Artisanal Agency - How We Vet TWiT.tv Clients

Lisa Laporte:  Leo Laporte, Founder TWiT.tv

You may think, as an advertising agency, that we’d automatically take the next sponsor that comes our way.  For Artisanal Agency, however, nothing could be further from the truth. We represent TWiT.tv, a journalist podcast network that strives to report important tech news, help, how-tos, reviews, and more.  Therefore, we heavily vet all potential clients because TWiT values its reputation and only signs advertisers who have high-integrity products/services that benefit the TWiT audience. Based on our 2020 survey, 86% of the TWiT audience made a purchase base on an ad they heard on our network.   

A product/service that does not have an outstanding track record could damage us in a multitude of ways, including viewership, host reputation, and our bottom line. We aren’t interested in lying or have subpar products/services on our network because it will ruin the trust and reputation the TWiT audience has for our hosts and the entire network.  Our listeners are the most important aspect of our business, and we only cater to them. Looking at prospective clients needs to be done with a critical eye, and we are very selective.

One of the ways in which we accomplish this is with our vetting process that starts with a one-sheet, which includes:

A link to the website.
The date it’s prepared - we want to when it was prepared.
Who the founder/CEO is - we want to represent companies with high integrity people and reputable services/products. 
Audience Focus - it’s important to find out if the services/products are geared toward the TWiT audience.
Talking points - this is a short paragraph to provide details of the potential client’s products/services, including pricing, if available.
Reviews - preferably we would like reviews from reputable journalist entities. We do not want information from a publisher who uses sponsored content, we want trusted tech review websites, articles, online reviews, Amazon reviews, etc. 
Who their competitors are because we want to avoid conflicts with existing advertisers.

We take pride in finding the right fit for the TWiT network. Taking on a sponsor is a relationship that we want to cultivate and respect. The only way we can do this is by vetting our clients so that we can be confident that our choice is a good choice.