Let’s talk about influence for a second. Podcasting has built something truly rare. Maybe the rarest thing in modern media: a direct line between a human voice and a loyal audience that actually listens. No scrolling past. No muting. Just a person, an audience, and a level of trust that has taken years to build and is incredibly difficult to replicate.

Now, is all of that host influence created equal? That’s the real question.

In early podcasting days, many advertisers became convinced that bigger was better. If a celebrity podcast has millions of listeners, it must be the best place to put your brand, right? Not exactly. Celebrity podcasts have their place — they draw in excitement, and give stars a new way to engage with fans. But celebrity reach and genuine audience influence are two very different things. For advertisers, it’s not how large the audience is. It’s how deeply those listeners connect that matters most. And the data is pretty clear: the strongest conversions don’t come from the biggest celebrity names. They come from the most trusted expert voices.

The brands winning in podcast advertising right now aren’t all sponsoring the biggest names. They’re finding the mid-sized shows. The shows where listeners have been there since episode 12, and where a host recommendation lands more like a text from a friend who actually tried it. 

Meet the “midfluencer”. No celebrity status or massive profile. Just a deeply loyal audience who listens. It turns out the shows with the tightest communities drive better conversions.

It’s worth noting: some of the biggest shows in podcasting right now — think The MeidasTouch, Smosh Reads Reddit Stories — have massive audiences without being celebrity-driven in the traditional sense. Their power comes from deep community, real trust, and hosts who genuinely know their subject.

The rule of thumb: if you’re paying by impression, you might as well get a more engaged impression. And that’s what expertise-driven, mid-sized shows deliver. The data clearly shatters the assumption that massive celebrity reach equals lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Midsized titles drive much tighter efficiency for advertisers.

According to Podscribe’s Benchmark Report, advertisers of mid-sized shows see better results — an average of 22% lower CPA than the larger celebrity podcasts.

Adam McNeil, SVP of Client Services from Adopter Media put it well, “We really like mid-sized podcasts because they carry a really big punch, and they’re usually efficiently priced. We actually tend to stay away from a lot of the macro podcasts, because they don’t tend to have as much influence.”

Post-campaign performance isn’t the only place mid-sized podcasts come out on top. Even taking a look inside the engagement audiences have with their host is a really helpful… and telling tool for media buyers.

The industry has been circling engagement metrics for years. Dentsu’s attention study started the conversation a few years back. The Bumper Score took it a step further, focusing on retention. And now Podscribe has released its second-generation engagement metrics — measuring comments and ratings relative to episode consumption across audio and video. It’s early days. But the signal is real, with higher engagement indicating stronger campaign performance.

Take two shows in the same genre: Call Her Daddy, a large-scale celebrity podcast, versus a mid-sized show like Sofia with an F. On paper it’s not a competition…until you look at the engagement scores. 

CHD is one of the country’s biggest podcasts, but the engagement scores are low: just 14th percentile on audio and 5th percentile on video. Sofia with an F may have fewer listeners, but the engagement scores are exceptional.

Fewer listeners. Dramatically better engagement. Tighter communities can outperform bigger, broader ones because the fans aren’t just listening — they’re invested.

The takeaway is a simple, yet impactful one. The biggest, celebrity podcasts aren’t always the best buy. Expert-driven shows with deeply loyal audiences consistently outperform celebrity podcasts on conversion rates and cost per acquisition.

For more examples of successful podcast campaigns, check out Audacy’s State of Audio: The New Rules of Podcast Advertising.

Content includes excerpts from State of Audio.