ANODA Discuss your product

Podcast advertising, one version of the deal

Wildcast matches brands with podcasts for host-read ads.We redesigned its MVP web app end to end: the Podcaster, Advertiser and Admin portals.

Wildcast Podcaster dashboard: downloads over time and per episode, downloads by country, device and app, then the available opportunities with brand, CPM, ad type, relevancy and deadline; Wildcast Advertiser dashboard: relevancy score, confirmed listeners and unique podcasts, campaigns by category, placements by status and notifications from podcasts
400%+
revenue growth against 2023, as Wildcast’s Product Lead reports
265
screens and states designed across the three portals
3
portals Podcaster, Advertiser and Admin, on one design system

Wildcast is a host-read podcast ad-matching and campaign-management platform: advertisers request campaigns, Wildcast’s team matches them with podcasts, and podcasters publish the ads. Its MVP worked, but each side saw the deal differently and the team closed the gaps by hand. We redesigned the whole web app for Podcaster, Advertiser and Admin, fixed the UX flaws and designed new features.

The path one campaign takes

A host-read campaign crosses all three portals before anyone can call it done:

  1. Advertiser

    • Campaign request
    • Audience attributes

  2. Admin

    • Review and budget
    • Matched podcasts

  3. Proposal

    • Relevancy score
    • Estimated reach

  4. Podcaster

    • Opportunity
    • Published episode

  5. Confirmation

    • Placement reach
    • Reach estimate

  6. Advertiser

    • Ad placements
    • Estimated vs actual reach
Precise targeting A quick yes
Advertisers describe audiences in detail; a podcaster needs the offer, the payout and the deadline in one look.
Matching Judgement
Relevancy scores and reach estimates guide the team without hiding why a podcast was picked.
Rich profiles Patchy data
Podcast data arrives from outside sources, so every card and table has to read well when a field is missing.

A podcaster’s day, read top to bottom

Found
Downloads, audience breakdowns, tasks and new offers all belong to a podcaster’s first screen, and at equal weight the offer that pays next week gets lost.
Decided
One order: how the show is doing, where its listeners are, then a switch between what is owed and what is on offer, with every offer’s price, format, relevancy and deadline on its row.
For the user
A podcaster sees the next ad worth taking, and why it fits their show, without leaving the dashboard.
Dashboard design
Wildcast Podcaster dashboard: downloads over the day and per episode, downloads by country, device and app, then tabs for outstanding tasks and available opportunities, with a table of offers and an Accept button on each row
After: the Podcaster dashboard; the figures and brands are example data

  1. How the show is doing

    Downloads over time and per episode, with the change against last week.

  2. Where the listeners are

    Country, device and app, the facts an advertiser asks about.

  3. Owed or on offer

    Outstanding tasks and available opportunities behind one switch.

  4. Every offer on one row

    Brand and product, CPM, ad type, the ad content, relevancy and the deadline, with Accept at the end.

How the work progressed

From an MVP each role used differently to one product ready for a development partner.

  1. Discovery

    Where the MVP made each role stop, guess or ask Wildcast’s team for help

    Artifact A review of the product from every role’s seat and an information architecture for three portals

  2. User flows

    How a campaign moves from request to proposal, placement, confirmation and payout

    Artifact Flows for every role, with each state and decision drawn

  3. Wireframes

    Where dense tables, metrics and filters sit before any styling

    Artifact Black-and-white wireframes for Podcaster, Advertiser and Admin

    Black-and-white wireframe of the Podcaster dashboard: downloads, audience breakdowns and the table of available opportunities

  4. Moodboards

    Which look lets dense campaign data stay calm

    Artifact Visual directions tried on the same real screens

    Three visual directions for the Podcaster dashboard: a light sidebar, a dark sidebar and a purple accent

  5. UI & design system

    One set of components for three portals and every state between them

    Artifact Final desktop UI for Podcaster, Advertiser and Admin: 265 screens and states

  6. Delivery

    What the development partner needed to build it

    Artifact An interactive prototype, a screen map and a Zeplin handoff

Three doors into one product

Found
Podcasters, advertisers and Wildcast’s own team come in for different jobs, and each job crosses into another portal before it is finished.
Decided
Every flow drawn screen by screen for its role, then a side menu per portal that holds only that role’s work, over one shared structure.

  1. A podcaster signs up

    Account type, name, email and password, then the podcast itself, one short step at a time.

    Open the full map
    Podcaster sign-up flow fragment: choosing the account type, entering first and last name, then email and password

  2. An advertiser requests a campaign

    Goals and budget first, then the product and the offer, then the audience, before anyone at Wildcast is involved.

    Open the full map
    Campaign request flow fragment: the first step empty, the same step filled with outcomes, budget and kick-off date, then the details step

  3. Wildcast approves it

    Budget, publishing deadline, the podcasts to add and the campaign details, each confirmed before the offer goes out.

    Open the full map
    Campaign approval flow fragment: setting the budget, the publishing deadline, then searching for podcasts to add
The three side menus: Podcaster with Dashboard, Opportunities, Submissions, My Podcasts, Support, Payment Settings and Affiliate Offers; Advertiser with Dashboard, Campaigns, Ad Placement and Support; Admin with Data, Campaigns, Podcasts, Confirmation, Affiliate Offers and Proposal

One structure, three menus

Each portal lists only its own role’s work, in the order that role meets it.

  • Information architecture for three roles
  • Side menus and page headers
  • Flows for every role
  • Screen map and interactive prototype

Seven jobs a campaign needs done

In the order a campaign meets them, across all three portals.

