Find out which brands back a show, what each ad promised and where in the episode it played, then turn that into a list of advertisers to approach. Connect the Firecrawl connector and Claude can find podcast sponsors through Firecrawl Alexandria, using Particle's log of ads detected episode by episode.
Best for
- Hosts putting together a pitch list from the advertisers that buy comparable shows.
- Media buyers confirming who already runs ads on a show and how frequently.
- Marketing teams keeping tabs on where a rival brand places podcast ads.
Connector and data providers
Connector: the Firecrawl connector. With it, Claude can reach Particle's advertising tools, and each call is paid from the credit balance of the team you authorized.
Data providers in Firecrawl Alexandria
| Provider | Tool | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Particle | Sponsors of a show | Which advertisers were detected on a show, how many ads and episodes each had, and the last time it aired. |
| Particle | Ads in an episode | For a single episode: each sponsor, its product, any offer or promo code, whether the host read it or it was pre-recorded, and where it sat (pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll). |
| Particle | Shows a sponsor buys | The shows carrying a brand's ads, sorted by how many episodes included them. |
| Particle | Sponsors a show could pitch | Ranked by fit: advertisers present on comparable shows but absent from yours. |
Explore Firecrawl Alexandria data providers across categories
Starter prompt
Replace Pivot with the show you host:
Use Firecrawl to help me find sponsors to pitch for my podcast, Pivot, with
Particle's podcast advertising data in Firecrawl Alexandria. Show the price
of each tool before running it.
Report back with:
- My show's sponsors since June, with ad counts and the last date each ran.
- Ten advertisers buying similar shows that haven't sponsored mine, with
fit band, number of related shows and most recent ad date.
- The shows the top three of those buy most often.
Keep only advertisers seen in the past 90 days.Before you start
- Connect Firecrawl. On the Firecrawl connector page, pick Connect. Claude sends you to Firecrawl in a browser tab, where you log in or create a free account, select a team and allow access. Setup needs no API key and no MCP server. For extra help, see Firecrawl in Claude.
- Enable it in the conversation. Firecrawl has to be toggled on under Connectors, which sits in the + menu of each chat.
- Have an admin accept Particle's terms. Particle requires organization-level acceptance before its first call, and a Firecrawl dashboard admin only does this once.
Limitations of using Claude to find podcast sponsors
Podcast ads are heard rather than published, they change from listener to listener, and nobody posts a master list. That leaves five gaps when you ask Claude.
- There's no public ledger of ads. Podcast measurement relies on server logs, and apps such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify generally don't report playback back to publishers (IAB Tech Lab). Records of which ads ran stay with publishers and ad platforms, out of reach of a web search.
- Host reads are part of the audio file. Integrated ads, frequently voiced by the host, are built into the episode file listeners download (IAB Tech Lab). When the show notes skip the sponsor, searching text turns up nothing.
- Each listener can hear a different ad. Under dynamic insertion, the ad platform decides right before a download or stream whether an ad suits the show and the listener, drawing on signals like location (Acast). Claude's web search can also localize results by the location inferred from your IP (Anthropic), so two people asking about the same show may get different pictures.
- Back episodes pick up current ads. Acast's same page explains that a campaign runs across a show's full catalog while it's live, so an episode from years ago can carry this month's sponsor. Apple transcripts exclude dynamically inserted audio (Apple), so they can't answer the question either.
- Sponsors that never existed. Anthropic acknowledges Claude can hallucinate and advises against using it as "a singular source of truth" (Anthropic). A believable brand paired with a popular show is easy to get wrong.
How it works
Behind a sponsor question, Claude combines:
- Firecrawl Alexandria: a route from AI agents straight to licensed data. More than 100 official providers are in it, each compensated under agreement when an agent uses their data, next to the four indexes Firecrawl runs for web pages, papers, developer docs and government material. In an 845-task test where a blind AI judge graded the answers and the model and prompts never changed, Firecrawl Alexandria raised agents' answer quality 21% above agents working with built-in web tools.
