Understanding Podcast Analytics as a Disctopia Creator

  • 7 min read
  • Mar 4, 2024
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One goldmine podcasters have failed to take advantage of is the understanding podcast analytics. Our focus in the piece is directed at podcasters and how every of your podcast episode is what your audience wants. We are in the age of data, and being creative won’t be enough to help you as a podcast. Data is what makes Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos appear godlike today. Nothing stops you from being a titan in the podcast industry, only if you know the power you hold in your hands through analytics.  Understanding Podcast Analytics With data, you can quickly become an industry thought leader by creating content everyone wants. It’s all about leveraging the data to enable you to build an audience, increase your downloads, and become successful at podcasting.  It’s a worthwhile venture to have an understanding of podcast analytics and metrics to serve your listeners better. 

Why You Should Have an Understanding of Podcast Analytics?

1. To Better Serve Your Listeners

You need an audience into your listenership, an understanding of who is listening to your podcast, and for how long. With analytics, you will be able to craft suitable content. The podcast analytics should reveal the number of listeners, when they listened, and how your podcast was accessed. More importantly, the length of the episode listened to and your highest-ranking episodes. Armed with these data, you are better prepared to switch things up to suit your audience. 

2. Growth Measurement

By tracking your podcast performance, you are in a position to improve your podcast. Invest time into studying and analyzing your podcast analytics.  The awareness of the pace of your growth will further help in cementing the success of your podcast. There’s no better way to grow until you know what you are doing right and what can be improved upon. 

3. To Determine How Soon You Can Make Money

You need to nurse your podcast to a point to think of monetization. For instance, if you are considering advertisements in your podcast, you need to know your number of listeners.  This will help you determine the cost per mille (CPM) that you will charge your advertisers. By knowing the number of listeners downloading every episode, you can ascertain how much money you can make. 

Which Podcast Analytics Should You Track?

According to Improve Podcast, there are over 50 podcast metrics, making analytics confusing. No need to be lost in the sea of metrics; here are the most important ones to track; 
  • Total Downloads

The first point of entry should be the Total Download which is an estimation of the audience size. However, be aware that the Total Downloads often exaggerates the actual listening audience as the download does not translate to listeners. 
  • Unique Downloads

In 2017, the focus of podcasters moved to measuring unique downloads; this was as a result of the guideline released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That was the point where the focus of advertisers and podcasters shifted to Unique Downloads.  Relying on the IAB guideline, Unique Download can be determined by progressive download from the same IP address within a 24hour period. That’s what makes the Unique download an accurate podcast metric. 
  • Subscription

One crucial metric often overlooked is the number of subscriptions—the number of people subscribed to your RSS feed to receive automatic updates when you have new episodes.  With a subscription rate, you are in the know of your podcast listenership. By clicking the subscribe button, it shows that your podcast is considered valuable. 
  • Demography

You need to know your audience demography to be sure you are reaching the right listeners. You may be getting a new set of listeners with their peculiarities, which will require that you tweak your content to meet their needs.  Knowing your demographics can make a better podcaster out of you, having in mind those who are actually listening. This should include the location, age, and gender of your listeners. 
  • Social Sharing

For every podcast episode, you can generate social sharing points from listeners who find it valuable. You need to measure your social media engagements in the form of likes, shares, retweets, and more.  While measuring, this also creates room for you to engage with your audience. With this, you can build your brand and come up with ideas for your new episodes. 

Final Thoughts

While there are dozens of podcast metrics and analytics, starting with these five will give you a head start as a podcaster. If you are on the Disctopia platform, make it a habit to check your analytics dashboard regularly.  You have to learn to monitor and analyze your metrics. This will help you to adjust your game plan towards your podcast growth.