Doing Offline Advertising the Third Way

We've built a different kind of offline marketing practice: strategic, analytical, transparent, and consistent with an in-house ethos. From effective podcast and radio campaigns to cracking OTT or traditional television, we help our clients access the scale of offline without sacrificing the ROI-centricity of digital marketing. And this is why.

I’ve worked in marketing or advertising since I was eighteen years old, with most of those years spent in New York City, and most of those years at agencies. After stints as a graphic designer, media buyer and later director, and communications planner, among other positions, I realized that what I loved most about the industry was helping companies set up new media channels and hold them accountable for performance.

When I was in-house at a travel start-up before Right Side Up, I met our founder Tyler for a coffee, and we talked up a storm with equal excitement about growth marketing, bending digital channels to hit ambitious performance goals, and the potential of offline channels like podcasts and radio that are relatively untapped by many growth marketers. As we discussed the offline marketing ecosystem and my experience in the channels, we realized that the Right Side Up approach could help companies interested in exploring the offline space launch campaigns, whether their budget was $70K or $700K. And I’ve never looked back.

Since 2018, the Right Side Up offline growth marketing division has focused largely on podcast advertising, working with over 100 companies to help them diversify their marketing mix, including Calm, DoorDash, and Stitch Fix. We’ve helped companies profitably invest over $200 million in podcast advertising in that time, and have become industry leaders, often contributing thought leadership and actionable guidance that has meaningfully helped move the medium forward.

Of the various offline and audio channels, podcasting is among the most misunderstood; despite reaching nearly 40% of US consumers monthly, according to Edison, the advertising landscape in podcast remains surprisingly small, especially relative to the tens of billions invested in traditional mediums like television and terrestrial radio. The IAB releases an annual study of podcast ad revenue, and since we started our practice in 2018, the US market has almost quadrupled, with nearly $1.8 billion invested in the US market in 2022.

Despite many high growth companies deploying podcast advertising for user acquisition for the better part of the last decade plus, it’s a channel that flies under the radar for many growth and brand marketers. It’s small relative to other channels, it’s a bear to measure, and still requires a very manual buying process for optimum results, among other challenges. Historically, most of the brands investing in the channel have worked with the top three to four agencies, and with recent market consolidation, it really boils down to two main agencies in the space, with a bunch of smaller players with varying degrees of effectiveness.

Advertisers can either work with one of those two partners, or a less experienced agency, for media commissions that scale unfavorably for advertisers over time. Or, they can buy in-house, without most of the subject matter expertise because most of the historical performance knowledge of the channel is held at the agencies. We know there’s a third way, and that’s what we’ve built here.

One of the big differentiators of Right Side Up is that we believe the best work is done in-house, so we partner with your internal team closely. As consultants, we’re there to help with the big questions, like: Is the investment worth it? Will going to that conference meaningfully enhance our network or enrich our knowledge? What channels should we test next, and how should we do it? We’re also there to help with the more tactical questions, like: How should we onboard the talent? What should our copy say about our brand? How do I organize all this data? In all our engagements, we work hand-in-hand with our clients to buy media directly from publishers, networks, and media owners. With full transparency to media plans, data, and our process.

And because every company has different needs at any given time, we’re flexible on our arrangements. Need us for the initial test or two, but have the personnel to take it fully in-house and keep it running after that? Great! We’ll train them up. Are you the only person with offline subject-matter expertise and need a phone-a-friend sometimes? Happy to help! Want us to run the campaign soup to nuts forever and ever? No problem! Our engagements span everything from full planning and media negotiation/buying services to lighter arrangements where we consult with in-house marketers leading podcast campaigns, to help even the podcast playing field, and get more brands in the marketplace.

If you decide to take your business in-house, we’ll help with the transition, even when it comes time to interview and train our replacement. Because ultimately, we want to help companies make every resource spent on marketing and media work in the best way possible. Our transition will be smooth, too, because we don’t transact with publishers on your behalf, and we don’t take media commission; that’s what I mean when we say we work with clients to buy media directly. We negotiate the right placements for the right rates, and advertisers get to book in-house with best-practice contract terms and conditions. That way we work ensures our clients own their own rates, publisher relationships, data and technology stack from the outset. It’s good for not just advertisers, but publishers too; how would you feel if 40% of your business came from one or two companies?  

If you run into snags six months down the road in-house, because your podcast campaign has hit what you fear may be diminishing returns? We can help, and we know your campaign. We’re happy to drop in and do a one-time audit, to help you expand past your current core, decide what shows to rest, how to optimize your offer, etc. and leave again until you need us.

Because I can’t stress enough, we really do believe the best work is done in-house, working side-by-side with internal teams. And we believe that advertisers should be close to most media inventory; same as Meta or Google can be easily managed in-house because of their API, there are benefits from working directly with publishers for not only the advertiser, but the publisher or network as well. Our goal is to help brands expand their marketing/customer acquisition efforts to find profitable growth in offline channels.

Finally, a driving force for us has also been to evolve the practices of podcast advertising to continually drive better and more consistent results. That’s why we’ve taken the time to re-categorize thousands of shows into proprietary verticals that allow for better cross-client insights in the planning process. We created a super clean data set that we’ve dubbed the Performance Indexing Tool (AKA our PIT), to help us use and work with actual performance data from growth marketing campaigns, indexed in a way that allows us to make tangible connections between what has worked in the past and what will work in the future. 

We also want to be a good player in the podcast ecosystem, in particular, and be good stewards of one of the last remaining mediums on earth with finite ad inventory and consumers who actually listen and respond to ads. 

In the last five years, we’ve changed the way people think about traditional offline media channels, like how they can be held to high growth performance standards, and where they intersect with popular digital growth tactics like paid search and paid social. And I can’t wait to see where the next five years and beyond takes us.

If you’re interested in hiring us to help your advertising or customer acquisition efforts, please email us at growth@rightsideup.co. We can’t wait to talk about your interest in offline channels, or business and current marketing efforts, and see how we can help. And if you’re a marketer that’s interested in more work in offline channels, whether as a full-time employee, contractor, or part-time moonlighter, please don’t hesitate to reach out and tell us how you can help.