32. What's a Podcasting "Download'? Stats Tracking, Benchmarks, and What Really Matters

Podcast stats can be really confusing...what exactly IS a 'download'??? In today's episode, I'm breaking it down and keeping it as simple as possible.  We’re talking about where to find podcast stats, which ones to look at, and why they matter.

Resources mentioned:
Buzzsprout (Affiliate Link): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1950787
Apple Podcasts Connect: podcastsconnect.apple.com
Chartable: www.chartable.com

Thinking about starting a podcast? Grab my free Podcast Roadmap: 10 Simple Steps to Launch Your Own Podcast (No Fancy Tech Required!) at www.ThePodcastTeacher.com/roadmap

This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

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Transcript

Hey, hey, and welcome back. Today, we're talking about podcast stats, Where to find them, which ones to look at, and why they matter. Podcast stats can get really confusing and complex. I'm gonna do my best to keep it as simple as possible for you today. The first place to find stats is your podcast hosting platform. This is the most reliable place to check your stats because your hosting platform collects data from all of the individual places where people listen to podcasts, and they combine it all together. You don't have to go to Apple and get the data there, and then go to Spotify and get the data there, and then repeat the process for 20 other places, and finally add them all together. Your hosting platform does all of that for you.

And in case you haven't started your podcast yet, I will explain that your hosting platform is basically where your podcast lives on the Internet. The hosting platform takes care of getting your new episodes to places like Apple and Spotify each week, and there are a ton of options for hosting platforms. One important thing to look at when choosing a hosting platform is whether or not they are IAB certified. IAB stands for Interactive Advertising Bureau, and this is an organization that has established a common set of metrics for podcast measurement and a base set of principles for the industry. Essentially, this means that we're all, quote, unquote, speaking the same language and are comparing apples to apples when we're talking about stats from a hosting platform. Not all podcast hosting platforms are IAB certified, So that's an important thing to watch out for. My favorite podcast host is Buzzsprout, and they are IAB certified. I am a proud affiliate.

And if you're interested in using Buzzsprout as your hosting platform, you can use my link in the description of this episode and you'll get a $20 credit towards any paid plan. If you are using a hosting platform that is not IAB certified, you're looking at data that does not adhere to the industry standards and could be stats from your podcast host, we're primarily talking about, quote, unquote, downloads. However, the term is super confusing because you don't actually have to physically download a podcast episode in order for it to count as a download. Simply listening to or streaming an episode counts as a download. The terminology simply hasn't been updated since streaming became a thing. Back in the day, you had to actually download a podcast episode to listen to it. So to try and keep this super duper simple, you can think of downloads as the number of times that someone says, I want to listen to this episode. Now they may or may not actually listen.

That's a whole another rabbit hole, but the intent is there. And side note to any industry colleagues listening to this, don't come at me. I know it's more complex than that, but I'm trying to keep it simple here. Okay. So when looking at your download numbers, there are 2 categories to look at. There are overall podcast download numbers, and there are episode specific download numbers. Overall podcast download numbers combine stats from all of your episodes. The two areas that I like to track here are the number of total downloads within the past 30 days and the total number of downloads for all time.

For the number of total downloads within the past 30 days, this counts any and all episodes that were downloaded or streamed during this time, not just new releases. So it can give you an indication if people are going back and listening to old episodes. There are also download benchmarks to strive for here. Getting 100 downloads in the past 30 days is a good starting goal. When it comes to the total number of downloads for all time, of course, this is just a continually climbing number, and it can be really fun to reach benchmarks like 1,000 downloads for your show. Buzzsprout also gives you little celebrations when you reach milestones so that you can celebrate your progress. Okay. So that's what we're looking at for the show overall.

You can also look at episode specific download numbers. Here, I like to look at the number of downloads for the first 7 days of an episode, as well as the total all time downloads for each episode. For the 1st 7 days, the people listening are generally going to be people who already follow your show. So you can get an idea of which topics are resonating with your already loyal audience by seeing how an episode does in the first 7 days. Sometimes an episode will get a lot more downloads than the past few episodes, and you can try to figure out why. Maybe it was a particularly catchy curiosity invoking title, or maybe it was an interview with a big name guest, or the topic that you addressed was of high interest to your audience. Now you won't know for sure what caused the spike at that point in time, but you can do some trial and error moving forward based on that information, kind of an educated guess to see if you can recreate the results. And maybe you'll find, hey.

If I phrase my episode titles as a question, that really seems to get people listening in higher amounts than if I just kind of state what the episode is about in a statement. When it comes to the number of downloads for all time for each episode, this can give you an indication of which topics are especially popular and over time. So when I find a new show to listen to, I will listen to the newly published episodes going forward, but I'll also often scan the past episodes. And I'll just listen to the ones that stand out to me, are of particularly high interest to me. A lot of other people do this too. So your all time downloads per episode can give you an idea of popular topics that are being sought out, that catch people's attention. With all of this information, it's important to note that downloads do not necessarily equal people. So if an episode gets 100 downloads, that could mean that 100 different people each listen to or at least intended to listen to again, that's the rabbit hole we're not going down today.

