How long should a podcast trailer be?

Podnews, the daily podcast industry newsletter edited by James Cridland, tells shows it covers to expect "a few hundred downloads for your trailer." So how long should a podcast trailer be? Spotify's creator documentation sets a ceiling in plain words: "Keep your trailer under one minute." Apple goes a little longer and suggests you "Consider creating a one- to two-minute trailer episode for your new podcast to pique interest." Write to 45 or 60 seconds of finished audio and you clear both. Past 120 seconds, no platform in podcasting publishes anything that supports you.

Any show can be listed free on PodAnswer, and a listed show gets its own page that can turn up when somebody searches the show's name, so if your trailer is doing its job and sending curious people to Google, claim your free listing and give them something to land on.

Where the one-minute ceiling comes from

The number is not a rule of thumb that circulated until it became received wisdom. It sits in two support documents written by the two companies that between them account for most podcast listening.

Spotify publishes a short page of trailer tips, and the length instruction is one of five bullets: "Keep your trailer under one minute." The same page frames the trailer as a discovery object rather than an episode, saying trailers "are ideal for increasing the discoverability of your show," and it asks for four things inside that minute. Introduce yourself, since the trailer is "a chance to tell your story and attract new fans by sharing your passion and personality." Introduce the show, so listeners "know what to expect from your full-length episodes." Describe "what makes your show special." Then close with the ask, which Spotify spells out as inviting people to "try out your show, follow you on Spotify, leave a 5-star review, or subscribe to your show."

Apple's number appears in its Create an episode support page for Apple Podcasts for Creators, inside the definition of the three episode types the platform accepts. Apple defines a trailer as "A short, promotional piece of content that represents a preview of your current show," and separately recommends the one- to two-minute version "by introducing the themes of your show and sample interviews."

The two documents mark the ends of a usable range rather than contradicting each other. Sixty seconds satisfies Spotify and sits inside Apple's recommendation. Ninety seconds breaks Spotify and still falls inside Apple's. Three minutes is an episode with a trailer's job description, and it is where most first-time trailers end up, usually because the host recorded an introduction and could not bring themselves to cut it.

The field that decides whether it counts

A short audio file is not a trailer. The tag is what makes it one. The podcast de facto standard documentation at podcast-standard.org defines the relevant field in one line: itunes:episodeType is the "Type of the episode. Can be full , trailer or bonus ." That documentation draws its tag usage figures from a sample of 237,112 podcasts, which gives some sense of how widely the field is read.

Apple reads the tag and treats the three values differently. Full is "The complete content of your show." Bonus is "Extra content for your show (for example, behind-the-scenes information or interviews with the cast)" or "cross-promotional content for another show." Trailer is the preview. In Apple Podcasts Connect the same decision appears as a field that "Indicates whether it's a full, bonus, or trailer episode."

Spotify handles the designation in two different places depending on where your audio lives. If Spotify hosts the show, you open the episode, "Find Additional details and choose Trailer under Episode type." If another company hosts it, Spotify lets you promote an episode you have already published: "If you don't host your show with Spotify, you can set an existing episode as your trailer," done through Settings, then "Select your trailer," then picking an episode and clicking "Set Trailer." Spotify's own interface shortlists candidates by duration, and the page says so: "We show you short episodes that'd be suited to being trailers." The payoff is placement. "Your trailer appears at the top of your show page on Spotify."

That placement is the argument for tagging it correctly. An untagged 50-second introduction is episode one of your feed, buried under everything you have published since. A tagged trailer sits above the episode list where a stranger meets your show for the first time. The same logic governs the rest of the shop window, which is why cover art specifications repay the same attention.

Apple's tie-breaker, and the trap in it

Here is the part that surprises hosts who have been publishing for a few years. Apple has written down what happens when a feed contains more than one trailer, and the answer depends on how your show is configured.

"If your feed contains more than one trailer, the trailer that appears depends on your show type." For an episodic show, the kind Apple describes as shows "that can be listened to in any order," the platform "presents the oldest trailer (by publish date)." For a serial show, meaning one "designed to be listened to in sequential order," Apple "presents the trailer for the latest season, then fall back to the oldest trailer."

Read that again if you launched in 2019 and have tagged a new trailer every January. On an episodic show, Apple is still showing the first one you ever made: the recording with the old co-host and the format you abandoned in year two. Nothing in the interface warns you. The fix takes ten minutes. Change the episode type on the ancient trailer from trailer to full, or unpublish it, and let the current one become the oldest surviving trailer in the feed.

