Podcast Discovery Has Changed. Here's What the Data Says | Roger Nairn

New data reveals that podcast discovery has changed, but most podcasters haven't changed with it. If you're still expecting new listeners to find your show inside Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're overlooking the top places podcast listeners are discovering new shows today.

Roger Nairn from JAR Podcast Solutions is here to unpack why podcast apps are not best place to grow your audience, how to choose the right platforms to market your show, and three podcast marketing strategies circa 2015 you can stop obsessing over (and what to focus on instead). Hit play and let's dive in.

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1:14 – Why Podcast Apps Are No Longer the Best Place to Grow Your Audience

2:18 – The Top Places Podcast Listeners Are Discovering New Shows

5:38 – Why Your Podcast Doesn't Need to Be Everywhere

14:35 – How to Choose the Right Platforms to Market Your Show

18:31 – 3 Podcast Marketing Strategies You Can Stop Obsessing Over

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Episode Links:

Meet Roger Nairn: JAR Podcast Solutions | LinkedIn

Listen to Roger’s Podcast: Dead Dads

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Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

The New Rules for Growing a Podcast in 2026

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

It might not come as a surprise to you that podcast discovery has changed significantly over the last few years. People are still discovering shows through the podcast apps for sure, but there are also certain platforms that play a much bigger role now than they did even just a few years ago. And that is why I asked Roger Nairn from Jar Podcast Solutions to join me right here in the studio and share with you why this changes, how your show should be planned and promoted so you can get discovered by more new listeners and viewers. Welcome to Insider Secrets to a Top 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elmer. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. Roger, welcome to the show. I attended the webinar that you and Tom Webster over at Sounds Profitable did a few weeks ago, where you really took a deep dive into the podcast landscape. Like you, y'all went out and y'all surveyed over 5,000 listeners and you really just were looking for the answers to two questions. How did you find your favorite show? And how are you looking for the next one? And these findings, you know, some of them were like, okay, okay, I can't, I saw that one coming, but some of them was like, you know what? That one surprised me. Can you unpack, you know, what were these findings? What did that reveal?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, I mean, the the podcast apps that we're used to, you know, Apple, Spotify, they're they're often now where the consumption happens, but it's increasingly not where the discoverability or the discovery of your podcast begins. So YouTube, massive, massive, massive growth with YouTube. It's no longer a video add-on. It's no it's no longer something where you're like, oh, we just, you know, we should also probably be on YouTube. It's now the largest front door into podcasting. So what we discovered is that 40% found their favorite show on YouTube. And that's more than twice the amount of the next source. And 55% said that they will use YouTube when looking for the next podcast. So that's that that was a huge surprise. And something that I think is, I don't want to say a shock to the industry, but it's kind of a shock to the industry. It's not just a purely algorithmic thing either. You know, 78% of YouTube podcast users find shows through actual intentional search for the show, the topic, host, or the celebrity. You know, they're they're looking for Travis Kelsey, they want to find Joe Rogan. You know, the list goes on. So it's really, really important. And we'll get into all these details to be thinking about your title and your metadata and you know how the packaging of the podcast looks, because it's uh it's an enormous opportunity now that we all as podcasters need to think about, be aware of, and and really take advantage of.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

You might have just put the nail in the coffin for some podcasters though, Roger, because like, oh man, YouTube, really? You mean I gotta do YouTube? And you know, for me, I've resisted it for a long time. And partly, I tell myself to see where YouTube ultimately was gonna go, but now it's undeniable. Like we have the evidence that this is where people are finding shows. And it's the number one way that they're finding new shows to listen to andor seeking them out specifically. I had a conversation with a guy at my gym recently, and he's like, Yeah, watch my podcast on YouTube. And I'm like, hold on a minute. You watch, okay, repeat that for me. You watch your podcast on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

