How to advertise on The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby: what it costs, who buys, and how to book

Host-read inventory on this show is quoted per campaign, not sold off a public rate card, and no sales network sits in between. Spotsnow attributes the vast majority of host-read activity here to direct-response advertisers, and BetterHelp alone has run roughly 14 to 17 ads on the feed. That mix tells you what you're buying: a coded-offer machine aimed at young parents, not a branding placement. Spotsnow estimates all of this from tracked advertiser activity, not audience surveys.

Everything below comes off the Spotsnow profile for The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby, including its advertiser roster, ad counts, and estimated spend.

Why The Unplanned Podcast is built for host-read direct response

Matt and Abby Howard host, high school sweethearts turned parents of three young kids, and the show runs on unscripted conversation about family and marriage. It sits in the kids & family category, and its top-spending advertiser comes out of mental health care, which tells you something about where this audience's attention goes.

Spotsnow data shows the vast majority of ad activity on the feed is classified direct response, meaning coded URLs, promo codes, and trackable offers rather than image spots. That matters because the format here does half the work. Matt and Abby don't cut to a polished break, they talk through the sponsor the way they talk through everything else, often from their own household. When the ad arrives inside the same conversational register as the episode, listeners don't tune out at the handoff, and a host-read borrows exactly that sustained attention. Spotsnow estimates reach at roughly 320,000 listeners per episode, an estimate rather than a counted figure. The audience skews young, overwhelmingly female, firmly in the new-parent stage of life, mostly middle-income and heavily US-based.

The engagement signals back it up. The show carries a 4.8 average rating on Apple Podcasts across roughly 14,500 to 16,900 ratings, and Instagram is where the couple's audience lives, at roughly 520,000 followers. Influence is concentrated in the feed and on Instagram rather than spread evenly across every platform, which is useful for a buyer: the same people hearing the read are the people seeing the story posts.

Who is advertising on The Unplanned Podcast

Spotsnow logged roughly 30 to 35 brands on the feed in the recent window, a mix of performance DTC and household retail names.

• Shopify
• Progressive Insurance
• Nordstrom
• Cash App
• Rocket Money

The anchor advertisers, broken down

BetterHelp

BetterHelp sells online therapy memberships matched to licensed therapists. Spotsnow estimates total spend on this show at over $60K across roughly 14 to 17 ads, classified fully direct response. Therapy sells to people in the middle of something hard, and a show about three kids under five, postpartum recovery, and marriage under strain is where that conversation already happens without a sponsor prompting it.

ZocDoc

ZocDoc is an appointment-booking platform covering more than 100 medical specialties. Spotsnow estimates over $50K in total spend here across roughly 12 to 14 ads, all direct response. Young parents are the heaviest bookers of pediatric, dental, and OB appointments in the country, and they're the least likely to have time to call an office.

Chili Pad

Chili Pad, from Sleep.me, sells temperature-controlled mattress pads. Spotsnow estimates over $50K in total spend across roughly 7 to 8 ads, direct response, concentrated in recent months. Sleep is the running subject of this household, and a sleep product sold by two people doing night feedings doesn't need a setup.

The Nordstrom exception

Nordstrom runs the odd one out: a produced 125-year anthem spot with no code and no offer, built entirely on association. It's proof that a pure awareness objective can run on this feed, even though almost everything around it is chasing attribution.

All spend figures are Spotsnow estimates.

Why kids & family brands cluster here

Look at the roster as a shopping list and it reads like one household's problem set: therapy, doctor appointments, sleep, subscriptions they forgot to cancel, hair thinning after a baby, non-toxic cleaners, kids' vitamins. That isn't a coincidence of category targeting. Matt and Abby's authority doesn't come from a credential, it comes from being three kids deep and narrating it in real time, which means every purchase they mention arrives as a solution to a problem the listener heard them have two segments earlier. That's a rare alignment. Most parenting media sells aspiration; this feed sells triage.

For a performance buyer, the consequence is that the creative brief mostly writes itself, and the attribution holds. Spotsnow attributes nearly all host-read activity on the show to direct response, and the three anchor brands all classify at full direct response. Brands that need a coded offer to prove out keep coming back. Brands that want to borrow warmth rather than drive a click can still work here, but they're buying against the grain.

