Why Squarespace went all-in on podcasts

When it comes to podcast ads, few names are as prominent as Squarespace.

The website building company splashed out on a Super Bowl ad on Sunday, but has spent more than a decade filling our ears with promo codes.

The first Squarespace podcast ad…

… was in 2009. Founder and CEO Anthony Casalena paid ~$20k to run an ad on This Week in Tech, per The New York Times.

In a post-customer survey, Casalena discovered that ⅓ of Squarespace’s new subs came from the podcast. From this initial win, Squarespace went all-in on podcasts:

• In 2015, Squarespace was spending 2.5x more on podcasts than the next highest company (Stamps.com)
• It has advertised on as many as 400 podcasts at once
• It was once responsible for a third of all revenue for Midroll, a podcast ad placement platform

The economics make sense for Squarespace

When a customer sets up a website and domain, the cost — in time and money — of switching to another provider is very high.

According to NYT, “If they spent $500 on a podcast with a tiny audience and scored 20 subscribers, it was worth it.” And these ads often outperformed Facebook or Google.

Squarespace is now a public firm valued at $4B+. And while its Zendaya Super Bowl ad was good, we know what media format got the company here.