Podcast FAQ

how to measure podcast success

by Jolie Gislason Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago
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4 tips for measuring podcast success

  1. Track unique downloads. With podcasting, the best measurement is something called a “unique download,” which tries to capture how podcasts are generally obtained.
  2. Estimate your base audience. Determining the approximate size of your subscriber list — or at least your committed and consistent listening audience — is also helpful.
  3. Get creative (without getting annoying) If getting a better sense of lead generation from your podcasts is imperative, try thinking creatively about how to access that information from your ...
  4. Remember the value of intangibles. Here’s the part where we remind you how important it is to remember why you are podcasting. Lead generation?

How do I measure podcast performance?

Just compare the cost of service to your rate and make a decision. Input podcast performance metrics measure how much work and effort you put into the whole process, and how much basic podcasting activities cost you. 1. Research Hours – how much time did you spend on researching material for an episode. 2.

Why is it important to measure podcast success?

When your show gets more and more listeners, you are able to verify if you are attracting people you want to connect with. Based on these podcast metrics, you can make a decision about the future direction of your show.

What are the output metrics for podcasts?

The goal of output podcast performance metrics is to track how your content is growing over time. You should compare output metrics with performance KPIs to be sure that the content you are producing brings expected results. 11. Number of episodes – your key output podcast metric is, of course, the number of episodes.

What does success look like for podcasts?

As you can see, success looks very different for each podcast. One is focused on maximizing reach and driving change on a national, if not international, scale. The other needs to grow their network and sell tickets to a geographically specific event. My point? Podcast analytics are the most helpful when viewed in context of your goals.

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How do you measure podcast success?

4 Ways to Measure Podcasting SuccessDownloads & Listeners. Downloads is one of the few numbers podcasters keep tabs on, but it shouldn't be the end-all be-all of your measurement strategy. ... Social Media Engagement. ... Trackable Call to Actions. ... Rankings & Review.

What are KPIs for podcasts?

5 KPIs to Track Your B2B Podcast's SuccessUnique Listeners. Unique listeners are the number of individual people or devices that have played one of your episodes. ... Subscribers and Downloads. ... Rankings and Reviews. ... Social Sharing. ... Episode-by-Episode Metrics.

How many views is a successful podcast?

3. 5,000 listeners per episode almost guarantees a successful monetization. This is where a lot of interesting things start happening. Having more than 5,000 listeners per episode makes a podcast over 29 times more likely to be monetized successfully.

What is considered a successful podcast?

The most successful podcast episode had around 50,000 downloads in only 30 days. An episode with 9,000 downloads earns a place in the top 5% of podcasts, and 3,400 downloads puts you in the top 10%. The average podcast racks up 141 downloads in the first 30 days.

How is podcast engagement measured?

One simple metric that can help you determine your episode engagement is time spent listening. Instead of looking at a metric like unique downloads — which only tells you whether someone has listened to the episode — you should determine how much time they actually spend listening. Is it seconds, minutes, or hours?

How do I find podcasts analytics?

How to find podcast analyticsPodcast Hosting Platform.Apple Podcasts Connect.Spotify for Podcasters.Google Podcast Manager.Third-Party Analytics Platforms.YouTube Studio Analytics.

How do you know if a podcast is popular?

Checking a podcast's social media accounts can tell you something about their listenership figures and how engaged their listeners are. Usually you can go to the podcast's official website (listed in most podcast listening apps) to find links to their social media accounts.

How often do podcasts fail?

Less than 20% of the podcasts that have launched this year will make it to next year. Most podcasts fail. If you've launched a podcast or are thinking about launching one, you don't want to put in all that work just to see your experiment get canned in a few months.

How many listeners do you need to monetize a podcast?

You usually need a larger audience of at least 5K or 10K listeners per month to work with them. One of the largest ad networks is Midroll, another popular network is Authentic, and many of the podcast hosting companies have their own networks as well.

Is 1000 downloads good for a podcast?

more than 26 downloads, you're in the top 50% of podcasts. more than 72 downloads, you're in the top 25% of podcasts. more than 231 downloads, you're in the top 10% of podcasts. more than 539 downloads, you're in the top 5% of podcasts.

How much can a small podcast make?

As an estimate, if your podcast has about 10,000 downloads per episode, you can expect to make between $500 – $900 per episode in affiliate sales.

Can you see how many listeners a podcast has?

All you need to do is select the social media platform, type in the podcasters social media handle, and Phlanx will calculate the engagement rate. It's worth your time to calculate a podcast's engagement rate on each of the social media platforms, as their audience may be more active on one versus another.

