Clip Insertion

Clip insertion allows you to add and change audio clips to existing episodes. There are three main components to clip insertion:

1. Clips
2. Tags
3. Placeholders

Clips are the audio files that you'd like to insert into your episodes. You can manage available clips by visiting the Clip Insertion tab on your main dashboard and choosing the My Clips tab. Clip audio can be up to 16MB.

Placeholders are the locations within episodes that clips are inserted. When uploading or editing an episode, you can add or remove placeholders directly below the audio field.

Placeholders can be set at any timecode within the episode. We include helpful links to set the timecode to the end of the episode. Two placeholders cannot be set at the exact same timecode.

Tags are the "links" between clips and placeholders. Both clips and placeholders require tags to be set: each placeholder requires one tag, while clips can have one or more tags.

When Pinecast adds a clip to an episode at a placeholder, it does so by matching the placeholders' tags with the tags on clips. See below for details on how matching occurs.

Processing clips

The process of adding clip audio into episode audio is called "publishing". Triggering a publish will perform all of the processing needed to update the audio files your listeners will download.

Actions that happen on an episode-by-episode basis publish changes immediately:

1. Posting a new episode - the new episode will have clips inserted immediately
2. Updating an episode's placeholders or changing episode audio - the updated episode will have clips added automatically

Other actions will require you to manually trigger a publish, such as adding, editing, or deleting clips or deleting tags. A full list of changes that require manual publishing can be found in the docs for clip processing.

Manual publishing ensures that changes that affect multiple episodes happen at once without getting your episodes (or analytics) out of sync.

The publishing status of each podcast (that is, whether there are changes which would require audio to be updated) is shown at the top of the main clip insertion dashboard, or on each podcast dashboard.

Manually publishing a plan

When you choose to manually publish the changes for a podcast, a plan for the changes will be displayed. This shows each affected episode and which clips will be placed in each placeholder. You can review these changes before confirming the publish.

Placeholder properties and placement criteria

Placeholders have the following options available:

1. A tag
2. A timecode within the episode that the placeholder will add clips at
3. An optional maximum clip duration for this placeholder

Clip properties and placement criteria

Clips have the following options available:

1. Tags
2. "Play only once", which prevents a clip from being played more than once in an episode.
3. Priority, which breaks ties when two clips match a placeholder.
4. Available podcasts, which limits which podcasts a clip can appear in.

For folks using clips to add advertising to your episodes, we allow you to set an offer code on the clip. This can be helpful for keeping track of your clips.

For folks with the Pro Analytics add-on, clips can be set to automatically disable themselves.

Automatic discontinuation

The Pro Analytics add-on package allows you to set a number of listens that a clip can receive (across all episodes that the clip appears in) before being automatically discontinued. Discontinuation happens when the number of recorded listens for a clip exceeds the value set on the clip.

Clip analytics

Analytics for clips are tracked across all episodes that clips appear in. This lets you understand how many times a clip has been downloaded by listeners. Clip listens are counted only for episode downloads where the clip appears.

See our Analytics documentation for information on what data is available.

Clip settings

On a podcast's Settings tab, under the Clips sub-tab, you'll be able to configure whether paid tip jar subscribers receive episodes without clips. If you use clips to add advertising to your episodes, enabling this feature allows your paid subscribers to listen ad-free.

Matching clips with placeholders

When Pinecast matches clips with placeholders, we'll use an algorithm for choosing the best clips possible. The algorithm works like this on a per-episode basis:

1. We'll first try to find all of the clips that can match each placeholder.
2. For each placeholder that sets a maximum clip duration, we'll filter out clips that are too long.
3. For each placeholder that has no matching clips, we do not place a clip.
4. We iterate through each placeholder from start to finish:
   1. If there are any matching clips that no longer apply (for instance, because the clip is set to be placed only once per episode and it has already been placed), we eliminate those clips as options.
   2. If there is exactly one clip available to place, we lock in the clip.
   3. If there are multiple clips available to place, we choose the clip with the one with the highest priority.
   4. If there is a tie between multiple clips with the same priority, we prefer clips that are set to play only once per episode.
   5. If there is still a tie, we prefer clips that have not appeared in recently-published episodes.
   6. If there is still a tie, we semi-randomly break the tie.

This algorithm may change subtly and without notice. Please reach out with questions or concerns.

To understand when clips are added to episodes, see our documentation for clip insertion processing.

Bulk placeholder insertion

From the "Episode list" tab on your podcast dashboard, you can click Tools > "Bulk add clip placeholders" to open the new bulk insertion tool. This tool allows you to create placeholders at the start or end of all of your episodes.

You'll have the following standard options:

1. The position of the placeholder (the start or end of each episode)
2. The tag to apply to the placeholder

Additionally, you can prevent the changes from applying to:

1. Episodes that are bonus content or trailers
2. Episodes explicitly marked as private (e.g., for your tip jar)
3. Episodes that already have a placeholder in the selected position
   1. If you do not prevent episodes with placeholders in the selected position from being affected, the existing placeholders will be updated instead.

After adding and updating placeholders, you'll be able to manually publish changes.