Step 5: “Enjoy the shows when they air. Keep in touch to answer any final questions along the way.”

She pretty clearly said she listened to the podcasts she sponsored

I guess I missed that. I read it originally as being more about enjoying the results of the airing rather than listening to the actual show.

There's still no mention of listening to a podcast before paying them money or why this would be important in creating an effective ad. I really expected this to be one of the main points.

Sounds like typical marketing people to me.

Most media buyers do in fact verify their media buys. There's an entire cottage industry of people that actually watch tv programs to make sure commercials ran, drive out to billboards to verify the right ones were put up, etc. While I haven't bought a ton of podcast inventory I have to imagine that this is done for that medium as well.

I happened to run into a movie trailer verifier in the lobby of a theater the other day. It's something I hadn't really considered before, but really of course someone will be verifying movie trailers.

I read this as: the writer had not previously been a podcast listener, but obviously became an avid listener during this adventure.

What makes you think the writer became an avid listener? There is nothing in the article directly about listening to a podcast episode that wasn't airing one of their ads.