Download Data

• It provides the user with download stats, which include "plays or streams from every podcast app." 'Downloads,' as a metric, provides clarity on a podcast's popularity.
• This analytics also includes data of episodes inserted and activated on a website and affords podcasters a better understanding of what their audience listens to.

Referrers

• Referrers are specific to industries, meaning referrals that emanate from another person in such an industry. In the podcast industry, this analytics will probably give podcasters a better understanding of podcasts their audience refers to one another.

Top Episodes

• This analytics likely measures top episodes by what listeners consider as their favorites.
• On the Acast dashboard, there is a three-dot menu where listeners can find the option of listening to an episode later, and such action makes the episode a favorite automatically. It is safe to say that this analytics will give podcasters a better understanding of their audience's preferences.

Top Devices

• This analytics likely provides the top devices listeners use to engage podcasts, and such will afford podcasters a better understanding of the choices of their audience. For instance, Acast provides multifunction use for Android and IOS devices, but such is not available for Sonos speaker system at the moment.

Time of Day Distribution

• This analytics likely measures the periods in the day when podcasts enjoy peak patronage. Acast boasts of its proficiency in helping podcasters distribute their content with expertise. But tracking the time of day distribution will give podcasters a better understanding of when their audience listens to podcasts.

Top Players

• This analytics likely provides the top players in every category or segment. Since 'downloads' provide clarity on a podcast's popularity, this analytics will probably give podcasters a better understanding of what their audience listens to.

Top Platforms

• This analytics shows the top platforms listeners frequent to listen to podcasts. The choice of top platforms will give podcasters a better understanding of how to engage the audience.

Locations

• This analytics likely provides the demographic locations of listeners. Such analytics will give podcasters a better understanding of how to engage the audience.

Research Strategy

Unique Listeners

• The unique listeners metric on the Simplecast dashboard shows the number of individual listener devices that downloaded or streamed the show.
• Simplecast has created a unique analytic they refer to as a “fingerprint” that anonymously identifies unique listener devices - through machine learning, they're able to know if those devices have listened to a specific podcast and episode before, hence establishing the unique listeners metric.

Downloads

• This metric tracks all downloads or plays made through the podcast show's RSS feed, embed players, or website.
• The different statistics can be viewed based on stats by hour, day, week, previous week, all-time or episode.

Interactive Map and Listener Location

• Simplecast developed a fully interactive, zoom-able, scroll-able map.
• This interactive map enables one to see where their listeners are located, from region to country and city-level.
• Listener location is another useful tool that provides podcast listeners’ geographic location. 
• Apart from providing data on where the podcast's listeners are from, it also provides the downloads of the podcast that come from a particular country/region.

Web players (Retention and Play-through Analytics)

• This analytic has been tailored for the independent podcasters or brands and networks.
• Podcasters can visualize retention, drop-off rate, average listen time, and completion ratios.
• All the above are available for all episodes. Podcasters can get comparison data on streams, top locations and listening speed of their audiences.

Additional Information on Plays

•  Popular time of the day metric shows at what time of the day an episode is listened to at a high rate or is more popular.
•  Listening methods and platforms encompass the devices and players that the podcast is being played on or downloaded from the insights: may include if the episodes are streamed largely on iPhone, iPad, Samsung or Motorolla devices. This metric furthermore breaks down to the specific methods such as applications (iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, CastBox or Stagefright) operating system (iOS, Windows, Android, Linux or Ubuntu) and the specific browser too (Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge).

Research Strategy

• We used the Simplecast website to research analytic tools offered by Simplecast to its users. There was limited information on the main website through the plans and features pages so the majority of our key findings were available via the Simplecast help section of the website.

KEY FINDINGS

• Total Downloads - This number references the total number of download, play and stream requests for the particular podcast. It is an aggregate number using web statistics and does not use any other screening factors.
• Unique Downloads - This analytic reflects the number of downloads after screening out data that inflates download counting, including network errors, download stops and resumptions, duplicated requests, and network bots. It gives a truer representation of individuals actually downloading the content.
• Listener Platforms/Operating Systems - a measurement of what platforms (Windows, Macintosh, Linux etc.) from users are being utilized for downloading.
• Client Applications - A client application is the program that is running in the users' device. Some examples are iTunes, Android and Firefox.
• Listener Devices - Simply put, a measurement of what user device (podcatchers, PC web browsers, iPhones, and TV devices) downloads are occurring from.
• Traffic Sources - This statistic tracks the website origins from users downloading from website browsers. The three main traffic sources are Direct (in which users enter the podcast URL directly to access), Referral (users who click on the podcast URL from another site), and Search (in which the podcast URL is click from a search site i.e Google/Bing/Yahoo result). The best practice is to always use a variety of traffic sources.
• World Demographics - this analysis provides demographics of all users downloading the specific podcast, which may include geographies, gender, race, or income depending on the host or plan selected.
• Country/Region Demographics - similar to world demographics, but further broken down by specific countries or regions.
• Trending Statistics - This statistic tracks the number of downloads over a specific time span; for example 30 days, six months, or one year. This can be used to track how successful a podcast is compared to existing statistics.
• Partial vs Completed Downloads - this is a measurement of downloads that were only partially downloaded as opposed to complete downloads. In systems that do not have this feature, partial downloads are automatically counted as completed downloads.

RESEARCH STRATEGY

Show Statistics

• The Total Downloads widget displays a sum of legacy and unique downloads.
• The Legacy Downloads widget shows how many downloads a show received prior to November 1st 2017 when Libsyn launched a new statistics algorithm to comply with IAB standards.
• The Unique Downloads widget shows the number of downloads a show has received after Libsyn changed its statistics algorithm in November 1st 2017.  

