✊ Introducing the 2024 Podcast Marketing Trends Report

752 WORDS | READ TIME: 2.8 MIN

Hi friends,

One year ago (to the day, weirdly), I published the first-ever Podcast Marketing Trends Report.

The report was the result of a small, nagging question gone wildly and wonderfully wrong.

See, for years, I'd measured the growth of my own and my client's shows, email lists, and businesses in terms of month-over-month growth rate.

ie. 3,000 downloads in January → 3,300 in February = 10% Monthly growth rate.

The only problem was that I had no idea if the growth rates we were seeing were "good"... meaning I had no idea if our marketing strategies were better than simply doing nothing.

Kind of a big problem.

So I decided to do a small internal survey of a couple dozen of my clients and Podcast Marketing Academy members to collect the previous 12 months of their download data, crunch the numbers, and establish some growth benchmarks.

Once I had the survey set up, however, I thought to myself:

"Well, if the survey is already set up, I might as well send it out to my newsletter subscribers..."

Then:

"Well, if I'm already sending it out to my newsletter, I might as well see if other folks in the industry would be willing to share it more broadly..."

Then:

"Well, if I'm already collecting the monthly download data, I bet I could cross-reference it based on dozens of variables to find out what works in podcast marketing more broadly and make an actual public report out of it..."

Then:

"This is starting to sound like a lot of work."

And it was.

The first report took 140 hours to create.

What's more, I spent several thousand dollars on a data viz designer who delivered a set of underwhelming designs that left me having to learn the fundamentals of data viz to clean up and expand their designs to ship the finished report.

And as I slogged toward the finish line, downtrodden, demoralized, and dead-near defeated, I swore I was never doing it again.

But then I published the report.

And the positive feedback started rolling in.

And a few weeks passed.

And I started to think to myself:

"Weeeeeeell, now that I have the templates for the data viz design...

"And the website is already built and just needs to be updated...

"And I actually know what I'm doing this time around...

"I bet the second version won't take anywhere near 140 hours!"

And I was right.

This year (so far), I've spent 290 hours on the report and everything around it.

And I am most definitely doing it again next year.

Somehow, that annoying, nerdy little question about podcast growth benchmarks has turned into an obsessive side hobby.

And today, you can check out the product of that obsession—the finished version of the 2024 Podcast Marketing Trends—for yourself.

Like last year, I collected month-by-month download data from hundreds of podcasters and then cross-analyzed their marketing practices, show mechanics, and more against both the show size and the show's growth rate.

The question at the heart of the report:

What do high-growth shows do differently from low-growth shows?

So if you’ve ever wondered…

Which marketing channels high-growth shows focus on that low-growth shows don't
How your show’s growth rate compares to the typical show
How much you can expect to grow in a given year
How many episodes it typically takes to reach 1,000 (or 10,000) downloads/ep
The impact of episode length, publish frequency, and show format on growth
How budget impacts growth
Which categories tend to receive the most downloads
How the growth benchmarks compare to last year
And a whole lot more.

…the report has you covered.

👉 View the Podcast Marketing Trends Report

In addition to the data, I've provided plenty of context and insight into what the numbers mean for you and your show.

I’ll be offering more analysis of the report on an ongoing basis (including a new season of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained), but for the time being, go check out the report for yourself.

Then hit reply and let me know what stood out to you most, if it changes the way you think about marketing your show, and/or if there’s any data you’d love to see in next year’s report.

I'll be sharing a series of reader insights in the newsletter over the next week or so along with a link back to your show, so please send them in!

👉 View the Podcast Marketing Trends Report

Stay Scrappy,

PS. If you're curious about the new trainings and accelerators that are coming down the pike over the next 12-months, here's the 2026 PMA Roadmap.

KILLER CONCEPT

Format: Cohort-Based Course

Timeline: Jan/Feb 2026

Overview: Your show’s concept pretty much single-handedly dictates the success or failure of your show (unless you’re a celebrity, and even then, many concept-less celeb-hosted shows fail).

On the growth side, a truly Killer Concept makes it easier to acquire new listeners, easier to retain listeners, easier to get featured in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and elsewhere, and easier for people to recommend.

On the sales side, a Killer Concept is a tight, potent vehicle for your brand POV, encapsulating and consistently delivering your core sales messaging and priming listeners for your offers while also delivering a highly valuable show in its own right.

In short, getting your concept right matters.

This 6-week course is designed to be a crucible where participants will bring their decent-but-not-brilliant shows (or show ideas) and emerge at the end of the program with a fully validated, highly marketable show concept.

Pricing: Eventually ~$2,500, though there will likely be a launch discount for the first cohort.

