Beehiiv Adds Dynamic Podcast Ad Insertion to Win Big Creators

Beehiiv now offers dynamically inserted podcast ads, closing a feature gap its CEO says kept large creators off the platform. "Most larger, serious podcasts are using some form of dynamic ad insertion to monetize, and we will not win their business to migrate their podcast over until we had a competitive feature set," Tyler Denk, beehiiv's co-founder and CEO, told AdExchanger.

The company announced the addition Tuesday as an extension of the podcast offering it launched in April. Publishers keep 50% to 60% of programmatic podcast ad revenue; beehiiv takes the rest. By comparison, beehiiv retains roughly 20% to 25% of programmatic display revenue and takes no share of direct-sold ads.

Who uses beehiiv for podcasting?

More than 13,000 publishers run on beehiiv's network, which delivers about $1 million in monthly revenue to clients. Over 2,100 of them use the platform to manage podcast distribution across Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major apps. Since the April launch, the publisher count using beehiiv for podcasting has grown about 20% each month, according to Ainsley Rossitto, head of podcast at beehiiv.

The platform serves the full spectrum of publishers: single-operator newsletters, local outlets, startups from nationally recognized reporters such as Oliver Darcy's Status, and major media brands including Newsweek and TIME.

Why programmatic audio now?

Denk has long had podcasting on the road map as a complement to beehiiv's newsletter, social and website tools. The company's seriousness showed in hiring Rossitto in May, after she managed podcast ad strategy at NPR and Paramount.

The strategic logic is the inbox. Content discovery has shifted away from publisher-controlled channels, and search, social and AI chatbots answer to Big Tech's algorithms. Email remains one of the few places where users curate their own preferences — a shift that has fueled newsletter-native platforms including beehiiv, Substack and Ghost.

Programmatic ads typically sell below direct-sold rates, but they monetize back catalogs and inventory left out of direct deals. Publishers face no impression or download minimum to participate.

How the ad system works

Beehiiv gives publishers two monetization paths:

• Manage direct-sold inventory through beehiiv's ads manager.
• Opt into programmatic, where beehiiv and audio ad serving partner AdsWizz fill the inventory.

Both paths come with analytics for tracking campaign performance. Publishers place ad slots at the episode level or let beehiiv mass-apply placements across their catalog; AdsWizz serves ads into third-party platforms via existing RSS feeds.

Beehiiv does not dictate the number of ad breaks per episode, Rossitto said. To control saturation, it caps the ad load at 10 different ads per break and publishes best-practice guidance. Publishers categorize inventory using the IAB's standard content taxonomy and their Apple Podcasts categories, and can choose which advertiser categories may bid. A "prioritization waterfall" keeps programmatic demand from outranking direct deals.

Targeting is expanding, too. Beehiiv is moving beyond contextual targeting to incorporate behavioral data tied to the user's email login — letting an advertiser reach technology-interested listeners while they consume sports content.

What comes next?

Early publishers are splitting into two camps, Rossitto said: some use programmatic as a fast-to-launch extra revenue channel; others fold podcast ads into larger direct-sold deals at higher CPMs as omnichannel sponsorship packages.

Video podcast distribution support is next, likely by the end of the year, Denk said. Email cannot embed video, but beehiiv plans to manage video distribution on YouTube, Spotify and other platforms as it does audio today. Community features and website digital products are also coming.

"The most successful content creators today are not single channel, but multichannel," Denk said. For beehiiv, that conviction now extends from the inbox into every platform where audiences already are.