You did all the hard work of preparing content, recording and editing a podcast episode and uploading it into your podcast channel. However, it is still early to relax. The podcasting cycle does not end with the upload button: the “review session” after each episode is a must.
Reviewing process includes following up on how the episode performed. Has your audience base increased after that last episode? Was the podcast played as many times as you expected? These are just some of the questions you need to answer to estimate your work’s success.
Here’s when podcast analytics enter the game.
What are podcast analytics?
Podcast analytics are indicators of performance data. Analytics represent metrics and other pieces of valuable data about your listeners and their actions. They include the number of times users play or download the episode, devices your audience used for listening, geographic locations, ages, genders of your listeners, total play durations, turn-off points, etc.
All this data will provide you with answers based on which you should update your podcasting strategy for further success.
It is important to note that analytical metrics are not standard across different platforms, meaning their measurement strategies may vary.
Purposes of podcast analytics
Let’s understand why podcast analytics matter?
Understanding your audience
Listeners are the primary asset of podcasts. The wants and needs of the audience should be of fundamental importance for podcast creators. To succeed in understanding the audience, businesses and individuals use podcast analytics. Podcast analytics provide listener data analysis helping understand their interests and produce content accordingly.
Podcast analytics provide listener statistics such as:
- Number of listeners
- Location and time of listening
- Devices used for listening
- Listening duration and stopping point
- Highest ranked episodes.
Measure podcast growth
Your podcast growth is an indicator of podcast success. The most practical growth measurements are possible by carefully reviewing analytics. Continuous follow-ups of analytics will provide the most up-to-date and rational feedback on the podcast performance. For example, a growth indicator could be a rising curve of the audience number.
Estimate monetization potential
Podcasts are a vital tool for building community and increasing brand awareness. However, if you are investing all the effort in podcast creation, why would you not want to make extra money? Podcast analytics is an objective measurement of monetization potential.
For instance, sponsorship is the most popular way of earning income through audio shows. A podcaster places a sponsor’s ad into an episode based on the listeners’ base getting payments.
Podcast analytics provide reliable grounds for decision-making that would increase monetization potential.
Learn more about podcast monetization here
Key podcast metrics
Subscriptions: Subscribers are the timely followers of your podcast. These are people who subscribed to your channel and received updates from you. The higher the subscription number, the better. It indicates that people found value in your show and are willing to be up-to-date.
Downloads: Downloads are calculated when a user downloads an episode to his local device. However, it is a tricky metric because users can download an episode, but never press the play.
Starts and streams: Starts are calculated when the play button is pressed. Streams are counted when users listen to podcasts on the directory without downloading them into their devices. For example, Spotify’s podcast metrics calculate a stream when 60 seconds have been played.
Listens: This is probably the most crucial podcast metric. The number of listens indicates how often a specific podcast episode was played either by download or by the stream. This metric helps to assess how the audience is engaging with the content.
Average consumption: This metric estimates the duration of an episode’s playtime. It also indicates when the podcast was turned off. Average consumption can be used to assess how the content of an individual episode is performing.
Audience demographics: It is essential to know who your audience is. By reviewing your audience demographics, you will learn where your listeners are joining, how old they are, etc. When you clearly acknowledge your audience, you will manage to adjust your content accordingly.
Where to get podcast analytics?
Okay, so , reviewing podcast analytics is crucial: but where can you get the data?
Different tools help to measure podcast analytics, here’s a few of the best::
Your podcast hosting platform: Podcasting hosts summarize your audience trends such as the number of downloads, listens, streams, etc.
Apple Podcasts Connect: Apple has a tool named Analytics which can be accessed from Apple Podcasts Connect. It helps better understand how users are listening to shows and episodes.
Spotify for podcasters: Spotify dashboard helps you learn more about your listeners. It provides demographic data such as age and gender.
Google Podcasts: Google Podcast Manager helps to find more about your audience and their habits.
Chartable: Charitable provides analytics and attribution tools to publishers and advertisers.
Conclusion
Podcast analytics give you a strong base for decision-making by investigating your customer preferences and podcast performances. By paying attention to those metrics, you will better manage and adjust your content and grow your podcast community.
