Latest / Marketing Automation with Fexingo: HubSpot, Marketo, and Automated Customer Journeys / Why Marketing Automation Ignores Customer Podcast Listening
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I was digging through our marketing automation workflows earlier this week, and it hit me — we track almost everything a customer does on our website, but we have absolutely no idea what podcasts they listen to. Luna: That's actually a great point. I mean, podcast listeners are incredibly engaged. They're not scrolling past an ad; they're actively choosing to spend 30 minutes with a show. Lucas: Exactly. And yet, if you look at HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot — the big platforms — there's no native field for 'favorite podcast' or 'episodes completed'. You'd have to build a custom integration from scratch. Luna: Right. And even then, most podcast hosting platforms don't expose listener-level data through an API. You get aggregate downloads, but not 'this specific person listened to episode 42 for 20 minutes'. Lucas: Which is wild, because think about the signal quality. Someone who listens to a full episode about a specific industry challenge is showing intent far stronger than someone who just clicked a banner ad. Luna: So what would it take? If a B2B company wanted to trigger an email sequence based on podcast listening, how would they even set that up? Lucas: Well, there's a workaround — some companies create dedicated landing pages per episode with a unique URL parameter. When a listener visits that page, it fires a webhook into the marketing automation platform. Luna: But that assumes the listener actually goes to the page. Most people just listen in their podcast app and never touch the show notes. Lucas: Correct. So the better approach is a listener survey or a progressive profiling form — 'What topics interest you?' — and include podcast-related options. But that's indirect. Luna: I remember a case from last year — a SaaS company called Drift? They actually used podcast listening as a lead scoring signal. They asked prospects on a webinar, 'Which of our podcasts have you heard?' and mapped the answers to stages. Lucas: Right, Drift had a pretty famous podcast themselves. But that's manual. The holy grail would be a native integration between Apple Podcasts or Spotify and a CRM. Imagine if your sales team got an alert: 'This prospect just finished your episode on pricing strategy.' Luna: That would be amazing. And honestly, it's not far-fetched. Spotify already has ads and listener data. They could easily offer an enterprise API for marketing triggers. Lucas: One startup I came across — Podscribe — tries to do this for ad measurement, but it's not yet a full marketing automation trigger. I think the reluctance is privacy: podcast listening feels personal, like reading your Kindle highlights. Luna: Yeah, there's a creepiness factor. If I got an email saying 'We see you listened to our episode about SEO,' I might feel surveilled. But if I opted in — say, I logged in with my Spotify account — it could be fine. Lucas: Exactly. The key is consent. But right now, most companies aren't even asking. And that means they're leaving a huge behavioral signal on the table. Luna: Speaking of leaving things on the table — I know our show doesn't run ads, and we've talked about how that's intentional. It's actually listener-supported. Lucas: Yeah, a handful of our audience chips in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's literally what funds making this many episodes — no ad revenue, no sponsors. Luna: And we really appreciate it. It lets us stay independent and talk about exactly what we think is interesting, without worrying about pleasing an advertiser. Lucas: Exactly. So back to the podcast listening gap — one thing that could change this is if more marketing automation platforms add podcast listening as a standard activity type, like email opens or page visits. Luna: Have any of the big players hinted at that? I know HubSpot has been adding more third-party integrations lately. Lucas: Not publicly. But I think it's inevitable. As podcast advertising grows — it's projected to hit over 4 billion dollars by 2028 — the data infrastructure will follow. We'll see something like 'Podcast Activity' in the CRM within five years. Luna: What about using a tool like Zapier to bridge the gap? If a podcast host sends a webhook when someone finishes an episode, you could log that in HubSpot. Lucas: Possible, but most podcast hosts don't send individual listener webhooks. They'd have to know who the listener is. That usually requires a login or a magic link in the show notes. Luna: So the practical advice for a marketer today would be: start by asking your listeners to identify themselves. Offer a lead magnet in the show notes tied to a specific episode. Lucas: Exactly. Create a unique URL per episode — like yourshow.com/episode42 — and when someone visits, you know they listened. Then you can score them higher and trigger a relevant nurture sequence. Luna: And it doesn't have to be complicated. A simple thank-you page with a one-question survey: 'What did you think?' can feed into your CRM. Lucas: Right. And you can use that data to segment: people who listened to the pricing episode get one follow-up, people who listened to the product demo episode get another. Luna: I'd love to see an A/B test on that. Compare a standard email nurture against one that includes podcast listening as a trigger. Lucas: There's actually some evidence already. A B2B company called Influitive did something similar — they asked prospects to listen to a customer story podcast, and those who did were 40 percent more likely to request a demo. Luna: That's a huge lift. And it makes sense — audio is intimate. You're letting someone talk directly into your ear. It builds trust faster than a white paper. Lucas: Exactly. So the takeaway: if you're running marketing automation, don't ignore podcast listening as a signal. Start small — a unique URL per episode, a simple form — and see how it impacts conversion. Luna: And if you're a platform vendor listening — HubSpot, Marketo — maybe add podcast listening as a native activity. Your customers would love it. Lucas: Alright, that's our case for why podcast listening should be in your marketing automation. Next time, we'll look at another blind spot: customer gaming habits. Luna: Can't wait. See you next time.