Published
Definition: Guest invitations sent that receive any reply, including out-of-office responses.
B2B podcast guest invitations sent by ThePod.fm receive a reply at 18% of sends, including out-of-office responses (ThePod.fm, 2026).
The top of the funnel, and the clearest signal that the ask itself changes behaviour. A cold email asks a stranger for their time; a podcast invitation offers a decision-maker a platform. Same lists, same mailboxes, and nearly one in five recipients replies.
Source: ThePod.fm campaign data (Smartlead + Close). Percentile distribution publishes with the full dataset export.
Published
Definition: Guest invitations sent that become booked introduction calls.
7.5% of B2B podcast guest invitations become booked introduction calls with target-account decision-makers, versus a 0.16% booked-meeting rate for conventional cold email (ThePod.fm, 2026).
Derived end-to-end from the measured funnel: 18% of invitations get a reply, around 60% of replies are genuine interest once out-of-office is excluded, and around 70% of those book an introduction call. That is 7.5% of invitations becoming calendar meetings with named buyers, roughly 47 times the cold-email baseline, with the units matched: booked meetings against booked meetings.
Source: ThePod.fm campaign data (Smartlead + Close). Percentile distribution publishes with the full dataset export.
Named results published · distribution pending
Definition: Qualified meetings with target-account decision-makers delivered per active client engagement per month.
A ThePod.fm client engagement delivered 24–26 qualified meetings in a period with a 15-meeting target (ThePod.fm client data, 2026).
This is the metric a pipeline-led engagement is actually bought on. Distribution across all engagements publishes with the dataset export; the named result below is client-approved.
Source: Close meeting records per engagement.
Named results published · distribution pending
Definition: Attributable pipeline value generated per client engagement, where tracked and client-approved for publication.
A single ThePod.fm podcast-led outbound engagement in wealth management generated $1.16M in attributed pipeline (ThePod.fm client data, 2026).
Published as named, client-approved case values rather than a distribution, because pipeline value varies with deal size far more than with channel performance. Another engagement closed $200K within 90 days of launch.
Source: Close pipeline values + client case studies.
Published
Definition: The meeting-booked rate for conventional cold email outbound, used as the comparison baseline throughout this dataset.
Conventional cold email books meetings at roughly 0.16% of emails sent, versus 7.5% of B2B podcast guest invitations becoming booked introduction calls (ThePod.fm, 2026).
Cold email is not dead; it is just a far weaker ask. The same infrastructure (mailboxes, deliverability, list building) pointed at a guest invitation instead of a sales pitch books meetings at roughly 47 times the rate.
Source: Internal ThePod.fm send data plus published industry cold-email benchmarks.
Every number in this dataset comes from campaigns ThePod.fm runs for clients, tracked end-to-end in the systems that execute them. Nothing is surveyed, scraped, or modelled.
Sample
Guest-invite outreach campaigns run by ThePod.fm for B2B clients across wealth management, HR tech, employee benefits, corporate training, executive search, and B2B SaaS.
- Volume: tens of thousands of tracked invitations sent across 2024–2026. Exact counts (clients, campaigns, total invitations) publish with the full dataset export, which is still awaited.
- Source systems: Smartlead (sequencing); Close (CRM, meetings, opportunities).
- Verticals: wealth management, HR tech, employee benefits, corporate training, executive search, and B2B SaaS.
How we count
- Invitations sent counts delivered guest invitations only; bounced and undelivered sends are excluded from every denominator.
- Booked means an introduction call scheduled on the calendar, recorded in the CRM. Not a positive reply, not a “maybe.”
- Show rate counts booked calls and interviews that actually took place; reschedules that later happen count as shows, and cancellations count as no-shows.
- Opportunities and pipeline value are CRM opportunity records linked to a guest interview; pipeline figures are published only where attribution is tracked and the client has approved publication.
Exclusions
- Internal or test campaigns and ThePod.fm's own show.
- Campaigns still in their first 30 days at export time.
- Any segment too small to report honestly. Thin segments are withheld, not extrapolated.
Refresh cadence
This page is reviewed quarterly. Last reviewed 2 July 2026; next review scheduled for the start of Q4 2026. The dataset version (2026.07-v1) changes whenever a number on this page changes, so citations can pin a version.
Who publishes this
This report is published by ThePod.fm, a pipeline-led B2B podcast agency founded by Aqil Jannaty. We run podcast-led outbound for clients every day, which is the only reason this data exists: the rates on this page are measured from our own campaigns, not surveyed from third parties. Client results referenced here are documented in our case studies, and questions about the data are welcome at hello@thepod.fm.
Want this run for you?
Everything on this page is the DIY version of how we work. ThePod.fm runs the full motion (guest sourcing, invitations, booking, interviews, follow-up) and gets paid on meetings delivered, not episodes shipped.
See how ThePod.fm runs this for clients →Questions? hello@thepod.fm · thepod.fm