IDEA GENERATION & DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP

Format: 2–3 Session Live Workshop

Timeline: ~March 2026

Overview: As entrepreneurs, creators, and marketers, all of us are in the Idea business. And the success of our business depends on the quality of our ideas. One big idea can change everything. Big ideas regularly become podcasts, products, books, campaigns, brands, movements, revolutions, and more.

The better we get at having lots of ideas, the more often we’ll have big ideas.

But big ideas alone are not enough.

This workshop will cover two distinct areas:

First, how to develop a practice that will, over time, result in the ability to generate an obscene number of ideas on autopilot. This is the practice I stumbled into years ago that has now resulted in a backlog of 10k+ newsletter issue ideas, 307 podcast concept ideas (in the past 6 months alone), and 137 product ideas… not to mention the thousands of additional ideas related to marketing tactics, product improvements, etc.

Second, we’ll explore how to develop a promising idea into a great idea. This is the part most people miss, and it's the reason many podcasts, products, and brands never achieve their potential and stay stuck in mediocrity.

Pricing: Probably ~$300, though there will likely be a launch discount.

OFFER LOGIC

Format: Cohort-Based Course

Timeline: April/May 2026

Overview: Most businesses don’t struggle—with finances, time, stress—because they don’t have a big enough audience, but because they don’t have a truly great offer. Great offers are easy to sell, easy to deliver, and easy for customers and clients to get results from.

A business with terrible marketing and a great offer can thrive. The opposite, however, is not true. Which means the better your offer, the less marketing you need to do, and the less pressure on you as a salesperson. ie. Two things almost every entrepreneur and creator wants.

In this 6–8 week workshop, I’ll take you through the process of developing a Logic-Based Offer—an approach I’ve never heard anyone talk about before, but which I’ve found to result in airtight offers that are easy to sell, because every part of the offer has been clearly designed around a clear internal logic that makes it obvious and inevitable for your customers to conclude that your offer is the only viable solution for them.

Offer Logic will be another “crucible” style program where you’ll enter with an existing offer (or idea) and emerge from the end with a robust, highly sellable offer… and ideally your first several sales.

Pricing: Eventually ~$2,500 though there will likely be a launch discount for the first cohort.

MECHANICS OF THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Format: TBD (probably 3–4 part live workshop series, though perhaps a cohort-based-course)

Timeline: ~June 2026

Overview: I’ll be honest, I loathe the phrase “thought leadership”. The reason is that it’s overused by amateurs who want the status and the benefits without doing the work… not to mention all the agencies (usually PR) and coaches promising to “make you a thought leader”. 🤮

At the same time, becoming someone who is seen and labelled by others (as opposed to being self-anointed) as a Thought Leader puts you in an enviable position. True thought leadership gives you a bigger platform, allows you to charge more for your work, and brings opportunities to you.

In this workshop, I’ll break down the mechanics and practices that will set you up to become a thought leader. Not overnight, but over a 3–7 year period if practiced consistently. No big sexy promise on this one, and I don’t expect it to sell very well. But for the handful of people who take it seriously, I suspect this may be one of the most impactful trainings I ever create.

Pricing: Eventually ~$1,500 though there will probably be a launch discount for the first cohort.

PODCAST PACKAGING WORKSHOP

Format: 2–3 Session Live Workshop

Timeline: ~September 2026

Overview: After your show concept, your show packaging—specifically your title and cover art—is the next most important determinant of your show’s success.

The reason? The only touchpoint most people will ever have with your show is your packaging, probably for just a couple of seconds as they scroll through a podcast app, social media, or elsewhere.

What’s more, your packaging can both enable word of mouth growth or stifle it, depending on how it reflects on the recommender, and the impression it gives the recomendee.

Over the lifetime of most shows, their packaging will be encountered by tens or hundreds of thousands of people—many of whom would have been ideal listeners—who passed it by either because it didn’t grab them, or it actively pushed them away.

In this workshop, I’ll break down a first-principles, psychology-informed approach to developing packaging that unlocks the potential of your show.

Pricing: Eventually ~$500, though there will likely be a launch discount for the first cohort.

AUDIENCE GROWTH ACCELERATOR

Format: Cohort-Based Course

Timeline: ~October 2026

Overview: The final of our “crucible” style cohorts for the year, where, over the course of 6–8 weeks, I’ll walk you through designing and implementing a highly focused growth strategy that will have you growing before the workshop officially wraps up.

I will be personally vetting every attendee for this workshop and only permitting people who have shows and/or other marketable assets to be in a position to benefit from the exposure strategies we’ll explore.

In practice, that means attendees should already have a Killer Concept with sharp, highly legitimate packaging.

Pricing: Eventually ~$2,500 though there will likely be a launch discount for the first cohort.

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