Podcasts in the marketing funnel.

Podcasts accompany the whole customer journey. They create attention, build trust and spark buying interest, all in one format. A podcast works on two levels. It delivers content and trust for your existing funnel, and it is a funnel itself, from the first listen through regular listening to becoming a client.

Much of this can hardly be measured in your own podcast. That is why in this article I show you what current studies say about each stage, from Gartner to YouTube to the listener studies by Sounds Profitable.

What is a marketing funnel?

The funnel describes the path from first contact to order. At the top are many who are just discovering you, at the bottom a few who buy. In marketing, the three stages are usually called this.

• Top, TOFU (Top of Funnel): People become aware of you. The goal is reach.
• Middle, MOFU (Middle of Funnel): They get to know you and start to trust you. The goal is loyalty.
• Bottom, BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): They talk to you and decide. The goal is the close.

A podcast plays a different role at every stage. Whoever does not separate these measures the wrong thing and is disappointed after three months.

How companies buy today

To understand why a podcast works so well, it is worth looking at how decision-makers buy today. The big studies of 2025 paint a clear picture. The customer largely decides on their own, long before they talk to you.

For you that means three things above all.

• The decision is made before you know about it: Whoever does not know and trust you before the first conversation rarely makes the shortlist. A podcast is one of the few formats with which buyers get to know you for hours in this phase without you having to sell.
• Cold outreach is getting harder: Almost three in four B2B buyers avoid vendors who approach them with irrelevant messages. An invitation to your podcast is the opposite: personal, relevant and valuable for the guest.
• Many decide, not one: In buying groups, people also have a say whom you never meet. Edelman and LinkedIn call them hidden decision-makers; they read and listen to expert content just like the actual contacts. A podcast episode can be forwarded internally, a sales call cannot.

Why a podcast strengthens every stage of the funnel

A podcast conversation, whether audio or video, keeps people with you considerably longer than a post or an ad. Listeners feel personally connected to the speaker, experts call that a parasocial bond. And every episode creates new touchpoints across several channels.

• Podcasts are everyday life: According to Edison Research, 58 percent of people in the US aged 12 and over listened to or watched a podcast in the last month, 45 percent in the last week (Infinite Dial 2026). In Germany, the Online Audio Monitor 2026 puts Spotify at 52 percent and YouTube at 44 percent for podcasts.
• One hour becomes content for weeks: One episode yields clips for Reels, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts, quotes for posts, a newsletter, a blog article and the YouTube video. That way you are visible more often, in search as well as on social media.
• Guests open doors: If you invite decision-makers who match your ideal customer, you get into conversation without the typical drawbacks of cold outreach. The US agency Fame reports from over 100 B2B podcasts that 25 to 40 percent of deliberately invited guests turn into a concrete sales opportunity (agency data, 2025).

TOFU, reach and distribution

At the top of the funnel it is about new people becoming aware of you. Reach comes from three pillars.

1. The platforms

• YouTube: According to YouTube, over a billion people watch podcasts on the platform every month (January 2025), on TVs alone over 400 million hours a month (2024). YouTube actively recommends you to people who do not know you yet.
• Video is becoming the standard: In the US, according to Edison Research, 36 percent of people aged 12 and over both listened to and watched podcasts in the last month, only 15 percent exclusively listened (Infinite Dial 2026). In the Podstars survey by OMR, 52 percent in Germany said in 2026 that they prefer video podcasts.
• Podcast apps: Spotify and Apple Podcasts sort by categories and charts; new listeners find you there mainly via search.
• LinkedIn: For B2B the most important place for clips, because that is where your ideal customers are.

2. Content from one source

A one-hour interview episode delivers short clips, one or two blog articles, material for newsletters and quotes for posts. Clips are the most important feeder. According to the Podcast Atlas study by Sounds Profitable (2026, 5,061 respondents in the US), 89 percent of podcast listeners watch clips on social media, and 81 percent say clips at least sometimes lead them to a full episode.

3. Your guests’ reach

Every guest brings their own network. If they share the episode, you reach exactly their circle. That happens far more often if you send them finished clips and a suggested text instead of just a link.

MOFU, nurturing and trust

In the middle of the funnel it is about relationship and trust. Over several episodes, your competence and likability transfer to your offer. Precisely because buyers, according to 6sense, decide over 10 months and research most of that time alone, this phase is so valuable. Four things make the difference here.

• Regularity: Weekly or biweekly touchpoints over months.
• Closeness: A voice in the ear creates a personal connection that no text achieves.
• Expertise: In long conversations you show how you think, not just what you sell.
• Authenticity: Spontaneous, unscripted moments create trust.