And he's at the gym. So I'm thinking, like, immediately he's running on the treadmill watching this podcast. And then and then he and then he throws up everywhere, right? Because he's like, let's not go there.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah. But you know, in the more and more conversations that I've had with people, it's really funny because I I find that people are on one end of the spectrum or the other. Either they watch their podcasts or they listen. But now it's like more and more people are watching, and the industry is just really coming around. And I'm curious, you know, for YouTube specifically, can you tell us about the audiences who are finding shows on YouTube? Do they fall within a certain, like, you know, is it is it young, like a younger generation that's finding them? And then again, I that word comes out of my mouth, younger. And then I'm like, you know, my father-in-law is there. He's like, tell me all the stuff he watches on YouTube. And I'm like, holy cow, maybe it's not, maybe it's everyone. Is everyone on YouTube? Can you tell us any insights there?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah, they kind of are. Um, but I think it's important to also recognize that, you know, we're YouTube is the the front door, but there are other front doors as sorry, I would say there's other, let's call them side doors as well. So, yes, a younger audience is definitely on YouTube, but the research also discovered that organic growth, you know, through through things like social, are also where people are learning and discovering their podcasts. So, organic social beat, for example, paid discovery almost two to one. Uh, 60% found that their favorite show came through an organic post from someone that they followed. So, yes, to answer your question, uh, you know, we do see kind of everyone on YouTube. You know, if you're sitting there and you've been, you know, pounding away at creating your audio show, and all now all of a sudden this new uh sort of uh requirement comes along, you have to start thinking about that is frightening. And I, you know, I have some thoughts around like production and things like that, but it it it takes a real um effort to now think about like how am I gonna get my you know sort of visual presence to be on YouTube and social.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

