Dynamic Insertion Cookbook

How to best utilize Dynamic Insertion Technology for a totally unique feel.

Custom Audio Blocks are available for members on the Growth Plan or higher. Dynamic Insertion is commonly used for ads, but there are tons of interesting ways to utilize and get the most out of this technology!

Maybe you want to place a temporary holiday greeting at the beginning of every episode, or maybe you have some awesome news you want to share with your entire audience, or maybe you just don’t want to have to add in your opening tune into every episode when editing. Here’s where our Dynamic Insertion tool can work for you!

Intro or Outro Clip
Off-Platform Campaigns
Promotion Opportunities
Temporary News and/or Information
A/B Testing Ads
Fallback Clip for Cross-Promotions

Intro or Outro Clip

Have you ever found yourself reading the same introduction or credits over and over again with the same background music each week? Instead, you can create aa custom audio file and assign it to a custom Audio Block titled “Intro/Outro”. You can then assign that Audio Block to specific Insertion Points in your episodes. See this Help article for more information on creating new Insertion Points.

Once your Insertion Points are set up you can easily swap out custom Audio Blocks to update intros/outros across every episode in your podcast all at once! Want to change the audio files for the intro/outro? No problem! You can replace the audio file without erasing the custom Intro/Outro Audio Block by simply editing the Audio Block.

Off-Platform Campaigns

We’re all about helping you earn the most you can with your creative work! We’ve made it easier to run both campaigns sourced with RedCircle and without RedCircle. You can use Custom Audio and Custom Audio Blocks to place off-platform campaigns directly in your show.

There are two ways to achieve this; you can create a Custom Audio clip and then create an accompanying Custom Audio Block, or you can create a Custom Audio clip and insert it into one of the two Default Ad Audio Blocks.

See this Help article section for step-by-step instructions on creating Custom Audio and Custom Audio Blocks.

To add a Custom Audio clip to one of the Default Ad Blocks, navigate to the Dynamic Insertion page and select Audio Blocks from the available tabs. Locate the Audio Block you wish to edit and click the 3 dots (...) to the far right of the title. Select Edit Block from the list of options:

A box should appear on the right side of the screen. Click the red-and-white Add Audio button to bring up a list of the available audio clips:

Select whichever Audio Clip you want and click the Save button. It’s as easy as that!

Promotion Opportunities

Do you have a new book coming out? Or are you possibly bringing your show on tour for a live audience? Use an Audio Block to promote events and materials related to your podcast. 

Similar to creating an intro/outro, simply create a custom audio file and assign it to a custom Audio Block. Then, assign that Audio Block to any Insertion Point in your episodes. If you have a Pro or Enterprise plan, you can even set a start and end date. That way, a promotion for a live show doesn’t keep playing after the show has passed! If you have a Growth Plan, then be sure to manually remove that Audio Block, though!

Temporary News and/or Information

Life gets in the way sometimes (either for good or bad) and you may have to take a hiatus from your show. Set up a custom Audio Block with a custom audio file to let your audience know that you may not be updating for a while. Set it to all episodes in your catalog so your listeners, old and new, are kept up to date.

Have a set return date? Those with the Pro or Enterprise plan can set an end date for the custom audio file, which will prevent the custom audio from playing past that set date.

A/B Testing Ads

Anyone who’s worked with advertisers may be quite familiar with the term “A/B testing.” A/B Testing is essentially pitting two things (ads, website designs, recipes, dogs, etc.) against each other and comparing their popularity.

Let’s say you’re running an advertisement for a razor company on your show. The advertiser wants you to try out two different versions of the ad copy, each with its own unique promo code, to see which version of the ad performs better. 

You can add both custom audio files (Ad version 1 and Ad version 2) to the same Audio Block. Set the Play Style section to “Random” and the Play Up To: section to “1”:

Setting the Audio Block up like this allows for each version of the Ad to be heard by different people. The two ads are randomly selected for each individual listener.

Fallback Clip for Cross-Promotions

Many podcasters like to give their audience a heads up that an ad break is coming up. (“Let’s head over to the money zone!”) And you may want to let your listeners know that a Cross-Promotion block for another podcast is coming up. But what happens if the Cross-Promotion completes before you’re able to remove the Insertion Point/Audio Block? It’d be strange for listeners to hear there’s a break coming and then it jumps right back into the show!

You can add an interlude, like music or a quick personal message, as a “fallback clip” to be played if there is no Cross-Promotion to be heard. Simply click on the red + Add Fallback Audio link in the “Fallback Audio” section of the Audio Block Editor. Be sure to select “1” for the play style:

Setting the play style to “1” means that only one of the two audio clips present plays. If a Cross-Promotion is active, then the listener only hears the Cross-Promotion. But if the Cross-Promotion has concluded and there is no promo to be heard, then the fallback audio clip plays instead.