Fishing where the fish are is a solid strategy, so using similar podcasts to promote your podcast is obviously a good idea, right? You bet! But like any marketing effort, what you put in determines what you get out.

Cross-promotion has been a part of podcasting since there were two podcasts. Cross-promo campaigns make up the backbone of growth plans for large podcast networks and are used by some of the biggest podcasters to increase the size of their audience. 

Let's start with a successful podcaster who spends $10,000/month on a successful cross-promotional campaign. But maybe you only have $1000 in your budget. Or $100. Will it still work for you?

Yes, but about 100 times less well. 

According to Dave Zorhob, co-founder and CEO of Chartable, the new listener acquisition rate for cross-promotions was 0.75%.

Not 75%. Point-seven-five. Less than one percent. 

With 10,000 impressions of your promotion, that's 70–80 new listeners. With 1000 impressions, it's seven to eight new listeners. And with only 100 impressions, you'll be lucky to get one new listener.

So why do podcasters do this if the math sucks so bad? At scale, that math works fine and it doesn't suck at all. 

Acquiring a lot of new listeners for $3 each makes sense if the impressions they generate over the course of a year are worth $7.50 or more. And that is precisely why big shows and big networks spend big bucks on effective cross-promotional campaigns. To increase their available and saleable inventory

If your show is on the smaller scale, or if you're not selling ads or have another hard outcome with your podcast that you can directly trace back to increased listenership, then the scale problem is real and probably out of balance for you.

But that doesn't mean that you should give up on running a podcast cross-promotion! A new listener or two is a new listener or two. Just understand the realities. And don't expect your listener numbers to skyrocket unless you've got big bucks to spend.

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Podcast Pontificationsis a production of Simpler Media. New episodes are released weekly, providing ideas and questions every serious podcaster should be thinking about.

It's created and hosted by Evo Terra. Follow him on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come. Allie Press assists with the production and transcription of the show.

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