Audio monetisation

Audio monetisation covers all the revenue a publisher derives from its audio content. For a news site generating audio versions of its articles, three levers combine, each with its own logic.

Lever 1: advertising

Every listen creates an ad slot: the pre-roll before the article, the midroll partway through longer formats. This inventory is immune to ad blockers and suits local sales particularly well, the commercial core of a regional publisher: a local advertiser pays to be heard by local residents. It is the most immediate lever, scaling directly with listening volume.

Lever 2: conversion

The registration wall trades the rest of the listen for a free account. The revenue here is indirect but strategic: every account is an email address, an audience profile, a first step toward paid subscription. This lever converts the engagement audio creates into a lasting relationship, where advertising converts it into immediate revenue.

Lever 3: podcast

Distributing articles as a podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts extends reach beyond the site. This lever rarely pays directly, but it works for the other two: it establishes the publication's sound identity, recruits listeners who will come back to the site, and can carry sponsorships on recurring formats.

Combining them without saturating

The three levers do not cannibalise each other; they address different moments. Advertising monetises each listen, the wall builds the base, the podcast widens the funnel. The one real mistake is saturation: stacking a long pre-roll, a midroll and a wall on the same article degrades the listen-through rate on which everything else depends. A sensible starting point is one lever per article type: advertising on high-traffic news, the wall on distinctive formats, the podcast on daily digests. The WeDispatch audio advertising feature manages the advertising side, including direct-sold local campaigns.