How your ad could sound

What works in this Rocket Money read is the hook, and it's not a feature. Matt goes straight to a confession: "there's been times where our kids have taken the TV remote and bought stuff on subscription that we didn't know about." Every parent listening has a version of that story. The product then explains itself, no claims needed. The URL is show-specific and repeated three times, which is how a coded host-read earns its attribution, and the handoff back into the conversation is clean, no gear change.

Two things worth tightening. The offer is vague. "Join at rocketmoney.com/unplanned" is an address, not a reason to act today, and there's no savings figure, trial, or deadline anywhere in the read. Second, the CTA leads with the web address rather than the benefit, so the payoff lands after the instruction instead of before it. Give the host a number to say and a reason the number expires, and the same sixty seconds converts harder.

View what a great sample ad looks like here.

What makes a show like this convert

1. The format carries the offer. Spotsnow attributes nearly all ad activity on the feed to direct response, which only holds up when listeners stay through the read instead of skipping it.
2. Host credibility is lived, not claimed. The sponsors that work here are the ones Matt and Abby were already going to mention, which is why the sleep, health, and money brands outperform the generic ones.
3. The audience is in a buying phase of life. Spotsnow estimates roughly 320,000 listeners skewing young, overwhelmingly female, and mostly US-based, concentrated in the years when households form new spending habits.
4. Repeat buying proves the math. BetterHelp has run roughly 14 to 17 ads and ZocDoc roughly 12 to 14, per Spotsnow, and performance marketers don't re-up a dozen times on a channel that misses.

The Unplanned Podcast in a nutshell

The listener base is estimated at roughly 320,000 per episode, young, mostly women, mostly American, and mostly deep in early parenthood. Spotsnow logged roughly 30 to 35 brands on the feed recently, and the ones spending most are health, scheduling, sleep, and money apps buying conversational host-reads with trackable codes. There's no large sales network in the middle, so a buy is arranged direct and quoted per campaign. If your KPI is a coded conversion, this fits; if you need a produced awareness spot, it can run, but you'll be the exception rather than the pattern.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to advertise on The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby?

The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby is sold on a quoted basis rather than a public rate card. Four things move the number: placement (mid-roll host-read prices above pre-roll and post-roll), read type (a host endorsement prices above a produced spot), commitment length (multi-episode flights and category exclusivity price better than a single test), and how close you are to the air date. For market context, a host-read spot on a typical show costs a brand roughly $20 to $30 for every thousand listeners it reaches. In-demand shows clear well above that. The more useful signal for this show is who already buys: BetterHelp has run roughly 14 to 17 ads, alongside ZocDoc and Chili Pad. Repeat buying at that level tells you more about where a show prices, and what it's worth to the brands buying it, than an outside estimate can.

How long could booking times take on The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby?

Ads run on most episodes, so the show is in demand and inventory moves fast. Plan on reaching out sooner than you think you need to.

How long does it take to run a host-read ad start to finish?

About 1 week to book, 2 to 3 weeks to produce and run, plus 2 to 3 weeks of lead time, so roughly 5 to 7 weeks end to end.

Where can I buy an ad on The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby?

The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby is sold direct rather than through one of the large networks. You can book through a platform that already has the show in its inventory. You can view different advertising platforms here.

Who actually listens to The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby?

Spotsnow estimates roughly 320,000 listeners per episode, an estimate rather than an audited count. The audience skews young and overwhelmingly female, sits mostly in the early-parenthood stage, leans middle-income, and is concentrated in the United States. The show holds a 4.8 Apple Podcasts rating across roughly 14,500 to 16,900 ratings.

Does my category already run on The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby?

Health and telehealth, sleep, personal finance, beauty, and kids' nutrition all appear on the Spotsnow roster, alongside big retail and insurance names buying produced spots. If you sell something a household with young kids buys on subscription, a competitor or an adjacent brand has almost certainly tested this feed already.

The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby isn't the only feed reaching this audience. Spotsnow shows which kids & family podcasts have host-read spots open right now, and which brands already buy them.