What is the importance of creating a podcast?

8. Generating marketing content. Creating a podcast is also helpful in the amount of different types of content that can come as a result of the podcast. For example, e-books, blogs, social posts, downloads, etc.

How do podcasts work?

When a viewer clicks to watch a video on platforms such as Youtube, Vimeo, or Facebook, you know how many people actually watched that video, how long they watched it, and even when they stopped watching or skipped sections.

How to encourage listeners to leave reviews on podcasts?

You can encourage listeners to leave reviews by simply asking in reply to social media posts or email feedback that is shared about your podcast. If you send your podcast out in a company email, that’s also a great place to ask for feedback.

Can you stream a podcast?

Podcasts can either be streamed (like those videos), or downloaded. Once that file is downloaded, the host has to jump through a lot of hoops to find out how much of the podcast was actually listened to – or, if it was listened to it at all. The IAB recommends using “unique downloads” to measure the size of the listening audience.

Can you measure how many people are viewing your podcast?

While you cannot currently measure how many people are viewing your site or social media as a result of your podcast directly, you can measure the amount of traffic before launching your podcast and after to see if the numbers have grown.

Is podcasting a good investment?

Although it is not as straightforward or simple as measuring other marketing efforts, there are ways to measure the return on investment (ROI) of podcasting for your business and prove that it’s one of the best investments you can make. Amplifying your brand with podcasting makes it easier than ever to grab the attention ...

To Each Their Own

We’ve seen a lot of different approaches to showrunning in our time. And there is no one perfect way to do it. But one thing is for sure: we all want to know that our hard work is paying off. That the blood, sweat, and tears are worth it and our podcast is moving the needle for the brand.

Podcast Goal-Setting for Beginners

Setting goals is and should be a huge part of any podcast (or really any business initiative). But when you’re first starting out, setting goals for a completely new channel can be like throwing darts in the dark after a few martinis.

Metrics That Matter

Some podcast owners measure success through downloads and listens. Others are more subjective with assessments like social engagement, relationship building, and reviews.

Holly Pels

Holly leads the marketing charge at Casted. Her love for podcasts, content creation, and talking (she LOVES to talk) led her to Casted. She spends too much of her time doing crisis management for Podcat’s tweets.

How to know if your podcast has a website?

If your podcast has a website, you can look at the number of site visitors, their behavior on your website, and the ways they found your website (paid, direct, organic, etc). If you have a newsletter, you can pay attention to opt-ins and open rates on your podcast-related campaigns.

Why is podcast analytics important?

It’s important to remember podcast analytics are a tool to help you better serve your audience. They are one tool to help you create better content. Not to mention, they are one piece of a larger puzzle. It’s unlikely that you will have a truly successful podcast by focusing on analytics alone.

What is a podcast media host?

That’s simply not true. A podcast media host is where your podcast audio files live. It’s where you upload the individual episode MP3s to be synced up with your website and distribution platforms like Apple, Google, and Spotify. Any trustworthy media host will have reliable analytics tools.

What is podcast analytics?

Podcast analytics are the metrics and other pieces of relevant information about your listening audience. They include things like unique episode downloads, total episode downloads, listening platforms, apps, and devices your audience is using to listen to your show, the geographic location of your listeners, total time listened to each episode, ...

Why did WJPP choose podcasting?

They chose the podcasting medium because of the power of story and the reach of the medium. Success for WJPP is to reach, inspire, and mobilize as many people as possible. On the other hand, a former client of ours runs an in-person training workshop.

Is it hard to start a podcast?

While starting a podcast may be easy, making one that is worth listening to is much harder. According to The Infinite Dial, podcasting has reached a milestone, with the majority of Americans now saying they have listened to a podcast at least once. This is possible because the podcast landscape continues to grow.

What is Podcast Analytics?

Podcast analytics is the collection and study of data related to your podcast’s success. It’s also the process of making decisions based on meaningful patterns of data.

How Do You Measure the Success of a Podcast?

To measure the success of your podcast, you first need to decide which metrics matter to you. In the B2B podcasting space, there are eight metrics you should keep an eye on.

1. Number of Downloads

We’ll start with the no-brainer: How many downloads do your episodes receive?

2. Amount of Website Traffic

Website traffic is the second podcast metric that’s not really a podcast metric (but it’s still important).

