Inflated Download Numbers - The Hidden Cost of Podcast Fraud

Today, we're gonna talk about the dark side of

podcasting.

Today, we're gonna talk about fraud. Now fraud is

kind of a broad legal term that refers to situations

where someone is intentionally dishonest in order to receive

some kind of benefit from a person or a business or, I don't

know, an entity of some sort. So let's say

you go around and you sell cookies for a charity,

and that charity is you. Yeah. That would be fraud. Right? You're

like, help these young boys to live a better

life, and then you sell the cookies and keep the money.

Yeah. If you use a handicap sticker in your car so

you can park up front, but you don't have a disability,

well, that's fraud. And if we bring this into

podcasting, when you have a sponsor and they're like, hey.

I wanna get in front of your audience, and you're like, great. It's x

amount of money for x amount of downloads.

And then you pay a company to artificially

inflate your strategy. That's fraud.

And the other thing that you may not realize is not

only are you losing your integrity, and I always

say, when you start a podcast, you have 2 things, no

audience and integrity. And you're basically selling

your integrity 1 download at a time. And the

other thing you're doing is you're hurting the entire

podcast industry. And you're like, wait. What?

Sure. Because that sponsor who is

expecting to get their product mentioned in front of, let's

say, 10, 000 people, and then you go and

use a service that artificially inflates your numbers. We'll

talk about that in a second. Yeah. They and all of a sudden, you're like,

wow. I got 50, 000 downloads. Well, really, it's only

10, 000. But you were told 50, 000, and

so you're expecting to get a bunch of

new customers from this awesome advertising on this

podcast. There's only 1 problem. 40, 000 of those are

robots. They're not real people. And so what does

the sponsor do? They're like, man, I spent all this

money in podcasting, and I barely got a trickle

of traffic to my website or whatever their goal was.

And they go and tell all their other business friends, whatever you do,

don't invest in podcasting. I tried it. It was awful. I got

barely any kind of return on my investment.

So if that is you and you're doing this,

please stop because you may be lining your pocket.

But the other thing to keep in mind is

they usually leave a paper trail. There are things

that aren't the norm in podcasting. And 1 of them

is, at least right now, Apple Podcasting

the top app when it comes to listening to podcasting. They are

somewhat losing their their edge,

but that's pretty much a given. If you go into so many stats, Apple Podcasts

is gonna be number 1, probably followed by Spotify,

and then some other ones. But if you see

that Chrome or Firefox or some

other web browser is the number 1 app, by

far, you can pretty much rest assured

that there's something not quite right going with this

podcast. And when you use these services,

that's the key. Now here's the other thing, is

the advertising company is gonna wanna look at your

stats. They're gonna wanna look at your stats. Why?

Because that advertiser is their

customer, and it's their job to make sure

that what they're paying for, which is getting in front of an actual

audience, is something that is being delivered.

So when all of a sudden your download show up

and they are from the website right? So,

again, Chrome or some other browser is that. And all of a sudden,

you have a huge audience in some sort of country that I can't

pronounce, Gazakistan or something like that, or usually

you get downloads from Dallas in, Texas

and California, and all of a sudden out of nowhere on this 1

day, you got a ton of downloads from North Carolina.

That's weird. That's kind of a red flag. And, oh, what do you

know? Those downloads are on the web.

You may have heard the saying, success leaves clues.

Well, you know what else leaves clues? Fraud.

And I just look. I understand. I really do.

We want a bigger audience. And if you have a

sponsor, you probably have a decent size audience. That's

awesome. Keep your integrity and keep the

sponsor. That's the other thing to keep in mind. So let's

say somebody sponsors you for a few months. You jack up your

numbers, and then what happens? The sponsor goes, I'm not

getting hardly any activity from this this sponsorship.

So they quit. Keep your sponsor. Keep

your integrity. Now in my next episode, we're

gonna get into some of the nitty gritty of this, but the bottom line is

I can't guarantee your show will be popular.

You just can't. If you think about it, look at

American Idol. That thing's been on for over 10 years.

Can you name all 10 American Idol

winners? We all know Kelly Clarkson and

the 1 woman that sings, the football theme.

There's Chris Dowertree. We know a few of them, but

these people were voted the best

on a TV show that gets millions of viewers, and

yet you just heard I can't name them. Carrie Underwood is the woman I'm

thinking of. And so there are no

guarantees. And if somebody says, I can guarantee you

to be number 1, there's gotta be some shenanigans

going on in the back. Do it the old fashioned

way by making great content, figuring out who your

audience is, going to where they are, making

friends, and then telling them about your show. Now that's

just 1 strategy. There are many. When I was

in high school, I was in a business

program, and 1 of the things we did was that

particular program ran, like, this little school store

where we had candy and t shirts and things like that.

And as you might imagine, yeah, the candy was

going over well. In fact, it was going over a little too well

because the stats from the cash register

showed that we sold x amount of content, and

yet the inventory was way low. Like, wait. Where's the

rest of the boxes of M and M's? And

the teacher for that program came into the

room, and he said, let me ask you a question.

Don't you think if someone had figured out a

way to steal and not get caught

that it would have been invented by now? And I sat there

as a probably 17 year old kid in high school, and I thought,

that's a really good point. And so I'm just here

to tell you that there will be people, and when they come up to

you and they're just explain how they're gonna make your show

explode, Be careful and be

weary. And in the next episode, I'm gonna explain some of the red

flags to look for so that you can avoid

these vultures coming in to pick over your bones

and take your money. Now if you need help with anything with

your podcast, well, you know, that's what I love to do. I help podcasters.

It's what I do. And if you go out

to school of podcasting.com/consultant,

that'll save you a little bit on your monthly or yearly subscription. And,

of course, that comes with not a 7, not a 14, a full

30 day money back guarantee. If on day 29, you're like, Dave, this isn't

what I thought it was, I will refund your money. And, of

course, that membership comes with step by step tutorials,

an amazing podcast community to network with, and

unlimited consulting with me. You know how on your Internet build, you

might have unlimited bandwidth. Well, yeah, That's it. Unlimited

podcasting, me and you, 1 on 1, so many ways

to do it even if you're across the pond. Yeah. It's cool. Check it

out. Schoolofpodcasting.com/consultant.

I'm Dave Jackson. I wanna be your podcast

consultant.