- Ads Particle detects: Particle identifies the ads inside the episodes it processes, host reads included, and ties every sponsor to its parent company. Promos a network runs for its other shows are excluded.
- Show or brand as the starting point: begin with a podcast to list its sponsors, or with an advertiser to list the shows it buys. Using a company domain groups every brand that company owns.
- Prospecting for sellers: shows that sell their own ad slots can ask Particle to rank advertisers buying related podcasts but not theirs.
Finding podcast sponsors in Claude with and without Firecrawl Alexandria
| Using only the web | Particle data via the connector | |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsor data source | Show notes, sponsor pages and published roundups | Ads Particle detected, pulled at the time you ask |
| Host-read ads | Lost unless written up somewhere | Captured and labelled host-read or pre-recorded |
| Detail for one episode | Unavailable | Sponsor, product, offer or promo code, timestamps, and whether it ran before, during or after the episode |
| Sponsor activity | Just a name | Number of ads, number of episodes and when it last appeared on the show |
| Who to pitch | A broad list of well-known advertisers | Advertisers buying comparable shows that skipped yours, ranked by fit |
| Where it comes from | Difficult to check | Particle, an official provider licensed into Firecrawl Alexandria, one of 100+ in a catalog ranging from media and finance to company data and government sources. Explore the catalog |
Build your own podcast sponsor workflow
Write the prompt from where you sit in the deal. When you're buying ads for a brand:
With Firecrawl, list every sponsor of the Acquired podcast since June with
ad count, episode count and last date each ran. Then break down the ads in
the newest episode, including the offer and where each ad sat.When you're tracking a competitor:
Use Firecrawl to rank the podcasts Shopify has advertised on since
September by episode count. For the top five, say whether the ads were
read by the host or pre-recorded.Give Claude the show or brand, a date range and what a good answer looks like, and it will choose the Particle tool that fits.
Take it further
Break down a single episode
Use Firecrawl to list the ads in the newest WSJ What's News episode: sponsor,
product, promo code, host-read or pre-recorded, and where each one played.Spot rising advertisers
With Firecrawl, which podcast advertisers grew their ad volume most over
the past seven days versus the seven days before?Rank the biggest spenders
Use Firecrawl to show the 25 biggest podcast advertisers since September by
ad count, and how many shows each reached.Quote an ad read
With Firecrawl, find the transcript of Shopify's latest podcast ad read and
quote the host's words.Check costs up front
Use Firecrawl to list the tools with podcast sponsor or advertising data and
the price of each, without running any of them yet.What it costs
You pay nothing to browse the catalog or read a tool's price. A Particle call deducts credits from your Firecrawl team when Claude actually runs it, and plan allowances are listed on the pricing page.
| Particle tool | Use it to see | Credits per call |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsors of a show | A show's advertisers with counts and last-seen dates | 25 |
| Ads in an episode | One episode's sponsors, offers and ad slots | 25 |
| Shows a sponsor buys | The podcasts a brand or company advertises on | 25 |
| Sponsors a show could pitch | Advertisers buying similar shows but not yours | 25 |
| Sponsor leaderboard | Top podcast advertisers for a period or network | 25 |
After answering, Claude lists the tool it ran and the credits charged.
[ Podcast sponsors in Claude ]
Add Firecrawl to Claude and find out who advertises on any podcast. Searching for the tool costs nothing.
Related use cases
- How to search podcast transcripts in Claude: pull the exact wording of an ad read, or what hosts said about a brand outside the ad break.
- How to find someone's work email in Claude: contact the marketing or partnerships person at a sponsor once it's on your list.
- How to generate B2B leads in Claude: expand a sponsor list into a prospect list using Apollo and FullEnrich.
Coverage limits
- Limited to Particle's detections. Only shows Particle transcribes are covered, and networks' promos for their own shows are filtered out.
- A recent window. In the advertiser records we fetched directly on Oct 9, 2026 for large sponsors, sponsor history began in late February 2026, so treat it as a view of recent ad activity.
- The version Particle heard. Dynamically inserted ads differ by listener, so a detected ad reflects the copy of the episode Particle processed.