Good morning, Podcasters! This is a rather introspective episode. You'll have to listen to get the full experience (though the transcript is below).

In the episode, I talk quite heavily about a few books and blogs:

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin
• Make Noise: A Creator's Guide to Podcasting and Great Audio Storytelling, by Eric Nuzum
• The Interestingness of Everyday Experiences - a post by Jeffrey Saddoris

Thank you for listening to Good Morning, Podcasters!

On yesterday's episode, I spoke the need to collect first-party data since third-party data is not long for this Earth. On today's episode, I talk about some simple ways you can update your website in order to optimize it for growing your email subscriber list.

Here are 9 ways you can optimize your podcast's website in order to grow your email subscriber list:

1. Make sure your sign-up form is prominent. A lot of people bury their newsletter sign-up at the bottom of the page or on the “Contact Us” page. Give it the prominence it deserves.
2. Reduce the fields in your sign-up form. Research shows that the more fields you have, the fewer people will sign up. Unless you require specific information to segment your audience, I recommend starting with just the email address OR name and email address.
3. Give something away for every subscriber. If you want to grow your list fast, offer something like a free sticker, custom piece of art, shout out on the pod, etc. for signing up. Remember that if you go with something physical that you have to mail, you’re going to need to mail it. And in the U.S., postage is at 60¢ plus the cost of the envelope, sticker, and your time. It can get pricey, but it may be worth it depending on how you monetize your show and your email list.
4. Add a timed pop-up or exit-intent pop-up on your homepage. You’ve all seen this before. The box pops up after a few seconds on the site asking you to sign up for the newsletters. You’ve seen them so often because they work. An exit-intent popup works by triggering when the site detects the mouse moving to the top of the screen (signaling that the visitor is about to bounce).
5. Add pop-ups on your most popular content. If you don’t want everyone getting hit with a pop-up, you could only put it on pages that are high performers.
6. Require registration for blog comments. If you take comments on the show, you could require that the visitor registers first. In that registration process, you could include an opt-in box. Just be sure you’re following GDPR/CCPA/etc. guidelines.
7. Test & update your CTAs. Have you not been getting many sign-ups? Maybe the copy isn’t landing with your audience. Try changing up your Call-to-Action and button copy.
8. Make a quiz. People like to interact with fun quizzes and polls. Put one on your website and require the user to sign up in order to see the results.
9. Create a survey. Ask your listeners to give you feedback about your show and at the end, give them an opportunity to sign up for your email list.

There you go! Nine ways to grow your subscriber list. Thanks for listening to GMP!

Man, I've been waiting to use this title for a long, long time!

Third-party cookies have been a vital tool for advertisers and websites for years. These cookies are used to track users, gather data, and help advertisers provide more targeted ads to the right people. However, many consumers feel that data tracking is an invasion of privacy, and the increasing trend towards data privacy has led to the sunsetting of third-party cookies.

In 2024, Google plans to eliminate third-party cookies on Google Chrome, the world's most popular browser, with a 68% market share. This move will make it harder for advertisers to get their ads in front of the right audience and almost impossible to retarget users. First-party cookies, on the other hand, will not be affected. These cookies are set by the website that the visitor is on and include preferences such as dark mode and shopping carts.

This change will have a significant impact on advertisers and marketers, as there will be a new focus on gathering as much first-party data as possible. The emphasis will be on email newsletters and other data-gathering promotions, and creating useful, authentic content that people will want to interact with and share.

Large websites with massive datasets will still benefit from first-party cookies. For example, Facebook has a lot of first-party data because people provide them with every bit of information about who they are and what they like. This means that advertising on the platform will still be an easy way to reach people. However, it won't be possible to retarget people who visited your website on Facebook.

This is going to be a significant change that will impact the world of online advertising and marketing. However, it also provides an opportunity for you to focus on gathering more first-party data and creating authentic, useful content that people will want to interact with and share.