You work with some clients like Amazon and a lot of big clients. Do you find that clients are now approaching you from a video first perspective?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, they actually, in fact, they're they're coming to us first saying we need to be on YouTube. And I kind of equate it, I'm you know, I'm an older guy, I've been around in the industry for almost uh 10 plus years, which in the in podcasting is is quite a long time. But even then, I came from the advertising world. And I remember when social came along, and I kind of equate it to like, you know, every brand now saying, or you know, every brand back there saying, I need to be on Twitter. And I would always say, why? And it would be funny too, because it would be like a single restaurant within a huge restaurant chain, you know, would be the equivalent of saying, like, I'm in San Luis, Lobispo, California, and I've got this Italian restaurant. I need to be on Twitter. And I would it would be like, why? What's you know, and they have no clue as to like whether their audience is there, what sort of you know, value would they deliver, all those things. We're now seeing the same thing with YouTube now. So the the question we ask, no matter how big they are or small, is is why? And the answer from that typically isn't correct. It's usually it's something like, you know, because we think that our audience is there, which is you know not a bad answer, but we need to then dig deeper into truly understanding your audience where they're coming from. Part of that is through research, part of that is through talking to them, you know. But the great thing about podcasting is you can actually talk to your audience, like they're there and they want to hear from you. So you gotta, you know, talk to your audience. So it's it's very much the sort of default uh expectation now. And then we got to kind of work backwards. And in some cases, they do need to have a massive presence on YouTube. And we would consider that to be like a video first show and then sort of audio second. In some cases, it makes sense to still be audio first, but then maybe we need to think about how do we capture some of the experience of the audio, whether it's you know, through uh obviously recording ourselves as we're talking and then you know, making that into clips. There's a number of different ways, but ask yourself why first. And and I mean, even before that, ask yourself what is the objective of the podcast? What is the job that the podcast needs to do?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I'm so glad you bring this up because this is the question that I just get skipped over and I don't know what it is. Most of us, I think, have that objective in the back of our mind. You know, for most of us, we can boil that down to, well, I want to grow my audience, I want to make some money from this thing. And then we can strip those layers back though, and then we get really specific about it. I was having a conversation just today on my Substack with someone who had written in a comment, really thoughtful comment about their podcast name and they were reacting to some of the things I had said. They really didn't want to change their name or tweak it. You know, we're talking about SEO. And she said, you know, the reason I'm building this show is because I'm in the fiction world. I'm an author and I want to land a book deal. I said, Well, that is a great goal. And it gives me a lot of information to then give you some questions to be asking yourself about your show specifically that I probably I may or may not give to another person based on their goal. And so to your point, Roger, it's like you gotta define that. I'm curious before we get back to the data, because I do want to dig a little bit more into this, but when you're working with a client, do you find that they tend to come in with like fuzzy goals? And with that, do you give them any sort of prompt or question to help them go deeper and really clarify like what is this podcast here to do for you?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, I mean, the one thing that we always want to remember as podcasters is that every single one of our shows is unique. There's no such thing as uh, you know, a copycat show that you can produce that's gonna be exactly like the one that you're watching. It's gonna have a different host who has a different uh point of view and has a different sort of aura about them. Um, you're gonna have different topics, different guests, different subject matters. You know, you might have a similar sort of style. Uh, it could be a one-to-one interview, it could be more of like a hybrid where you're maybe on the street sometimes, or but anyways, we really dig into the question of what is the job of the podcast? What is it meant to do? So that could be everything from you know increasing a relationship with other small business owners, or it could be driving sales, or it could be building trust with our audience, or it could be educating our audience on a specific topic. So really think about you know, not just like what is the podcast, as in like what is the podcast sort of package, but like specifically at the end of the day, what do you want your audience to do? Uh, what do you want your audience to walk away with? Because that is really everything that you do then coming out of that. It needs to ladder back up to that job. So we really dig into that. We get a lot deeper with our audiences. Um, sorry, with with our clients, uh, because again, every challenge is going to be unique. And even though we work with some large, you know, enterprise uh Fortune 500 brands, the same questions can be asked to anybody out there, no matter whether it's a commercial type show or whether it's more of like a hobbyist type show as well. You still need to ask yourself, what is this podcast meant to do?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah. And allow that goal to change over time too. It may change. And this is a question to not just ask once, but ask frequently, maybe not every day, but over a period of time, how have my goals changed? Is this show meeting the goals I set out? I've had it happen in my show and in my business where we've set out to achieve certain things and we achieve them. And then I've just been going through the motions and don't really revisit the goal until I pick my head up one day and realize, well, okay, what are we driving toward now? And so to just hold that constant tension of okay, I need to make sure that I'm always driving them in that direction and to allow that room for it to evolve and to change because outside of JAR, I have a I have a personal podcast called the Dead Dad's Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

And uh this podcast is meant to help the men out there who have lost their fathers. Um, I lost my dad a couple of years ago, and one of the things I really felt was lacking was any sort of resource, any sort of mirror out there that could see that could show me other men that were going through similar situations. It's actually quite a, you know, quite a lovely sort of conversation style show, but we do have some laughs as well. But anyways, one of the things that we've realized is it's not that we wanted to exclude women from the conversation. It just happened to be that what we saw the most was that men were lacking opportunities to have these sorts of conversations, but we've been inundated with women saying, like, can you please include us in the conversation? And it's and it's nothing you know antagonistic, and we for sure are the farthest thing from any sort of like alpha male type show. But it's it's actually having us sort of sit down and rethink the job of that podcast as well. Um, so it to your point, it does evolve and it does change as the as the show uh moves on, because at the end of the day, a podcast is a living, breathing thing. And it's one of the things that's super unique about podcasting compared to some of these big broadcast TV shows or you know, some of the movies that you see, like they don't change, they're they're locked in. Um, maybe they change at the end of a season, but for the you know, for a podcaster, you can be evolving as you learn and grow.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

