Indies Want Podcast Measurement Standardisation, Survey Says

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The way you measure the success of your podcast is a private matter that relies upon largely in your objectives.

For instance, in case your intention is to earn a considerable earnings out of your present, you’ll need to use metrics that can help you benchmark in opposition to different reveals. For those who’re solely excited about understanding learn how to enhance your content material to your listeners, metrics that assist you benchmark in opposition to your self will likely be your precedence.

Or, possibly podcast measurement doesn’t matter to you in any respect, and also you’re simply in it for the journey.

We ran a brief survey of 150+ impartial creators to seek out out what issues to them when measuring success with their podcasts.

Listed here are the principle main takeaways, in a nutshell:

Lower than half of these surveyed use downloads to measure success
Downloads have slipped from 1st to 4th most popular methodology since our final survey in 2022
Followers/subscribers is the hottest measurement marker
Listening time is seen because the most dependable or useful metric
72% need higher podcast measurement standardisation

Let’s dive into a few of these takeaways to see what the survey outcomes inform us…

4 Key Takeaways from the Podcast Measurement Survey

1. Downloads have fallen from grace

One main takeaway from this survey is that the obtain just isn’t the measurement marker it as soon as was. Again in 2022, once we ran a similar measurement survey with podcasters, downloads had been the primary most popular success marker for impartial creators.

In 2024, this metric has slipped to fourth place. Now, lower than half of respondents say they take note of their obtain numbers when measuring success with their podcast.

So, what’s occurred to make downloads fall from grace over these previous two years? Effectively, quite a bit, really.

Again in September 2022, a Bloomberg investigation revealed that some main podcast publishers had been utilizing gaming apps to amass 1000’s of additional downloads with out gaining any ‘actual’ listens. It is a click-farm-style marketing tactic called ‘rewarded traffic’. Briefly, the sport was getting rigged.

So, it’s not shocking that creators have misplaced confidence in downloads as a dependable metric. As one survey respondent mentioned:

“It will be good to have extra confidence within the listener numbers we get, as we perceive there are “pretend”, “AI” and different tips that present added downloads when there’s NOT an actual particular person behind them. Let’s tighten up the system!”

Scott at Standup Comedy “Your Host & MC” podcast

There’s additionally scepticism round how some internet hosting platforms collect listener knowledge, too. For instance, it emerged that Apple Podcasts routinely downloaded lots of missed episodes if listeners took a break from a podcast they subscribed to and got here again to it.

This vastly inflated obtain numbers by together with again catalogue episodes that listeners hadn’t even listened to. Dealing with strain, Apple eliminated this function within the iOS 17 replace. And the outcome? Podcasters started reporting drops of as much as 40% in their download numbers.

But regardless of the instability of this metric, many advertisers proceed to depend on downloads when selecting which podcasts to work with.

Nonetheless, it seems like downloads have had their heyday. As podcasters rely progressively much less on this metric over time, the identical will quickly be true for advertisers. Even the podcast regulation experts we spoke to agree.

2. Follower numbers is the most well-liked measurement marker

Monitoring followers and subscribers to your podcast was the most well-liked marker for measuring success in our survey. That is attention-grabbing as a result of, in apply, follower numbers aren’t massively dependable both when measuring success. Or, easy to trace, for that matter.

First up, on reliability: What number of podcasts have you ever subscribed to however by no means listened to a single minute of an episode?

I’ll admit it: once I scroll by means of my listening app library, there are podcasts that I don’t even recognise, have by no means listened to and don’t know why I adopted them within the first place. In actuality, it’s in all probability truthful to say that follower numbers are a very good indication that your advertising and promotion are on level, not essentially that your content material is getting listened to.

Then there’s the monitoring side. You will get your personal subscriber/follower numbers by logging into Apple Podcasts Join or your Spotify for Podcasters portal. Then, you’ll be able to add them collectively, and that’ll likely account for most of your listeners. However that is hardly easy or intuitive.

