Categories and tags are metadata, in the form of keywords, you can attach to your episodes. You'll be asked to do this under the Basic Info section of your podcast episode in PRX Publish.
These keywords serve a couple of different functions within Dovetail and Third Party Podcast Apps.
1. SEO Keywords for Podcast Apps
Adding keywords related to your episode's topic can boost your episode discoverability for listeners searching for those specific topics.
Apple Podcasts allows for up to 20 categories - so it's best keep added categories to 20 or less.
For example: if you were doing an episode on bicycling, you could add tags like “bicycle”, “Cyclocross”, ‘derailleur’ and other relevant words for people to discover your episode with.
2. Targeting ads to specific keywords
Need to run an ad on content with a specific subject matter - use Dovetail's ad management software to target ads to category keywords.
3. Engaging Ad-free Playback
Add or Select the adfree button to turn off ads for this particular episode system wide.