That is the beautiful thing about it. It gives a lot of freedom to the process. And when you're committing to this for the long term, which if you're listening to this right now, I know you're one of those people who you got into this because you got a message to share. You're someone who saw podcasting as a platform to be able to do that. Maybe your shows work in the way that you want it to right now, and you're just looking to optimize it. Maybe it's not quite there yet, but you know that you enjoy the process of podcasting. And just to encourage you, like, please never lose that. Always enjoy the process of podcasting. If you start to feel like it's stale or you're just like, oh, I don't know about this, maybe I'll throw in the towel. It's not giving me the ROI I want. And before we get into that conversation with ourselves about should I, should I not continue so forth, you know, just get back to like what attracted you to podcasting to begin with? And know that there's freedom in that. Allow that to take the pressure of off of you from it needing to succeed. I spoke with a podcaster recently who was in a very busy season where her business had taken off. She was speaking from stages all around the country. She was bringing in top-level clients. There's a lot of really great things happening in her business. And she said, But my podcast does not grow in the way that I want it to. I said, Can you just be okay with that in this season? And she was just kind of like, you know, yeah, yeah, I can, because there's all these other great things that are happening that her podcast did play a role in. So to your point, Roger, yeah, these are the things we need to hold within us, even as we're talking about data and strategy and all of this stuff. And so that was a question I had for you about the social media side of things. When you surveyed these listeners and social, this kind of flies in the face of what we've believed to be true about social media and podcast discovery. Were there any particular platforms that emerged as kind of being places where people are finding shows to listen to?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, I mean, for sure, like, you know, we talk about YouTube. It's, it's, you need to think of it as the as the scale platform, whereas social creates reach amongst, you know, younger, younger audiences, you know, more so, but there are other audiences on social. You know, Spotify, host recommendations, and X have smaller audiences we've learned, but they tend to be very highly engaged. Facebook is easy to dismiss, but the study found that it held up across age groups as a whole and and different audience types. So you know, don't uh don't throw that away. Um, in fact, it actually might be one of the cleanest broad reach paid channels out there. So you know, as a podcaster, you really want to choose the platform based on the audience and the job. So, you know, JAR is named JAR because it stands for job, audience, and results. So, you know, the second thing we need to always be thinking about is the audience. You know, where are they living online? You know, again, research is gonna be able to tell you there's some tools out there, but also talk to them, ask them where are you hanging out? You know, what are you guys, you know, where are you guys spending your time on? Because then you're gonna want to sort of focus your uh your audience growth tactics that way. Yeah, at the end of the day, also like reach, trial, and authority all require different channel mixes. So don't just choose one, choose a bunch because different audiences are gonna have different experiences in different channels. And if you do your, if you do your job right, they will all eventually find your show or you know get back to your show and uh grow your audience.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah, it's an ecosystem where it's one feeds the other, feeds the other, feeds the other. And this can be a concept that's tough to oh, don't you? I love it too, but it is also hard to wrap your mind around. It's like, okay, I literally I don't know where it is in the stack of papers on my desk. There is a paper somewhere around here that I was drawing like this diagram of like, okay, the podcast feeds the sub stack, the substack feeds this, there's the email list, the and like I I a couple of weeks went by and I pulled that that image up today. I'm gonna have to try to find it, set a screenshot. You could maybe watch this on the video, like I'll put it up here. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm like, this is pointing here and there, and I'm like, I cannot make heads or tails of it. And yet, that's kind of the point where you know, you want in this ecosystem, you want everything to be talking to each other. There's maybe particular conversations happening here that then inform and feed these conversations that feed this. And for an audience to come in and experience that is really cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

You really need to think like a marketer. And I know that that doesn't come natural to everybody, but you really need to think think about yourself. Like, how do you make purchase decisions? You know, as a family, for example, when you do your grocery shopping, you know, you find a product you eventually purchase, but think about the path to get to that product. You know, you might have seen something on Instagram, somebody talking about it, and then maybe you caught it, you know, caught an ad for it in a magazine and you saw it on a bus shelter. And and I'm not saying that like all these things are like right in your face, but they do make little bits and pieces. And those little bits and pieces ultimately drive you eventually to when you're standing in front of the wall of cookies at the grocery store and one of them jumps out of you. Well, you happen to have seen it in a bunch of different places. And so, as marketers, you need to really dig into like where is your audience living? How do they go about their day? What is their general sort of consumption pattern? Um, and again, you need to talk to them, you need to ask them, or you need to look at some of the different research tools out there that can help you find it.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