That this trust is measurable is shown by the studies of Sounds Profitable.

• Least skepticism: Only 31 percent of audio podcast listeners are skeptical of advertising claims, fewer than in any other measured format (Podcast Atlas 2026).
• Highest recall: 86 percent of heavy listeners remember an ad they heard in a podcast in the last week, more than with any other ad-supported medium (Advertising Landscape 2025).
• Trust leads to action: 34 percent of audio podcast listeners and 35 percent for video podcasts specifically search for information about the brand after an ad in the podcast (Podcast Atlas 2026).

Small steps instead of a hard sell

Instead of offering a sales call at the end of every episode, staged offers work better.

• In the first third, a template: “You can find the checklist for this at [link].”
• In the middle, the newsletter: “Every week one impulse straight to your inbox.”
• At the end, the conversation: “Let’s talk about your situation.”

There are no reliable averages for how many listeners respond to which offer. Measure it yourself, with your own links per episode.

How you recognize success in the middle

• The most important numbers: How long listeners stay and where they drop off, clicks on the links from the episode, newsletter sign-ups per episode, how many come back after the first episode.
• Additionally: Episodes per listener, shared episodes and comments, referrals.
• The most important question: Ask every new client how they became aware of you. Many podcast clients do not show up in any statistic, because they listen to you first and call directly weeks later.

BOFU, the guest pipeline

At the bottom of the funnel, podcast means you deliberately choose guests who belong to your ideal customers and lead them through a clear process. That creates a real sales pipeline.

Step 1, define ideal customers

• Build a list: Write down the 50 to 100 companies you want to win.
• Find decision-makers: Per company, the two or three people who really decide.
• Sort: By fit and by how urgently they currently have a problem you solve.

Step 2, invite personally

A personal invitation with a clear benefit for the guest: visibility, finished clips, a good conversation. Refer to something they wrote or said themselves, and keep the message short. Everyone spots mass emails immediately.

Step 3, the interview as a door opener

• Exchange instead of selling: A conversation of 45 to 60 minutes about the guest’s field of expertise.
• The right questions: Questions that show you where they currently stand and what is on their mind.
• A natural transition: Trust arises from the conversation, and the next appointment comes about almost by itself. Exactly what Gartner describes: buyers seek a vendor’s assessment when it comes to their specific situation.

Step 4, follow up deliberately

• Day 1: Thank-you message and one sentence about the strongest moment of the conversation.
• Day 3: A preview of the episode.
• Day 7: The finished episode with clips and a suggested text for sharing.
• Day 14: A fitting template or an article that ties in with the conversation.
• Day 21: The invitation to a deeper exchange.

Podcast guests and cold outreach compared

There are no independent studies on the rate at which guests become customers. The available figures come from agencies and should therefore be read with caution. But they show a clear direction.

From our practice

What the studies describe, we see with our clients every month. Margarethe Honisch with Fortunalista, the finance podcast, and Noreen Eickenberg with Dein Höhenweg win new clients several times a month through their podcasts, from their guests as well as their listeners. The same goes for the other business owners in our case studies. For the founders of PreSales Unleashed, the podcast is by their own account even their most important marketing channel.

A cautious sample calculation

Suppose you publish 40 episodes a year, each with a guest from your ideal customer list. If, as agencies report, around 10 percent of them become customers, that is four new customers. At an order value of €10,000, that is €40,000 in revenue without a single cold email. Add the listeners who get to know you through the episodes and therefore already know you when, according to 6sense, they pick their favorite, long before they get in touch.

This is a sample calculation, not a forecast. How well it works for you depends on your target audience, the choice of guests and the follow-up. You calculate with your own numbers in the bonus at the end. What a podcast costs is in the article How much does a podcast cost?

What timeline to expect

• The first months: Setup, finding a rhythm, first guests. First conversations can already arise through guests now.
• From about half a year: Returning listeners, first inquiries from people who know you only through the podcast.
• From the second year: The archive takes effect, old episodes keep being found via YouTube and Google. With buying decisions that take 10 months on average, this long game pays off.

Summary

B2B buyers today largely decide on their own, long before they talk to a vendor, and avoid irrelevant outreach. A podcast starts exactly there. At the top, YouTube, clips and guests bring reach, in the middle regularity creates trust, and at the bottom deliberately invited guests become customers. What matters are a clear strategy, a fixed rhythm and that you measure where your customers come from.