See who sponsors a show, what each ad offered and where it ran, then build a list of brands worth pitching. With the Firecrawl plugin, ChatGPT can find podcast sponsors through Firecrawl Alexandria, drawing on Particle's record of the ads detected in each episode.
Best for
- Podcasters building a list of sponsors to pitch, based on who buys similar shows.
- Media buyers checking who already advertises on a show and how often.
- Marketers tracking where a competitor's podcast ads run.
Plugins and data providers
Plugin: the Firecrawl plugin. Puts Particle's advertising data within ChatGPT's reach. Each call is billed to your Firecrawl account.
Data providers in Firecrawl Alexandria
| Provider | Tool | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Particle | Sponsors of a show | Every advertiser detected on a show, with ad count, episode count and when it last ran. |
| Particle | Ads in an episode | Each sponsor in one episode, the product, the offer or promo code, host-read or pre-recorded, and pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll placement. |
| Particle | Shows a sponsor buys | Every show where a brand's ads were found, ordered by episodes carrying them. |
| Particle | Sponsors a show could pitch | Advertisers on shows like yours that haven't bought yours, ranked by fit. |
Explore Firecrawl Alexandria data providers across categories
Starter prompt
Use your own show's name in place of Pivot:
@firecrawl I host Pivot. Using Particle's podcast advertising data through
Firecrawl Alexandria, help me find sponsors to pitch. Show me the price of
each tool before you run it.
Give me a short update:
- The sponsors on my show since June, with ad count and when each last ran.
- Ten advertisers that run on similar shows but haven't sponsored mine,
with their fit band, how many related shows carry them and their most
recent ad date.
- For the top three, the shows they buy most.
Only include advertisers seen in the last 90 days.Before you start
- Install the Firecrawl plugin. The button below opens it in ChatGPT's directory.
- Have a Firecrawl account ready. Each lookup is billed to it, and you can sign up in a minute.
- Get Particle's terms accepted. An organization admin accepts them once before your team's first call.
Limitations of using ChatGPT to find podcast sponsors
Podcast ads are spoken, often personalized and rarely published as a list. That gives ChatGPT five blind spots.
- No public record of the ads. Podcast measurement is based on server logs, and listening apps like Apple Podcasts and Spotify typically don't send playback data back to publishers (IAB Tech Lab). The record of what ran sits with publishers and ad platforms, not on a page ChatGPT can search.
- Host-read ads live in the audio. Integrated ads, often read by the host, are baked into the episode file that listeners download (IAB Tech Lab). If the show notes don't name the sponsor, a text search won't find it.
- Different listeners hear different ads. With dynamic insertion, the ad platform decides just before an episode is downloaded or streamed whether an ad fits the podcast and listener, using signals such as location (Acast). One person's account of who sponsors a show may not match yours.
- Old episodes carry new ads. The same Acast page says a campaign plays across a show's whole catalog for as long as it lasts, so a back-catalog episode can carry this month's sponsor. Apple's transcripts also leave out dynamically inserted audio (Apple), so they won't settle the question either.
- Sponsors that never ran. ChatGPT can make up facts and cite sources that don't exist (OpenAI). A plausible brand next to a well-known show is an easy thing to invent.
How it works
Sponsor research in ChatGPT pulls together:
- Firecrawl Alexandria: a direct line from AI agents to data providers. It brings together 100+ official providers, each paid under agreement when their data is used, with Firecrawl's web index alongside its Research, Developer and Government indexes. On a benchmark of 845 tasks with matching models and prompts, Firecrawl found that agents equipped with Firecrawl Alexandria gave 21% better answers than agents using built-in web tools.
- Detected ads: Particle finds the ads in the episodes it processes, including host reads, and links each sponsor to the company behind it. Network promos for other shows are left out.
- Two directions: start from a show to see its sponsors, or from a brand to see the shows it buys. A company domain rolls up all of that company's brands.
- Prospecting: for a show selling its own inventory, Particle ranks advertisers that buy related shows but not yours.
Finding podcast sponsors in ChatGPT with and without Firecrawl Alexandria
| Web search only | With Firecrawl Alexandria | |
|---|---|---|
| Where sponsor data comes from | Show notes, sponsor pages and roundups | Particle's detected ads, queried when you ask |
| Host-read ads | Missed unless someone wrote them down | Included, marked as host-read or pre-recorded |
| Inside one episode | Not available | Each sponsor, the product, the offer or promo code, and whether it ran pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll, with timestamps |
| How active a sponsor is | A name on a list | Ad count, episode count and the date it was last seen on the show |
| Brands to pitch | A generic list of big advertisers | Advertisers on shows like yours that haven't bought yours, ranked by fit |
| Source | Hard to verify | Particle, licensed into Firecrawl Alexandria as an official provider. More than 100 such providers sit in the catalog, from media and companies to finance and government. Explore the catalog |
Build your own sponsor research workflow
Frame the prompt from your side of the deal. If you're buying ads for a brand:
@firecrawl Who sponsors the Acquired podcast? List every sponsor since June
with ad count, episode count and the last time each one ran, then show the
ads in the most recent episode with the offer and placement.If you're watching a competitor:
@firecrawl Which podcasts has Shopify advertised on since September, ranked
by number of episodes? For the top five shows, tell me whether the reads
were host-read or pre-recorded.Name the show or brand, the date range and what counts as a useful answer, and ChatGPT picks the matching Particle tool.
Take it further
What ran in one episode
@firecrawl Show the ads in the latest episode of WSJ What's News: sponsor,
product, promo code, host-read or pre-recorded, and where in the episode
each ran.Who's ramping up
@firecrawl Which podcast advertisers increased their ad volume the most in
the last seven days compared with the week before?The biggest spenders
@firecrawl Show the top 25 podcast advertisers since September by number of
ads, with how many shows each one reached.Read the ad copy
@firecrawl Find the transcript of Shopify's most recent podcast ad read and
quote what the host said.Price check first
@firecrawl Which tools have podcast sponsor or advertising data? Show the
price of each before you run any.What it costs
Searching tools and reading their prices is free. Each tool ChatGPT runs takes credits from your Firecrawl account, and plan allowances are on the pricing page.
| Particle tool | Tells you | Credits per call |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsors of a show | Every advertiser on a show, with counts and recency | 25 |
| Ads in an episode | Who advertised in one episode, the offer and the placement | 25 |
| Shows a sponsor buys | Where a brand or company advertises | 25 |
| Sponsors a show could pitch | Advertisers on similar shows that haven't bought yours | 25 |
| Sponsor leaderboard | The biggest podcast advertisers in a period or on a network | 25 |
ChatGPT tells you the tool it used and what it cost.
[ Podcast sponsors in ChatGPT ]
Install the Firecrawl plugin and ask ChatGPT who sponsors any show. Finding the tool is free.
Related use cases
- How to search podcast transcripts in ChatGPT: the words of any ad read, or what the hosts said about a brand outside the ads.
- How to find someone's work email in ChatGPT: reach the marketing or partnerships lead at a sponsor once you know who to pitch.
- How to generate B2B leads in ChatGPT: turn a sponsor list into a prospect list with Apollo and FullEnrich.
Coverage limits
- Ads Particle detects. The data covers the shows Particle transcribes, and network promos for other shows are left out.
- Recent history. The sponsor records we pulled for large advertisers started in late February 2026, so treat the data as a record of recent advertising rather than a show's full history.
- One listener's version. Dynamically inserted ads can vary by listener, so a detected ad shows what ran in the episode Particle processed.