Blog post for podcasters New York City Podcast network

World Podcast Network Analytics For Your Podcast Raw Data

Podcast Data Analytics on the World Podcast NetworkThe World Podcast Network is always collecting data on engagement and interaction just like Buzzsprout, Anchor and PodBean do or Google does for websites. With that data collection, we also provide analytics for your podcast.

We constantly measure engagement of the visitors coming to our podcast network. Visitors can be from our own marketing of your podcast, marketing of our network, and your own visitors. We also believe that our analytics are more complete and accurate than the ones from your podcast hosting platforms like Anchor, Buzzsprout, etc. We started collecting the data in the second quarter of 2021 and presented the podcast network analytics in the third quarter of 2021. This is just part 1 of a multi-part series on how we collect data on your podcast and how we present the metrics.

We want all podcasters on our network to know what type of interaction is happening on our network as opposed to the analytics you may receive on your podcast hosting platform. We measure everything from location including city and country, number of views, number of downloads and even your most popular episodes. We are always looking to improve our data collection methods and new ways to present the metrics to you, because we want you to have the full picture of what’s happening on your podcast with relation to our podcast network.

How to view your analytics

Every podcaster, on the professional level has access to their analytics. Simply log into the portal at https://worldpodcast.network/my-podcast/dashboard and click on Advanced Analytics on the left.

How to read your analytics

You can see a small low-resolution screenshot of the analytics to the right. The podcast’s information has been blurred out as this is private data to each podcaster. This section is dedicated to highlighting the different sections of your analytics. Please keep in mind that we are always adding new sections and this article may accidentally omit a section that you see on your analytics report. As a result, this section could become outdated until this article is updated, but as of the time of writing this blog post, Wednesday, April 6, 2022, everything is up to date.

Let’s begin with your raw data

Your raw data is the actual data of the engagement. We present two metrics in an easy-to-read table:

First of all, what is a view for your podcast?

We base everything on the number of views. We count all views as a single page visit, even return visits. This means that if your podcast audience member returns to your dedicated podcast page 3 times, we count 3 views. This is because we want you to know all of the visits. At this time, we do not present the data on unique visits, but we hope to in the near future.

  1. Downloads-to-Views Ratio
    Since we measure downloads and views, we can present both in relation to each other. This is the total amount of direct downloads that have been received. A direct download occurs when a visitor has clicked on the MP3 link below your episodes and either a) saved it to their local computer or b) launched it in the browser, usually through a new browser tab automatically opened in the web browser. The World Podcast Network has no control over which one occurs since the action is usually set in the visitor’s web browser. Either way, you can see the number your episode MP3s (or WAVs) were clicked.
    Percentage of Views
    We take the percentage of downloads over views. For example, if you have 10,000 downloads over 100,000 views, this percentage will be 10%.  We see on our podcast network that the best podcasts are scoring around a 2 to 4% of the percentage of the Plays-to-Views Ratio. Anything higher than that is icing on the cake and an indication that your podcast is performing well.
  2. Plays-to-Views Ratio
    Most podcast episodes include a built in player. We give our visitors the chance to play your episode right there on your dedicated podcast page. A “play” counts when the Play button is clicked, similar to a play on YouTube. We register plays immediately when the button is clicked and do not limit plays to a minimum of 30 seconds like YouTube or other podcast hosting platforms do. This ratio is the number of plays divided by the number of views. For example, if you have 5,000 views and the play button is clicked 2,000 times, your ratio would be 40%. This number can also be MORE than the 100%. That is because a single visitor could play one or more of your episodes in one visit. For example, if you have a one page visit, but the visitor plays 3 of your episodes, this will be 300% for that one visitor. Of course, not all of our visitors will play your episodes once per visit, but some podcasts do have this ratio over 100. If this is YOUR podcast, then congratulations. You are hooking the visitor and they like your episodes.

If your Plays-to-Views Ratio is under 2%, it could mean that our visitors are not engaging with your podcast and we notice some of the root causes:

  1. With almost 700 podcasts as of the time of this writing, podcasts can be competitive within any platform including Spotify, Apple, Libsyn or any other aggregator or platform. The most recent episodes every single day show up on our home page which is the most trafficked web page on our network. Our visitors look at the home page and shop the newest episodes. We notice that the podcasts with the low ratios do not publish as often as the podcasts with higher ratios. Some podcast episodes are published 3 to 5 times weekly and those episodes always remaining on our home page. Podcasts that publish episodes once per week or less frequently will not have as much coverage.
  2. Your podcast level is not high enough. The free podcasts on our network do not have their episodes showing on the home page, so they will not see engagement as often. The Professional-level podcasts see the most exposure as we publish their episodes in multiple places on the network including higher rankings in search results, our podcast directory, and category pages.
  3. Your podcast description may not have enough information. Our search results page is a very popular one as well as the home page. Visitors are always searching for the information they want. Search results show podcast titles and their descriptions. If you would like to come up more in search results, consider publishing episodes more often. If you need to change your description, please send us a message from our contact form and select “Update My Podcast Information” from the drop down menu. Please note that Standard and Professional-level podcasts will receive faster support than free-level podcasts.
  4. You are not getting enough votes on the Daily Podcast Leaderboard – The leaderboard is a daily listing of the most popular podcasts. Podcasts rise and fall in the rankings based on votes from your audience members or other visitors of our podcast network. The higher your podcast moves on the leaderboard, the better chance you will pick up new audience members who will play and listen to your podcast episodes, improving your analytics.

We thank you for reading this article as it answers a lot of the questions we receive from podcasters about their analytics. Check back often as we are adding more blog posts to explain the podcast analytics and how we collect data on your podcast’s engagement.

Your best episodes

The advanced analytics also show your most popular episodes along with a pie chart of the amount of downloads.

Your most popular cities

The podcast network also receives traffic from people seeking quality podcasts and episodes from around the world. We currently receive traffic from over 200 US and international cities. The advanced analytics will show you where people are tuning in.

More articles for our podcaster community

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