Short answer
If you need high‑quality, humanlike ad reads and you can cover recurring TTS costs and handle legal consent, ElevenLabs is worth trying. It’s one of the best off‑the‑shelf voice cloning options for podcasters, but it’s not a free shortcut — expect to budget, test, and add human oversight.

Recommendation
Try ElevenLabs on a paid trial or low‑volume plan first. Clone one short, well‑scripted ad read and run it in a live episode A/B test versus a human read. If listeners and ad partners accept the cloned voice and the monthly spend fits your model, scale up with usage monitoring and backup human re-records.

Decision criteria (apply these to your situation)
- Required audio quality: Do you need exact match and nuanced delivery, or just something “very close”? ElevenLabs is excellent for close matches but not always perfect with long, emotionally complex reads.
- Volume and cost tolerance: Are you doing dozens of reads per week or only a couple of ads? Costs matter more at scale.
- Licensing & consent: Do you have written consent from the host and clear commercial usage rights? Check the vendor plan that covers commercial distribution.
- Workflow fit & staff: Do you have someone to fine‑tune phrasing, edits, and QA? TTS needs human-in-the-loop for best results.

Real‑world pros
- Naturalness: Very high quality for short-to-medium ad reads; intonation and pacing are good out of the box.
- Speed & consistency: Fast turnaround for producing multiple localized or cross‑platform versions of the same ad.
- Control: SSML or built‑in controls let you tweak pauses and emphasis without re-recording.

Real‑world cons
- Edge cases: Long or highly expressive reads can sound synthetic or flat; you may need multiple takes and manual editing.
- Cost at scale: Per‑character/minute billing adds up if you automate many episodes, especially for lengthy ads or many localized variants.
- Licensing & ethics: You must have explicit consent and the right plan that allows commercial use; there are reputational risks if listeners feel deceived.

Best‑for / Avoid‑if
- Best for: Weekly shows that need consistent, quick ad reads, localized versions, or A/B testing of copy where small differences matter.
- Avoid if: You require cinematic emotion, have a tiny budget, or can’t secure clear legal consent from the host.

Practical checklist before production
1) Get written consent from the host that specifies commercial and distribution rights. 2) Confirm the ElevenLabs plan includes commercial licensing for cloned voices. 3) Clone a short read and run internal QA for intelligibility, pacing, and artifacts. 4) A/B test live with a small audience or in one episode. 5) Monitor listener feedback and ad partner acceptance. 6) Track usage to forecast monthly costs and set alerts. 7) Keep a human re‑record option for high‑value reads or disputes. 8) Document provenance and disclosure policy if needed.

Other tools
Use ChatGPT (or similar) to draft and iterate ad scripts before TTS so recordings need fewer retakes and cost less to generate.

Final note
ElevenLabs is a strong practical choice for podcast ad cloning when quality, speed, and control are priorities and when you handle legal/licensing and cost monitoring. If you need perfection or are budget‑constrained, consider human voice actors or hybrid workflows (human for flagship ads, TTS for scale).