So they each listen to or they intended to listen to one time each. So a 100 different people, one time each equals a 100 downloads. Or it could mean that one person listened to that episode 100 times. Now the reality is likely somewhere in between, but we don't know that from the download numbers. I've spent a lot of time here explaining downloads because, a, it's the only unit of measure that is standardized across the podcast industry, and because, B, there are a lot of different ways to look at download numbers from the podcast as a whole to episode specific data, and from 7 days to 30 days to all time. There's a lot of different ways to interpret the data, to look at the data. Despite the fact that I've spent some time here, I encourage you not to put a lot of stock in your download numbers. It's good to have a general idea of where your numbers are, and, generally, you want to see them trending upwards.

But please, please do not check them multiple times a day or even multiple times a week. Once a week is plenty, and I want you to compare your numbers to your numbers. Measure growth against yourself, not against anyone else. And definitely don't let your download numbers mean anything about the value of your podcast content or your worth as a host and content creator. There are natural times of the year when episode download numbers go down. Summertime is one of them. Kids are home, routines are different, people go on vacation, and podcast download numbers decrease across the board. So while, generally, you want to see them trending upwards, please don't freak out if your June download numbers are lower than your May download numbers.

It happens. We're looking at larger periods of time where you want them to be trending upwards. I hope that makes sense. So kind of in conclusion for this section of the episode, I'm urging you to be informed, but not obsessed. Okay? Deal. Promise. Alright. And now we're gonna move on to another place to look at your podcast stats, and this is Apple Podcasts Connect.

The first thing that I'll say is that your numbers here are not going to match what's in your hosting platform, and they're not supposed to. Remember that your hosting platform collects the data from all the different places, and it combines it for you. On Apple, you're only looking at activity on their platform. Plus, they show you some different data points, which is why I'm including this as a place to look at your stats. So there are 2 things in particular that I like to look at within Apple Podcasts Connect. The first is your number of followers. Now the interface may change in the future, but as of the time of this recording, your follower number is found when you first click into the main analytics page. And the number of followers is simply that, the number of people who have pressed the follow button on your show.

You want to see this number gradually increase over time, but don't stress over minor dips here and there. The other thing that I like to look at is the consumption rate. Again, the interface may change, but from the main analytics page, you can click on your show to go into a more detailed analytics page. And from there, if you scroll down, you'll see each individual episode listed. To the far right is a column of data called average consumption. The average consumption rate tells you, on average, what percentage of an episode is being listened to. The higher this number, the better. It can actually even go over a 100% if the same people are listening to the same episode multiple times.

So in general, you want to strive for an average consumption rate of 75% or higher. If the majority of your episodes are hitting 75% or more, that is fantastic. And don't stress if you have episodes here and there that are less than 75%. It happens to all of us. I have some that are less than 75%. I'm not stressed about it. Not every episode can be a slam dunk. But if you're seeing a large number of episodes falling significantly under that 75% mark, and I'm not talking, like, 74, 73%.

That's close enough. If it's significantly under that, you may want to see if you can figure out why. Perhaps you always have advertisements that play at the halfway mark, and your consumption rate is around 50%. That could be an indication that your audience stops listening and exits out of your podcast when the ads come on, or it could simply be an indication that your episodes are too long for your audience. If your episodes are 60 minutes and you're seeing an average consumption rate of around 50%, try releasing some 30 minute episodes and see if the consumption rate is higher for those episodes. Again, check these numbers periodically to stay informed, but don't obsess over them. I probably check these numbers maybe once a month, maybe more like every 2 or 3 months. Alright.

And one last place to check for podcast stats is Chartable. As the name implies, this is a service that tracks your podcast rankings on the charts, and they do have a free plan. So this is a free service. Using Chartable, you can see your current and past rankings on the Apple Podcasts charts in every country for your Podcasts category. This is really helpful because Apple doesn't show the chart rankings for the subcategories within their app. So using Chartable or a similar third party service, Chartable is my favorite, using a service like this is the only place to see those subcategory charts. So for example, my podcast is listed in the how to category, which is a subcategory of education. I can see the United States education chart in my Apple Podcasts app, but I can't see the how to subcategory chart.

Using Chartable, I can see the United States chart for the how to category. I can also see the Australian chart, the German chart, the Canadian chart, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Chartable also keeps records of your past chart placements so that you can compare over time. Now charting doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. It's mostly a vanity metric, but it can be very useful for marketing your podcast, so it's worth checking in on and seeing where you land on the charts from time to time. Okay. That was a lot of information today. Sorry.

I packed a lot of heavy information into this episode, and I'm gonna take an educated guess and say that this episode is going to have a lower consumption rate than my others because it's longer and it's a little dense. But, oh, well, you can't win them all. And I'm not rerecording this, So I'm gonna live and learn. Happens to all of us. Alright. Until next week, happy podcasting.