One of the panels I attended at Podcast Movement had Amber Smith from iHeartMedia's Ruby division as one of the panelists, and there was excited chatter about the return on ad spend results recently shared about their show:

Chasing Sleep from Mattress Firm

The data collected by Affinity Solutions and iHeart’s Brian Kaminsky showed the campaign drove “four times return on ad spend and a 45% lift in incremental sales”. Very impressive impact compared to a typical incremental sales lift of 5-10%. I have a hot take on how different components of the show contribute to that impact. I think Chasing Sleep was a success because of the main content, guests, and hosts, and DESPITE the style of the actual embedded ads for Mattress Firm.

I really enjoyed the show - it tackled a sleep-related topic that reinforces Mattress Firm’s credibility for helping people sleep better. It brought in compelling guests, and the husband-and-wife hosts had great banter. But then came the interruptions throughout the episode that are so over the top. Here’s a sample:
“Wow, you have a lot of energy today”… “It’s because I’ve been sleeping so well. The sleep experts at Mattress Firm matched us to the right mattress”… “And to the right pillows.”

Mattress Firm and iHeart put so much craft and creativity into the main storytelling, and for me the ads would have been even more effective if it build more naturally off of the content rather than feeling like my podcast app crashed and I was listening to an ad for something completely different. But the data is compelling, and I'm interested in more takes from the teams involved and other podcasters!