Getting from podcast production to podcast success can be a long road. And there are a few unknowns along the way, such as how audiences will react or engage with the show. The key to finding the right mix to get your show to perform is about understanding podcast analytics. What does the data say about engagement with your episodes or shows?
And it isn’t just for audience growth that this information can be useful for. You can use the data to help you recruit podcast sponsors, showing them your value and giving them evidence of why they should be investing into your podcast as a sponsor.
However, to effectively work with analytics, you’ve got to understand them. In this article, we’ll be looking at the key metrics, how to understand them and how to apply them. If you partner with a full service agency like PYP, we will review stats like these to help your show grow!
Understanding Podcast Analytics
Podcast analytics provide insights into how your episodes are performing, who your audience is, and what content resonates most with them. By analyzing data available across the platforms, you can make informed decisions on how to optimize content and marketing strategies.
There are several key metrics that you might need to consider as part of your monthly or weekly audit. Some of these metrics include:
Downloads: The total number of times an episode has been downloaded or streamed by your audience. This can be misleading because if an audience member downloads/streams an episode more than once, it is still counted. However, there are some platforms that will reduce this number.
Listeners: The number of people who have listened to the podcast, regardless of the number of times they’ve listened to the episode. This can be a more accurate number to provide sponsors and to use in metrics.
Retention Rate: Depending on the platform, this can be the number of people who have completed an episode, or it can be the average length of time that someone has listened to the podcast.
Geographic Data: A general overview of where the audience is located. Sometimes additional data might be presented such as the gender and age of the audience.
Device and Platform Usage: Insights into the devices and apps your audience uses to access your content. Sometimes you need to manually get this data if your podcast is across multiple platforms and you’re not using a data analysis tool, but relying on inbuilt platform analytics.
Why Podcast Analytics Matter
Some podcast hosts ignore some or all of the analytics available to them. There are numerous reasons for this, such as lack of knowledge of how to use them, time constraints, or because the analytics don’t match their goals.
However, at least a basic awareness of the performance of your podcast should really be undertaken. Therefore, analytics are an essential element to the podcast production process.
There are several ways that podcast analytics can help, these include:
Identify Trends: Understand what topics and subjects are resonating with your current audience. If the audience is retained on specific episodes more than others, you know that your audience prefers that topic (or format).
Improve Engagement: Find out what features and styles your audience prefers and then utilize these in future episodes. You might for instance, you might find that certain guests improved audience retention.
Attract Advertisers: Data can help your brand to attract sponsors and affiliate merchants to your brand. You can prove that you have an active user base and one that aligns with their target audience. It can also help you to negotiate better rates and improve monetization.
Refine Marketing Strategies: Using data you can choose segmentation and other marketing tactics that should bring audiences to your podcast. It can help reduce some marketing costs and improve results.
Steps to Leverage Podcast Analytics for Growth
There are several steps which you should use to help you get the most out of podcast analytics.
These are listed below.
Set Clear Goals
Not everyone’s goals for their podcast are going to be the same. So you have to define what is success for your podcast. Do you want to improve downloads, grow your audience, increase engagement, or earn more revenue from your podcast? Set clear, actionable goals that you can achieve before you start looking at your podcast.
Choose the Analyzing Tools
There are numerous different tools that can help you collect and analyze the data from your episodes. Most podcast publishing platforms have their own tool sets that you can use. But there are also very robust analytic tools that can be utilized to help you collate information from multiple platforms for easier analysis.
The problem with collecting your data into one report, however, is that it can sometimes miss certain trends. Audiences on one platform might not react the same as audiences on another.
So sometimes it is best to collate and look at different audiences.
Analyze Listener Behavior
Understanding your audience is critical for growth. Key questions to ask when you’re starting to look at the data include:
- Which episodes have the highest downloads/streams?
- At what point do listeners drop off during an episode?
- What devices or platforms do they use?
- Where are users coming from?
This information can shape many aspects of your podcast promotion and production. For instance, you can make changes to the following aspects of your show:
- Optimize the length of your episodes.
- Experiment with different formats or topics.
- Focus on platforms with the most engagement.
- Where you promote your podcast (social media, website, email marketing, on the podcast streaming service).
