Understand Podcast Analytics and Use Them to Grow Your Podcast

August 8, 2022

image background with gold splatter and title podcast analytics 101! use your data to grow your show! stefaniegass.com/blog

Have you often wondered what podcast analytics and statistics are? What are you supposed to be tracking? How do you know things are working? What should you be looking at? And, most importantly, how do you use this data to grow your podcast?

Podcast analytics can feel defeating if things are not moving up in the right direction. Try to keep your emotions out of the data. I am going to walk you through exactly what podcast analytics are and what you should be looking for. Using this data, you will be able to grow your podcast to new levels!

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Grow Your Podcast Using Podcast Analytics

What are podcast analytics and where do you find them?

You can find all the data you need on your podcast host (I use Podbean) and on Apple podcasts.

When you go into Podbean, click on statistics. You will want to look at this on a monthly basis. So which analytics do we care about?

1. Podcast downloads – the number of people that have downloaded the episodes

Is it growing or decreasing?
Track the top downloaded episodes monthly in a KPI spreadsheet.
Look for themes in topics that are doing well and getting higher downloads.

The thing that you care about is if the downloads are increasing over time. Change your view to the last 12 months and look at the graph. Is your graph going up and to the right? You will see peaks and valleys, but if you look at the start and the finish, do you see an uptick?

Gold splatter background with quote if you can look at the analytics with a data-focused perspective without emotion, you can use the number to your advantage. -Stefanie Gass

As you dig deeper into downloads, click on episodes and change your time frame to “all time”. Look for your top downloaded episodes of all time. You need to know what your listeners love so you can do more of it. Dissect those episodes to find out what your avatar is loving. Then get creative and produce more content on these popular topics.

2. Main analytics in Apple Podcasts

This will tell you your engaged listeners. If you are anything like me, most of your listeners will be from Apple Podcasts.

Followers:
- The number of people that actually follow the show
Listeners
- The number of unique devices that have played more than 0 seconds of an episode
Engaged Listeners
- The number of unique devices that have played more than 20 minutes or 40% of an episode in a single session

I don’t regularly track this data. What is most important to me is to see the number of downloads going up. If I wanted to dig deeper, I would really look at the number of engaged listeners.

It’s so important that you aren’t comparing yourself to anyone. Just make sure your download number is increasing, your superfan number is increasing, and your conversion rate is increasing.

turquoise background with gold splatter and quote you can't control the growth rate of your podcast, you can only control that it is growing and that you are doing your best. -Stefanie Gass

3. Apple Podcast’s average consumption

Look at the analytics dashboard in Apple Podcasts and click on average consumption. Sort through it and find out how much of an episode was listened to. You can try to dissect why episodes are at a higher or lower consumption rate. Take a look at the clues and do more of what is working. It is a great way to look at the data and see what people are loving.

If you need more help scaling your show, growing your podcast, and working less while still making traction in your business and finances, come join me in the Podcast to Profit Mastermind course.

I hope this encourages you to stay the course and to know that all we can do is our best. By looking at the podcast analytics data, we can focus on what is working and what is not working. Use this to continue to grow your business and your impact.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

P.S. Listen to podcast episode 477 for Podcast Analytics 101 – How to Understand Podcast Stats and Use Them to Grow Your Show.