Podcasts as inventory an advertiser can judge

Found
A podcast is only sellable when its audience, format and price can be read and compared, and podcast data from outside sources is often incomplete.
Decided
A profile per show: cover, host, category and cadence, average monthly audience and CPM set large, and the audience attributes as labelled cards that still read when one is empty.
Wildcast Podcaster My Podcasts: three podcast cards with covers and hosts, and an Add Podcast button
Podcast profile: cover, host, categories, weekly cadence and reviews, average monthly audience and average CPM, then audience attributes for demographics, education, ad types, geography, job titles, job functions, investor status and household income

An offer a podcaster can say yes to

Found
A podcaster needs to know what an offer asks of them and by when, or they accept work they can’t deliver.
Decided
Accepting opens one short dialog with the brand, the product, the payout range and the publishing deadline, and a plain warning before the button.
Accept Opportunity dialog: brand, job title, payout range and publishing deadline, a warning not to accept without publishing before the deadline, and Cancel and Accept buttons

A campaign request instead of an email thread

Found
Advertisers described their audience in emails and calls, and Wildcast’s team rebuilt each brief by hand.
Decided
A staged request in the Advertiser portal that ends with the preferred audience: demographics, industries, job titles, education, job functions, income, investor status and geography, then a note on what happens next.
Create new campaign, preferred audience attributes: audience demographics, target industries, job titles, education levels, job functions, household income, investor status and geographical relevance, with Cancel and Confirm

Relevance an advertiser can check

Found
A relevancy score alone asks the advertiser to trust it; they need to see what it was measured against.
Decided
The campaign page shows the targeted attributes next to the matched shows, each with its relevancy score, monthly listeners and CPM, grouped as flagship, anchor, influencer and exact-match shows.
Advertiser campaign page: relevancy score, confirmed listeners, unique podcasts, total placements, estimated reach and budget, the attribute details, and matched shows with relevancy score, monthly listeners and CPM

Proof that the ad ran

Found
A host-read ad is only worth paying for once it is published and its reach confirmed, and the advertiser can’t see that happen.
Decided
One chain of states across the portals: the podcaster submits the published episode, Wildcast confirms the placement’s reach, and the advertiser sees each placement with its status and estimated against actual reach.
Podcaster Submissions: outstanding tasks with podcast, job title, CPM offer, ad type, pending task, ad content and deadline, with Submit buttons and completed ticks
Admin Confirmation: outstanding tasks, pending reach estimates and pending reach confirmations, then a table of podcasts with job title, payout range, pending task, ad content and episode link, each with Confirm
Advertiser Ad Placements: campaign, podcast, status, estimated reach, actual reach, ad type and date submitted for each placement, with search, filters and export

Operations that scale past one admin

Found
Every campaign and proposal went through Wildcast’s team, and at volume the team became the queue.
Decided
Campaigns split into active and pending with value, ad type, content, relevancy and deliveries on each row; proposals open on their totals, relevancy, confirmed listeners, reach and budget, above a table built for filtering and export.
Admin Campaigns, active tab: brand and job title, campaign value, ad type, ad content, relevancy and deliveries, with search, filters and export
Admin Proposal page: relevancy score, confirmed listeners, unique podcasts, total placements, estimated reach and monthly budget, then all proposals with status, budget, ad content and attributes

Payouts and offers, handed off in the open

Found
Payouts run through an outside payment service, and a hand-off the interface doesn’t explain looks like a dead end.
Decided
Payment settings say who handles payouts and send the podcaster there in one step, with a question form beside it; affiliate offers sit in their own section.
Podcaster Payment Settings: a card explaining that payouts are managed with Tipalti and a Move to Payment button, beside a Have a question form
Podcaster Affiliate Offers: a grid of audio product offers, each with a title, description and Redeem button

One design system under three portals

Found
Three portals with different jobs still had to filter, confirm and fall empty the same way, or users switching roles would relearn each one.
Decided
One set of components for navigation, tables, filters, forms, statuses and dialogs, with the empty, success and confirmation states drawn for every role.

The same filter panel in every portal

Checkbox groups and one pair of actions, whatever the table holds.

  • Three filter panels: Podcaster opportunities by ad type; Advertiser placements by status and ad type; Admin campaigns by ad type and campaign value; each with Cancel and Confirm
    Podcaster, Advertiser, Admin: Opportunities by ad type; placements by status and ad type; campaigns by ad type and value.

Empty, in every portal

An empty table says what is missing and, where the role can act, what to do next.

  • Empty available opportunities: no available opportunities found
    Podcaster
  • Empty campaigns list with a New Campaign button
    Advertiser
  • Empty active campaigns table: no campaigns found
    Admin

Where Wildcast ended up

Wildcast’s MVP became one working product for advertisers, podcasters and its own team: three portals on one design system, handed off with a prototype, a screen map and Zeplin, and built by a development partner we connected Wildcast with.

The revenue result is Wildcast’s own, reported in its Product Lead’s review; it belongs to the whole business, not to design alone. The last three figures are the platform’s current scale as Wildcast publishes it, not results we measured.

400%+ revenue growth compared with 2023 Reported by Tom Donohue, Wildcast’s Product Lead, in a verified Clutch review

screens and states designed
265
portals: Podcaster, Advertiser, Admin
3
podcasts on Wildcast today, as Wildcast publishes
1,400+
top podcast networks, as Wildcast publishes
15
monthly podcast listeners, as Wildcast publishes
110M

In the client's words

Our new platform has helped us scale and increase revenues by over 400% compared to 2023.

Tom Donohue Product Lead, Wildcast

5.0

Three portals that tell three different stories?

When advertisers, your supply side and your own operators each see a different version of the deal, your team ends up retyping it. We redesign the whole loop, so a request, a match, a placement and a payout read the same from every seat.

Discuss your product Explore more case studies

What we brought to Wildcast

The product

The interface and its system