For those who play the winless sport of evaluating your numbers to others, you’ll battle to get dependable metrics from podcasts moreover your personal. Castbox.fm is without doubt one of the few locations I’m conscious of that publicly shows subscriber numbers. YouTube subscribers are public, too, however these can by no means inform the complete story.

3. Listening time is essentially the most dependable metric

Listening time – or how a lot time a listener spends consuming your podcast content material – is kind of completely different from downloads and follows. It’s a metric that focuses on measuring high quality (the time and a focus a listener offers to your podcast) fairly than self-importance metrics. And in contrast to downloads, it’s not a metric that may be simply rigged.

Whereas listening time isn’t a marker that each podcaster tracks (solely 16% of respondents mentioned it’s one of many markers they use), it was declared essentially the most dependable metric of all of the choices. 26% of these we surveyed selected listening time as essentially the most useful metric when measuring how nicely their podcast is doing.

Listening time isn’t straightforward to track, both. Once more, you may get an honest pattern in Apple Podcasts Join and YouTube (for those who publish there). However Spotify solely counts ‘streams’ as something listened to for longer than a minute, and that’s all you’ll get there.

Like with follower numbers, your internet hosting supplier can’t offer you this knowledge as a result of consumption happens on different platforms. They’re merely serving up the recordsdata, and as soon as they do, they will’t know rather more about what goes on elsewhere.

A critique of listening time as a metric is that it doesn’t work nicely for shorter podcasts. However that solely assumes you’re utilizing it to match your present with others (good luck discovering any knowledge to do this!), and it additionally assumes you’re counting pay attention time as precise minutes and seconds, fairly than percentages.

In abstract, like most podcast measurement metrics, listening time isn’t excellent. However clearly, it issues to creators. Is it real looking to assume we’d get extra dependable and readily accessible listening time knowledge sooner or later? With so many gamers within the sport, maybe solely Podcasting 2.0 has the potential to make that occur.

4. 72% need higher podcast measurement standardisation

We ended our survey by asking respondents to inform us what they consider how podcast measurement is standardised proper now.

It is a subject that we all know industry folks have a lot to say about, however we discovered that not all creators had an opinion both manner. This may very well be as a result of both a) they’re not fully certain what measurement standardization entails or b) they don’t care about it as a result of they run their podcast for pure enjoyment.

However of these podcasters who did have an opinion on measurement regulation, the overwhelming majority (72%) mentioned they need higher standardisation, even when it does make it tougher for smaller reveals to monetize.

As one nameless podcaster mentioned:

“I feel it could be good to have one thing that works throughout the board as a result of there are a number of reveals which might be saying that their present is doing higher than sure measuring sticks would say that they’re doing.

I feel it could make the smaller reveals look even smaller (if they’re attempting to monetize by means of promoting). It might make issues tougher for them to attempt to get on the market. Not completely unhealthy… they are going to simply need to be extra inventive.

However as one other respondent identified, clearer requirements would make conversations with advertisers simpler as everybody could be wanting on the identical knowledge.

Mili, who runs No Ordinary Cloth podcast, mentioned:

“If all platforms standardised the information, that will be tremendous useful. A centralised supply for all of your knowledge throughout platforms will likely be doable if knowledge is standardised and simpler to extract insights from the information. It additionally makes conversations with sponsors and companions extra easy. “

However once more, it’s additionally true that for a lot of impartial podcasters, success is about how a lot you get pleasure from making your content material.

As one respondent mentioned: “I peek in to see which episodes have the most effective numbers so far as downloads and listening occasions, however for essentially the most half… I’m proud of [my podcast] in order that makes it profitable in my eyes.”

One factor that’s sure is that we’ve little management over the information we will entry to measure engagement and success.

However, we’ve full management over the standard and advertising of our podcasts. For those who do your greatest work and persistently ship worth to the parents who want it, you’ll be able to guess that your metrics will look good… even for those who can’t really see them!