an option to "Download on play".

I also set episodes to be deleted when played. If set to 24 hours after completion, then the episodes would remain in the Queue after being played. This is also much different from Castro / Pocketcasts. If something is played there, it just disappears out of your sight, even though the download could still remain.

What could be improved in Overcast to make it a warmer place for Castro refugees?

I think this summarizes my efforts to implement Castros / Pocketcasts inbox mechanisms. And I appreciate the effort to try to provide similar functionality. But I think if Marco really wants to , Queue has to become more of a first class citizen in Castro rather than an afterthought. Even a few simple changes could already achieve that, without disrupting "classic" Overcast users:

• Make it easier to add items to the Queue, TOP or BOTTOM, e.g. by providing customizable swipe actions that we could set to send / move to bottom / top of queue (instead of only play next)

Compare with the clear actions in Castro (tap) / Pocketcasts (swipe)

• provide an option to automatically move an episode to the top of the playlist when it is being played, this ensures we can keep the priorities in the queue and prevents unnecessary manual sorting all the time. Alternatively, there is a global nitpicky option to play Top episode next, if this was a per playlist option, maybe it could also serve (I wouldn't want to set it globally, as this would disrupt the serial playlist) (and I much prefer the direct visible effect of an episode moving in the list to some magic toggle based hidden behavior change)

• when deleting the currently playing episode from the playlist, just keep playing the next episode (I am starting to think this is probably just a bug, why would anyone ever have this as default behavior?)

• provide a clear indicator when an episode is in the queue

Again, let's compare with Pocketcasts:

Castro doesn't have an indicator but moves episodes in the Queue out of any filter. I think it is more difficult to do with Overcast because then there would have to be an exclusion added to any playlist that contains the episode, which sounds complicated to me. Indicator is simple and effective and doesn't disrupt the current Overcast mechanisms.

• add an per playlist option to download episodes in the playlist (which would make sense to always be set on Queue)

Outro

For now, I think I like the audio improvements and the idea behind the project so much that I will try to use Overcast for a longer period of time. I also already subscribed for a year to support the project. I hope these kinds of apps can sustain and provide an alternative to Spotify / Youtube / Apple podcasts mainstream apps with much less options and configurability.

I would be curious to know what other Castro / Pocketcasts users think, and I am also curious if some longtime Overcast users can point me to features / options that I missed that would help improve the workflow. One thing I have learned for sure, Overcast is an app that you really have to invest in.

I’ve enjoyed the Overcast app but it it gotten progressively slower and slower to load or respond to play/pause. I’ve tried deleting removing podcasts that I no longer follow but it doesn’t seem to fix the issue. Is it just me having this issue ?

This is a really cool feature that I hope becomes industry standard. Sharing small, digestible clips from podcasts has always been a pain. I just tested the feature and it works really well.

Thoughts?

I realise this is a bit of a niche question, so I'm not expecting much of a response, but if you don't ask...

I have an elderly iPhone (6 Plus) that Apple no longer provides iOS updates for, so Overcast finally stopped working recently because it's no longer compatible since the last update.

I've tried different podcast apps over the years and didn't like any of them except Overdrive, so I'm trying this shortcut of getting a recommendation if possible.

Does anyone also have a phone as old as mine (iOS 12.5.7) that reliably runs a podcast app that you could recommend? Or just general recommendations of podcast apps that you think are similar (in look and feel) to Overcast so I have somewhere to start when searching the App Store?

Thanks. (and yes, I'll be buying a new phone soon!)

On iOS. iPhone 13 Pro.

ISSUE 1

I'd like a view of all the new (I guess it's a dynamic playlist in Overcast?) episodes from all my subscribed podcasts in chronological order. Essentially a "what's new" or "new releases" view that every other podcast app has.

I can do that by creating a playlist with the following settings:

• INCLUDE: ALL EPISODES

• SORT: NEWEST TO OLDEST

Boom, this is what I want. The problem is it only shows me 16 recent episodes. That's not even two weeks worth of podcasts that I've missed. I'd like to view at least a month, perhaps two, or even 3 or just an infinite scroll back in time.

Why is this?

Here's a video:

ISSUE 2

Is there a setting to adjust the font? All of the playlist text is BOLD. And when everything is bold, nothing is bold:

It makes it difficult to read. An example of a more readable list of episodes (and one that goes back in time more than 16 episodes):

I feel like this view could benefit from a tighter list.

----

I like the idea of Overcast being developed by an individual so I'd like to stick with it if possible. If not, other suggestions of podcast apps that allow playlists and have a readable "New Releases" list would be great.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Wrong Hole

Hey everyone!