• The Episode Totals Breakdown shows all episodes that have received downloads and how many downloads each episode received in each month, with the option to view data over the last two months and all time.

Social Statistics

• Users can link Twitter and Facebook accounts with their Libsyn account. The Social Media Stats' widget shows how many people have either followed the user on Twitter or liked their Facebook page.
• If the user has more than one Twitter handle or Facebook page linked to their Libsyn account, each handle or page will be displayed with separate statistics on the Libsyn social media widget.
• There is no correlation between social media interaction and the download data shown in the Libsyn analytics widget. This is because interactions on social media are counted as separate interactions from those services rather than traditional downloads from podcasting outlets which are displayed in the download data.

Calendar

•  Unique Downloads in a selected date displays the number of unique downloads within that set date range.

•  The Downloads Per Day chart shows all unique downloads that have happened on any given day based on the time frame set in the calendar. Users can view data in weekly and monthly format as well as being able to click on each individual day and view a list of all episodes downloaded that day.
•  The Downloads Per Day chart can also be viewed using the IAB metric which allows users to view a Distinct Listeners trend line detailing the number of episodes downloaded by each unique listener.

•  The Downloads Per Episode table shows the number of downloads each episode has received with the episodes ordered by the date the media was first available.
•  The Downloads Per Destination widget shows how many downloads a show has received per destination within the date range set. There are options to view this as a trend line or monthly breakdown. A destination is anywhere a user sends an episode such as a user's podcast page, RSS feed or media player. Users can also view downloads per destination broken down by number of downloads per user agent, for example iTunes, Stitcher or Chrome.

•  The Georgraphic Statistics widget allows users to view a global map displaying how many downloads any given show has received per country in the date range set. The darker the country on the map the more downloads it has received. By clicking on each country a user can view more detailed data, for example clicking on the United States then provides a breakdown of downloads per state.

•  The User Agents table shows the user how many downloads a show has received in the date range set. Data is broken down per user agent such as iTunes or Chrome.

Episodes Statistics

• Total downloads, Legacy downloads and Unique downloads give a breakdown of the number of each type of download per episode.
•  The Media File Totals Breakdown shows the total number of downloads for any media files associated with that episode over the past two months.

Social Media

•  The Twitter widget will display how many likes and retweets a post has received.
•  The Facebook widget will display how many views, comments, shares and reactions a post has received. When clicking on reactions, the number of each reaction will be shown.

Calendar

• Unique downloads in a selected date range, downloads per day, downloads per media file, downloads per destination and user agents all provide data based on the date range set using the calendar.
•  Geographic statistics showing a global and country breakdown are also available within a set date range set by the calendar.
• User Agents

Research Strategy

Podcast Analytics

• Data on total plays shows the total number the podcast has been played and is only available once the show has more than five plays.
• Total plays includes plays across all the external platforms the podcast has been distributed to, and accounts for plays of all distributed episodes for your show.

• Estimated audience size is based on the average number of plays each of your episodes get in the first 30 days after publishing.
• Anchor come up with this metric due to the difficulty experienced in calculating audience size because platforms do not offer subscriber counts.
• This analytical tool provides a better way to notice listening changes for the podcast over time.

• Plays per episode provides the user with the ability to view their podcast plays at a Daily, Weekly, or Monthly level.
• It will also show the top 3 played episodes within a particular time frame and the total number of plays across all of their other episodes.
• Additionally, a purple dot on the charts will indicate whether you published new episodes on the selected date.

• Anchor also provides a tool that shows the top 10 most played episodes for the user’s podcast.
• However, if a user has fewer three total episodes, than no data will be displayed.

• Listener location is another useful tool that provides podcast listeners’ geographic location. 
• Apart from providing data on where the podcasts listeners are from, it also provides the percentage of listeners that come from a particular region.

• ‘Apps’ another Anchor analytics, allows the user can see a breakdown of their listener base on all the external platforms that the podcast is distributed to through Anchor. External platforms include Spotify, Sticher, Overcast Apple podcasts among others.
• ‘Devices’ another analytics allows the user to see as a ratio, the devices that their podcasts are played. Examples of devices include Android, Apple, Web among others.

Additional Information on Plays

• For a play to be counted, it must have been heard partially or fully by a unique listener.
• If a user’s podcast is downloaded, then the download qualifies as a play.
• If a listener streams a user’s podcast for a minute or more, then the stream also qualifies as a play.
• Additionally, ad impressions must either be downloaded or streamed to be counted.

Advanced Statistics

•  LibsynPro offers the same social media statistics and episode statistics as their advanced pricing options.
• These available LibsynPro podcast statistics categories include total downloads, Legacy downloads, unique downloads, downloads per episode, downloads per destination, downloads per day, and total media files downloaded.
• Total downloads, Legacy downloads, and unique downloads offer a breakdown of the number of each type of download per episode.
•  LibsynPro podcast statistic categories also include user agents, which breaks down downloads per user agent, such as iTunes or Chrome, and geographical statistics, which allows users to view global or country-wide data.
• LibsynPro even offers social statistics for Twitter and Facebook and Calendar statistics that provide data based on a specified date range set.
•  The Twitter statistics display how many likes and retweets a post has received. The Facebook statistics show how many views, comments, shares and reactions a post has received.

Network Statistics

• In addition, LibsynPro uniquely offers users the ability to view network level stats, like network traffic and bandwidth level data.
• Bandwidth stats allow a user to be able to see how much data was downloaded across their complete network and how much data was downloaded per show.
• The GB per Day chart shows users how many gigabytes of data gets transferred on their network.
• The GB per Show statistic gives data on how many gigabytes are transferred for each show on the network.

Research Strategy