3. Play Through Rates

The podcast play-through rate shows creators how much of an episode people listened to. Currently, the play-though rate can only be found in Apple Podcasts.

5. Number of Relationships

In our opinion, the number of relationships you create through your show is the most critical podcast metric… ever.

7. Micro Content Reach

If you’re not repurposing your interviews into micro content, you’re missing out on a lot of potential listeners.

What is output podcast performance?

The goal of output podcast performance metrics is to track how your content is growing over time. You should compare output metrics with performance KPIs to be sure that the content you are producing brings expected results.

What are podcasting KPIs?

Podcasting KPIs ( Key Performance Indicators ) or performance metrics are measurable parameters that can help you monitor each aspect of your podcasting business. Advertise on the right podcast with your target audience so that you don’t waste your dollars targeting people who will not take action.

Why is downloading podcasts so difficult?

But it also creates challenges because it is challenging to check what you do with a file that resides entirely on your device.

Why are podcasts downloaded?

Unlike the streaming format more common in video, podcasts continue to be downloaded because of the convenience offered by existing platform and application functionality. Despite the use of the word ‘streaming’ in podcasting, ‘streamed’ podcast files are progressively downloaded via the standard HTTP protocol.”.

What happens when you click to listen to a podcast?

When you click to listen, you actually trigger a file download from a podcast hosting, Un like with music streaming the podcast file gets 100% downloaded onto the listener’s device, When you listen to a podcast, you are listening to a file that has been downloaded from a podcast hosting server onto your device,

Is listening to podcasts easy?

Listening to podcasts seems easy and effortless. And it is great for users but adds another layer of complication for creators and marketers. Because of the nature of how podcasts are accessed, downloads are a key podcast metric, but they are still a very complicated one to interpret.

Can you listen to a podcast multiple times?

The downloaded podcast episode can be listened to multiple times. An application used for listening podcasts may request the file from a podcast hosting several times to download the content fully, A listener may manually re-request the download several times.

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What Actually Is Success?

Does “Success” Really Matter?

  • Pragmatically speaking, no one reallywants to do something unsuccessfully. If you’re going to put the effort into podcasting, you want it to go somewhere. And you’re not alone. We did a fancy little survey to see what podcasters actually care about. A whopping 69% of respondents — reporting that they “somewhat agreed,” “mostly agreed” or “strongly agreed” — said that the end resultof p…
See more on thepodcasthost.com

So, How Do We Measure It?

  • I probably don’t need to reiterate again that there isn’t a singlefactor that can determine whether or not your podcast is a success. There isn’t a magic number, a bar to hit, or an arbitrary body of podcasters that sends you an award when you get to a specific point. However, there are a few success factors that you can take a look at. Viewed in combination with each other, they can giv…
See more on thepodcasthost.com

So, How Do I Measure My Podcast’S Success?

  • While all of these indicators are interesting, it’s not a great idea to cling to one as your sole indicator of success. Your best bet is going to be taking a look at all of them as a whole to evaluate your show. There are some some interesting benchmark numberspublished by Buzzsprout that might give you a better idea of how your show stacks up agai...
See more on thepodcasthost.com

Measuring Podcast Performance

  • 1. Unique Downloads
    Podcasts work differently than other forms of media. When a viewer clicks to watch a video on platforms such as Youtube, Vimeo, or Facebook, you know how many people actually watched that video, how long they watched it, and even when they stopped watching or skipped sections…
  • 2. Estimate Subscribers: Your Followers
    While there is not currently a way to tell exactly how many subscribers a podcast has, there are some tricks to estimate how large the subscription base may be. It’s important to note that the vast majority of podcasts are provided for free, and a subscription is similar to a Follow or Like o…
See more on eofire.com

Other Key Ways of Measuring Podcast Performance

  • 4. Building relationships and trust
    The #1 benefit of podcasting that participants in our user survey selected was that it builds trustwith their audience. The benefits of podcasting are seen as many, and expanding and building trust through showcasing industry expertise and connections was their primary focus. …
  • 5. Networking
    In addition to building relationships with clients and customers to grow sales, building your network of industry professionals is also an important part of growing your business. Here are some examples of things to measure: 1. Have you been able to bring industry related guests on …
See more on eofire.com

Remember Context

  • In any ROI measurement, it is important to remember the context of your market. The more specialized or niche your content and market are, the less relevant having high numbers is. It’s important to keep the context of how many people you could ideally be reaching in mind when looking at the numbers. For example, if your market is an audience of entrepreneurs in a specifi…
See more on eofire.com

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