Show Me It Worked: What Small Stations and Podcasts Can Honestly Measure for Local Advertisers

By Bill Bernardoni

Every local advertiser eventually asks the same question: “How do I know it worked?”

I’ve sat across the table from that business owner more times than I can count. The worst thing you can do is answer with a number you can’t back up. The second worst is shrugging. There’s an honest middle, and small stations and podcasts can work in it every day.

Agree on what “worked” means before the first spot runs. More calls? More foot traffic on Saturdays? More people mentioning the show? Write it down. If you don’t define success at the start, the advertiser will define it at renewal time, and it’ll be whatever didn’t happen.

Give every campaign its own front door. A promo code, a short web address, a dedicated phone number, or a “tell them you heard it on the radio” offer. These won’t catch every response. Plenty of people hear an ad and just show up. But they give you something real to point to.

Ask at the register. The simplest tool in local media is still the best one. Ask the advertiser to have staff ask new customers how they heard about them, and to keep a tally for a month. It’s imperfect, and it’s theirs, so they trust it.

For podcasts, use standardized numbers and explain them. Downloads aren’t listeners, and listeners aren’t buyers. If your host is certified under the IAB Tech Lab’s podcast measurement guidelines, say so; it means your numbers are counted the way agencies expect. Then tell the advertiser plainly what a download does and doesn’t mean.

Report on a schedule, good news or bad. A short monthly note with what ran, what you measured, and what you’d change builds more trust than a glossy recap at renewal. If something didn’t work, say so and fix it. That’s how you keep an advertiser for years.

Don’t overclaim. Never tell a client a spot “drove” a sales jump you can’t connect to it. Local business owners talk to each other. One inflated promise costs you more than one honest “we’re not sure yet.”

Big agencies have dashboards. Small stations have something better: they know the advertiser by name, and the advertiser knows where to find them. Use that.

Bill Bernardoni is the founder of Bernardoni Media & Marketing in Ottawa, Illinois, and co-host of America at 250: Due Diligence with former Voice of America White House bureau chief Steve Herman.