I've never thought about this before, but it's kind of law of attraction-y there in a minute. You know, like when you go to shop for a new car and then all of a sudden you like see that car driving over there, like, oh my gosh, that's the exact one. That's a make, that's a model, that's a color. Now I'm seeing them everywhere. Wow, I make really good choices because everybody apparently also likes this car. You know, and it's just like this self-fulfilling thing. It's to think about our marketing in that way, that's exactly what we're doing, not in a manipulative way, but seeds.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Exactly. Yeah. And you're actually being, um, you know, the way I look at it is you're being thoughtful about the way that your audience goes about their day. You're not intruding. And this is actually an interesting point that also came out in the research is that, you know, sort of more traditional podcast marketing tactics played a lot smaller role than we actually expected. Only 9% found their favorite podcast through browsing a podcast app, for example. So, you know, you see the big uh directories, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, things like that. And it's not to say that you shouldn't all, you know, you shouldn't think about sort of how your show stands out amongst that directory. In addition to that, only 4% found their favorite podcast through an ad on another podcast, which I was blown away with. Cause let's be honest, there's a lot of money being spent on podcast advertising right now. Um, and then also only 3% found their favorite podcast through a trailer. Now, think about how much energy we put into trailers. I do still think that a trailer is important. And, you know, for those that haven't launched their show yet, you need a trailer to provide to Apple, for example, to get to get the show um approved to be on the platform. You know, we're really needing to put a lot more effort into social. Um, and I also would throw in like newsletters into that mix when I say social and and substack, which is also social, but sometimes people kind of forget about that. Um, but some of those like traditional tools are not as important as we used to think. And we should maybe switch some of our energy, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, well, this is what I'm excited to dig into with you in the bonus episode, because all this data is great, but then it's like, okay, now what? Now what do we do with this? What do we do? How does this inform how we show up to the mic and what we're talking about and how we're promoting our podcast and marketing that? And so, Roger, I appreciate you being here to unpack this with us because you know, this data definitely confirms what I've seen after launching 70 plus top 100 shows is that, you know, if you're if you're hoping your podcast is going to grow just because you launched it and you have good content. Let's let this be the aha moment that we all need to kind of like, okay, all right, you know, discovery is not going to be a one-time thing. You know, it's this ongoing effort you have to make. And that's where the marketing piece comes in. And I know that you are a wealth of knowledge on that. So I'm very excited to get into that with you in the next episode. But for what you've shared here today, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Absolutely. And and guys, come follow us to the next episode. Like maybe I'll change my glasses or shirt or put on a hat or something, but you know, come with us. Come to the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yes, we got a lot to unpack there too. And you know, I always joke, Roger, because it's like in a moment I'm gonna welcome you back. It's like, but we never really left. We're still having this conversation, you know? So, but it gives us an opportunity to dig deeper. Lightning, maybe, or like yeah, suddenly come back with like a wearing like a mask or something.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Maybe like a smoking jacket or something, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Ooh, I like that. That'd be really cool. It's just a cigar too. Maybe we have the cigar moment.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, yeah. We'll do the after hours episode. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

All right, well, that's what we're gonna do next, guys. We're gonna dive into the after hours of what does all of this data mean for your show, the late night DJ version. Exactly. I'm just kidding. But it's gonna be good stuff. So if you're wondering, okay, yeah, this is great data. Now what? Roger has agreed to join us back in the next episode. We're gonna break down exactly what this means for your show and give you clear next steps on what you can do to apply it so that the great content you're creating can get discovered by more people. All that is coming up next to help you make your podcast binge worthy.