Track Audience Demographics
The demographics of your audience is critical for creating marketing content that will reach the right audience. And if you’re using paid ads, this is critical to ensure you’re maximising the results of your ad spend. Collect information such as location, gender, age and more and be sure that you’re using this in future campaigns.
Monitor Retention Rates
Retention is critical for the success of your podcast. Listeners who stay until the end are going to be very valuable to you and you want audiences to stay until the end, because it gives you more of a chance to sell ideas, concepts, services and sponsors to them.
Look at the data and see how many people are staying to the end, or where they’re dropping off from. If you notice a trend, then you might need to look at that point and see what can be done to improve it.
To help you improve retention, consider changing/adding these elements:
- A strong hook at the beginning of an episode and before any sponsor breaks.
- Edit out filler content to improve the delivery of core concepts.
- Use clear, engaging storytelling throughout the podcast, keeping audiences interested.
Identify Your Most Popular Episodes
Every podcast has episodes that outperform all the other episodes in the show. You need to analyze these episodes carefully and see if there is a trend above them. For instance, do they cover specific topics, have influential guests, or were they of a different format than some of the other episodes that you’ve featured?
Optimize Release Schedules
Analytics can be great to help you determine the best days and times when episodes need to be released. The key to success with any podcast, however, is consistency. So if you need to make a change, tell audiences why and then stick to that change for a while. Audiences will understand a change for specific reasons, but won’t like a constant rotation of changes.
Experiment with Content Formats
While consistency is key, you can also test certain elements within your podcast to see what works best with your audience. Test different content styles, such as interviews, solo episodes, or panel discussions. Use analytics to measure the impact of these changes on listener engagement and retention.
Track Marketing Campaigns
When promoting your podcast on social media, email, or through paid ads, use analytics to track the effectiveness of these campaigns. Metrics like referral sources and spikes in downloads can reveal which strategies are driving audiences.
You can also test different copies, episode titles, descriptions, and ads using A/B testing to see which versions audiences prefer. If you do this regularly, you can implement best practices to improve results and see a growth in audience numbers.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Just as with anything, there are some common mistakes that podcast hosts make when they’re using podcast analytics for their show. Here are some of the mistakes which are made, and how you can avoid using them.
Ignoring Analytics: There are numerous hosts that don’t even look at the analytics. Therefore, they don’t know what is going on with their show and they don’t make changes. The best practice is to set aside time every month to look over the performance of your episodes for that month and compare them to benchmarks.
Focusing on Vanity Metrics: While downloads can be an interesting metric, usually this statistic is more of a vanity metric, one that provides little insight. Instead, you need to focus on some of the other insights that provide more information into what the audience is doing with your podcast, like retention.
Making Assumptions: Making assumptions is only natural. Human brains are designed to see patterns, even if there are no patterns in what we’re looking at. Therefore, before making changes to a show, always see what the data says and be sure that there is evidence for your conclusions.
Neglecting Consistency: Irregular posting schedule can cause significant issues with your podcast retention and growth. Therefore, don’t exclude this as a possibility for bad results.
Thinking All Platforms Are The Same: Another issue is when podcast hosts treat all hosting platforms as the same. They’re not. What an audience does on one platform can be completely different to another platform. So you should analyze them together and separately.
FAQs
What is there in the future for podcast analytics?
In the future, podcast analytics should be able to collect real-time data, predict results based on past trends, and integrate data from multiple sources with more insights.
How much data do you need to collect enough data?
The more data you have, the more accurate the results are going to be. However, sometimes you just don’t have that data, so you have to analyze what you have.
How long should you spend on podcast analytics?
Spend at least a couple of hours a month analyzing data. If you’re regular with this action, you will find analyzing is easier each month.
Final Word: How to Leverage Podcast Analytics for Growth
Podcast analytics are a powerful tool you should be using to help you grow your podcast. By understanding your audience and their engagement patterns with your episodes you will be able to refine your content and make data-driven decisions. Then you can elevate your podcast to new heights.
Produce Your Podcast is a full-service podcast production, editing, and marketing agency specializing in helping brands launch, grow, and monetize successful podcasts that impact their bottom line. With 30+ years of experience in broadcasting and business development brought to every project we work on, our team of experts is a reliable partner to help you achieve your goals with your show.
Click here to schedule a conversation with our team today and let’s bring your show to life!