We sometimes get posts in this sub asking about the value of advertising, so I wanted to share my recent experience with running an ad. At the top, I want to say that I’m not receiving anything in return for this; it’s a completely unsolicited review.

We (my co-hosts and I) looked at a bunch of different options, and ultimately decided to run an ad on Overcast.fm. The factors that went into our decision were a balance of price, reach, what kind of ad we could run, and what the process was like. I won’t get into the details of all that, as it’s very subjective, so our situation will likely differ from yours.

tl;dr: Buying the ad was quick and easy, the price wasn’t awful (but could have been better), the ad performed better than expected, and (as far as we can tell) most of the people who subscribed still listen.

Buying an Ad

The process of creating and buying the ad was really quick and simple. On , there’s a table that shows all of the available podcast categories, how much it currently costs to run an ad in that category, how much inventory is available, and some estimated performance statistics.

Just click on the price for the category you want, find your podcast (your show needs to appear in Apple Podcasts), customize your ad (if you want to), and then purchase the ad. Like I said, the process is simple and it only takes a few minutes.

Variable Pricing

You’ll notice I said “current” costs earlier. The price of an ad in any given category fluctuates based on popularity. It’s an interesting system, and how it works is explained toward the bottom of the ads page.

If you aren’t in a hurry, you may want to take a few months to watch how the pricing for your given category fluctuates so you can save some money. I haven’t been watching closely, but some categories seem to be chronically expensive.

Inventory is another factor to consider, although somewhat less important. Overcast runs a limited number of ads in each category, so if your desired category is popular, you’ll need to buy your ad before the inventory sells out. There's an opportunity for a bit of strategy here, though, as buying in a category with more available inventory could potentially yield more impressions.

Ads run for 30 days from the date of purchase.

Overcast gives you an estimate of how many taps and subscriptions you can expect. They’re not guaranteed, of course, and a lot of your success depends on how well you’ve designed your ad.

Designing Your Ad

I’m using the term “design” loosely here, as the only thing you can change is the text description. You have a limited number of characters, so you’ll want to make the most impact in the available space. Play with your wording and update the ad preview frequently.

There’s a limit of 99 characters, but you will almost certainly use fewer, as character width is really the deciding factor. For example, I can fit the capital letter W in the ad a maximum of 42 times (with a space or carriage return in the middle), but I can fit the capital letter I in the ad 99 times (again, with a space or carriage return in there) and still have room to spare. So you may need to tweak your wording in order to fit the message you want.

Here’s what we came up with:

The ad looks rather underwhelming, huh? But since the ad only runs in the Overcast.fm app, you’re stuck playing in their sandbox.

The Results

We were curious how effective it would be. Our goal was to create intrigue and a desire to find out more.

Overcast gives you very basic performance statistics: Total views, taps, and subscriptions. In the TV & Film category, we were told to expect 650-1,000 taps and 30-40 subs. After over 167k total views, we ended up with 1,214 taps and 49 subs.

Was It Worth It?

We ran the ad in 2022 from September 21 to October 22. In the short term, we saw a large spike during the time the ad was running, which (unsurprisingly) dropped back down in the months following… But not as far down as before we ran the ad. Interestingly, the largest download spike came after the ad had stopped running.

In the months before we ran the ad, we were averaging about 140 downloads. In the month of October, we had over 300 downloads. Since then, we’ve averaged about 205 downloads per month.

It’s worth noting that starting in September of 2022, we switched from releasing an episode every week, to releasing an episode every other week.

In the period of time ranging from Day 1 of the podcast through the day before running the ad, Overcast made up just 3% of our total downloads. During the ad’s run, Overcast made up 54% of our downloads. In the last 30 days, Overcast claims 25% of our downloads, taking the #2 spot after Apple Podcasts (which is at 32%).

We haven’t run any other advertising since that ad, although we did have a guest on one of our episodes in January, which bumped the numbers.

We plan on running other ads in the future, we’ll soon have more guests, and we’re looking for opportunities to appear on other shows, so it will be difficult to gauge the efficacy of the ad in the long term.

So was it worth it? For us, yes, as we nearly tripled our release-day download numbers, and right now one of our primary goals is to increase reach.

With that said, the show is obviously still fairly small, and isn’t generating any income. We were fortunate to be able to afford to pay for an ad. Having guests on our show seems to be one of the most cost-effective methods, though. Each time we’ve invited a guest on the show, we have seen a bump in downloads for that episode with a small sustained increase after that.

YMMV

Obviously this is only the experience of one show running one ad one time. Your results may not be as good, or they may be better, who knows?

I would be very interested to hear other people’s experiences with running paid ads.