Serial shows get the friendlier rule, and seasons make it friendlier still, because Apple's season handling means "the show page displays the newest season by default." Episode and season numbering changes placement elsewhere too, including for bonus content, where Apple says "placement of bonus episodes can vary depending on how season and episode numbers are used." If you have never audited the ordering fields in your feed, the back catalog work is where those tags get sorted out.

What fits in sixty seconds, and what does not

A minute of speech runs to roughly 150 words at a conversational pace. That is the real constraint, and it rules out most of what hosts want to say.

What survives the cut, in the order that works:

The show's name and what it is about, in one sentence that a stranger could repeat to a friend.
One piece of evidence. A six-second clip of a guest saying something sharp does more than thirty seconds of you describing how good your guests are.
Who the show is for, stated plainly enough that the wrong listener leaves and the right one stays.
The cadence, so expectations are set. Weekly, fortnightly, seasonal.
The ask Spotify spells out, which is follow or subscribe, said once.

What does not fit: your biography, the origin story of the show, a music bed with a 12-second cold intro before the first word, a list of every topic you plan to cover, or thanks to anyone. Cut the music to two seconds and start talking.

Record the trailer last, after four or five episodes exist. A trailer written before the show is made describes a show that does not exist yet, and it will be wrong about the tone, which is the one thing a trailer conveys.

The newsletter that goes looking for one

Trailers have a second job that has nothing to do with your show page, and it is the reason a trailer is worth making even for an established show launching a new season.

Podnews, which goes out daily to the podcast industry, lists "Have a trailer marked in your podcast feed" under the easiest way to get a show promoted, and repeats the point as "Make sure you have a trailer!" The mechanism is automated: "Our systems look for one, and link to it in a variety of ways." For a show that is newsworthy, brand new, or starting a new season, Podnews says a marked trailer means "we can ensure that your trailer gets into the New Podcasts podcast," and shows that get picked up typically see "a few hundred downloads for your trailer."

A few hundred downloads will not change your year. Being in a trade publication's feed in week one, with no audience at all, changes what the next pitch sounds like. If you plan to approach press or platform editors, the trailer is a prerequisite rather than an extra, and the rest of that process is covered in pitching a podcast without a publicist.

What nobody publishes

No platform publishes a completion rate for trailers. Apple does not release one, Spotify does not release one, and no hosting company publishes a curve showing how far into a 45-second trailer the median listener gets before leaving. Any article that gives you an optimal trailer length to the second is making it up.

What exists is the length guidance and the placement rules quoted above, plus the fact that Spotify's own episode picker filters for short episodes. That is the whole published record. The 45 to 60 second target is a reading of it, not a measured optimum: the ceiling is documented and the floor is not.

The same gap shows up in episode length data, where distributions are published and completion rates are not, and in Spotify listener growth, where the platform documents its surfaces but not their traffic.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a podcast trailer be?

Between 45 and 60 seconds for safety. Spotify instructs hosts to "Keep your trailer under one minute," and Apple recommends a "one- to two-minute trailer episode," so a trailer under 60 seconds satisfies both documents.

Can a podcast trailer be two minutes long?

Apple's own recommendation runs to two minutes, so a two-minute trailer is within Apple's guidance. It breaks Spotify's published instruction to stay under one minute. If most of your listening comes through Spotify, which you can check in your host's platform breakdown, write to the shorter number.

How do I mark an episode as a trailer?

Set itunes:episodeType to trailer. Most hosting dashboards expose this as an episode type dropdown rather than as a feed field. In Spotify's own hosting you "Find Additional details and choose Trailer under Episode type," and Apple Podcasts Connect offers a field that "Indicates whether it's a full, bonus, or trailer episode."

Can I have more than one trailer?

Yes, and Apple has written down which one wins. For an episodic show, Apple "presents the oldest trailer (by publish date)." For a serial show it "presents the trailer for the latest season, then fall back to the oldest trailer." On an episodic show, stacking trailers means the oldest one stays on display.

Should an established show make a new trailer?

For a new season, yes, mostly for the Podnews route. On an episodic show, retire the old trailer at the same time, because Apple keeps showing the oldest one.

Sources

Spotify for Creators, "Trailer tips" and "Uploading a trailer." Apple Podcasts for Creators, "Create an episode" and "Set up serial and episodic shows." The podcast de facto standard documentation at podcast-standard.org. Podnews, "How to submit a podcast to us for news coverage."

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