If you write, record, or host a podcast, then you’re probably aware of how massive this growing market already is. There are more than 464 million podcast listeners globally, which is predicted to surpass 504 million by the end of 2024. Podcasting is a 23.56 billion dollar industry, and in the US alone, 78% of people have heard of podcasts, with 41% listening to at least one podcast each month. That’s an audience of over 120 million people.
One obvious key to growing your podcast is understanding your podcast analytics. Of course, you also need good content, high production values, and thematic elements that attract people to your show– but in a market with about 3 million active podcasts, analytics can help you make your performance stand out and be heard. Here are some ways you can use your podcast analytics for better growth.
Accessing Podcast Analytics
When you launch a podcast, you have many options for hosting. There are lots of podcast hosting platforms available, the most well-known being Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Additionally, podcast publishing networks like Gimlet Media, Earwolf, and Wondery can help get your podcast out there and provide an initial audience. These hosts and umbrella companies can help offer podcast statistics to your show and give some level of analysis.
However, these analytics do come with a downside: an absence of control. For example, when you look at the Spotify podcast analytics page, it splits your analytics across three tabs. It tells you about plays, plays per episode, audience size, geographic location, apps and devices, gender, age, and episode rankings.
One way to have better control over your analytics is to have a website for your podcast. This lets you stay in control of SEO and creates a centralized location for your audience to learn things about the show. In addition, it makes it easier to link to references and extra material and allows it to host transcripts and other accessibility features. Even if you aren’t hosting the audio files directly on your website, having a website for your podcast is one of the easiest ways to ensure you can direct your show’s growth.
What Can Podcast Analytics Tell You?
Your podcast analytics aren’t just a bunch of numbers on a screen. Each listener statistic represents a person actively engaged with your content; each download statistic represents an instance where your content was meaningful enough for somebody to save it. When you take a personal approach to podcast analytics, they become a bit easier to understand. They aren’t random data but a unique set of information about your work.
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is vital to growing a podcast, and your podcast analytics can tell you exactly who that audience is. Then, you can use that data to make better ad choices and to tailor your content. For example, if your audience is primarily 20-30 year old men from the Midwest, you can find out what keywords rank with that demographic and find ways to incorporate those into your show.
In a more humanistic sense: you can find out what your audience wants to hear about and talk about that. If you can tackle issues your audience cares about and wants to hear more about, your podcast will be more appealing.
Podcast analytics can also help you address your audience more directly. Addressing your audience is critical for a podcast; you want to develop a core audience whose feedback you take seriously. Your podcast analytics can tell you how your listeners engage with your content, with information like:
- Average listening duration
- Listener drop-off points
- Listener reviews
- Downloads per individual episode
- Average downloads per episode for your show overall
Behavioral Analysis
Another way to understand your audience is to look at their behavior. Podcast analytics will tell you how users find and interact with your show. You can look at your listeners’ devices, how long they listen, and even what actions they take after listening– do they listen to another episode, for example?
You can use behavioral data to decide how to optimize your platform for your audience. For example, if your listeners are coming to your website primarily on mobile devices, you can improve the mobile responsiveness and user experience.
Optimize Your Content
Ever since 2019, Google has included podcasts in their search engine results. This means that SEO for podcasts is one of the best ways to grow your show. You can use your podcast analytics data to identify podcast episodes that perform better than others. From there, identify common characteristics of those episodes, such as topics, formats, and guests.
How To Use Keyword Analytics
Podcast analytics, specifically keyword analytics, are helpful when writing episode descriptions. Every podcast episode needs a description, and analytics can help you incorporate relevant keywords and search terms in those descriptions. This will make your episode descriptions more SEO-friendly, but do remember that you need balance.
Google’s algorithm punishes keyword stuffing, so make sure that your descriptions are well-written, accurate, and compelling. Don’t just make them keyword dumps, but do use good keywords in your descriptions.
Traffic Analytics
Traffic analytics is another vital part of content optimization. This data can help you identify traffic sources to your podcast, such as search engines, social media, referral websites, or direct traffic. This can help you focus your SEO efforts on the correct channels.
Ranking Analytics
Finally, tracking your rankings can also help your podcasting SEO efforts. You can use your podcast analytics to track your show’s rankings in search results, both in a general sense of all listed podcasts and in a more specific sense where you look at one piece of your content’s performance against all of your content. This data can show you where to adjust your SEO strategies and make changes to keywords, metadata, and episode titles and descriptions.
If you’re ready to grow your podcast’s audience, BloomAds is here to help. We leverage a number of cutting-edge media analytics tools and use deep analytics to make the process easier and audience growth faster. Contact us here to learn more about how we can help your podcast audience grow.