For July, I paid $400 for a 30 day ad on Podcast Republic (In-app).
They don't offer analytics for their ad but was told to expect 3-400 new subscribers.
They also said they've even seen some well-produced podcasts receive 1000 new subs off the 30 day ad.

I was hopeful and optimistic. My podcast is not only well-produced but somewhat successful already with over 1 million downloads.
However at the end of 30 days I only had 120 new subs from this $400 investment. I was a bit disappointed.

For August, I paid $420 for an In-app ad on Overcast in the Comedy section.
They have nice analytics, which is helpful.
Over 30 days my numbers were: 

240k views, 2750 taps and 200 subs.

I should have been pleased with this. 200 new subs is significant, right?
However, my download numbers are NOT reflecting these new listeners.
My weekly numbers are about the same as they were prior to the ad. Nothing has changed.

I can only conclude that they are not reporting accurate stats, OR their subs are not reliable for whatever reason. Is this an app that gets downloaded and then abandoned by new users for other apps like Spotify, iTunes or Google podcast? One can only guess.

Of course my case is just one in a sea of cases and my conclusion probably differs from most. But I cannot recommend these In-app ads for your podcast. I just think your money could be put to better use.

I wanted to share my experience with you. I hope it was somewhat insightful.

Jonesy - Host of Weird AF News

Image posts not allowed, the link is:

I bought an Overcast ad recently and was concerned with my low tap/subscriber conversion rates, so I decided to collect the existing Reddit data stories to serve as a comparison (thank you to everyone who shares these, I think everyone in the sub finds them super useful).

It turns out my conversion rates were pretty standard, so nothing to worry about. A few findings:

• Having a good podcast seems to help a TON. 's sub rate was double or triple the rates of other podcasts, and with a better CTR. Could be due to the "tech" category, but there's no way to know without another data point.

• Acquisition has become considerably harder from 2020 ->2021. Although the CPM has come down a lot since 2018, the click-through-rate is down 90% since 2018. However, the sub rate (subscriptions/taps) has been more stable over time.

• Wether or not these turn into plays is a matter for someone else as there is less data here, and my own host (Anchor) isn't super transparent about where plays come from.

The Podcast I am advertising is about 2000s Nostalgia (Remember Shuffle), I was trying to see if I should choose: TV and Film, History, Comedy, or Society and Culture--but there's not enough category level data to decide. Maybe in the future!

Howdy all, I’ve been a paid Overcast user for several years now. But sadly, the browser based player will be going away, therefore making it iOS only player. But I need an app to mange my podcast subscriptions, in both iOS and non-iOS(ie-Android and windows). Can any other exOvercast users help a brother out with suggestions? (Not Spotify though-it’s too pricey and I manage my music in Plexamp) I’ve read that pocketcasts is a potential…so just wondering what other exOvercasters are using?

Thx in Adv.

Hey all! I bought my first round of month-long advertising on Overcast about 7 days ago, and it's been fun (and surprisingly addictive) watching how many views / taps / subs my podcast has received day-by-day, and even minute-by-minute!

from David Kadavy has been invaluable in helping me understand and examine the value of an Overcast ad. But it's also provided me a way to compare my podcast's performance to his.

His show is mostly related to Business / Entrepreneurship, but he bought an advertising slot in Arts. He mentioned that his ad would likely perform better if he bought a slot in the Business category the next go-round.

Those of you who have also bought Overcast advertising: How was your experience? Did you accomplish what you intended? What were the conversion percentages? Did you advertise in a relevant category? How did it compare to other ways you've advertised your show?

As Kadavy says at the start of his post, "Getting new listeners is the most painful part of podcasting. You’ll probably do just about anything to get new listeners for your podcast." So I thought I'd start a conversation around that very topic. Would love to hear from you!

I can’t remember ever using a product for as long as I have and seemingly want to drop it over night.

There is not a single improvement with this update and it makes everything I did before harder, confusing, and so many extra steps. There is an insane amount of things not working properly in this update.

Going to give Apple Podcasts a try as I can’t imagine it worse than this.

In the past few weeks, one of my pods that I subscribe to via a Patreon RSS link has disappeared from my Overcast app and I can’t seem to get it back! I’ve tried re-adding the link like it’s a new podcast, but that isn’t doing anything. I’ve turned my phone off and on but idk that’s not really accomplishing anything either lol. I did pull up my Overcast library in a web browser and I can see the show there! But for some reason I can’t get it to show back up in the app. Has anyone else had this issue before?

I’m looking for an alternate podcasting app whilst overcast gets sorted out. Any suggestions?

I have used overcast for a very long time but need something as an interim because podcasting is the app I use the most.