Podcasting Q&A

How Apple Podcasts Analytics help you understand your audience

September 14, 2020 Buzzsprout
Podcasting Q&A
How Apple Podcasts Analytics help you understand your audience
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Dan from the SkyPilot: Faith Quest podcast asks, "How are the Apple Podcasts analytics helpful?"

TL;DR
Through Podcasts Connect, podcasters are able to access additional stats and data points that Apple doesn’t share with podcast hosts like Buzzsprout. And while more information is usually a good thing, it can take a keen eye to know what to look for.

In this episode, we’ll explain why your Apple Podcasts stats look different in Podcasts Connect than they do in Buzzsprout and talk about three data points within Podcasts Connect that can help you get to know your audience on a deeper level.

Why are my stats different in Apple than in Buzzsprout?

In Podcasts Connect, Apple only shows you a portion of your podcast's stats from the Apple Podcasts app. For a download to appear in your analytics, it must meet two criteria:

  1. They listened on the current version of Apple Podcasts
  2. They've given permission for Apple to receive their usage data


Beyond that, there's a 72 hour delay from when someone plays your podcast episode and when it shows up in Podcasts Connect. Plus, if fewer than 5 people meet the above criteria, Apple won't show you anything at all.

So what is Apple good for? Three things in particular.

  1. Average consumption
  2. Episode listen duration
  3. Devices subscribed


Each of these stats give you insight into how your listeners are engaging with your episodes and whether new listeners are choosing to subscribe after they land on your podcast.

Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.

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Gilon :

In today's episode, you'll learn how to use Apple's podcast analytics platform to better understand your audience. Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, where you learn the best tips and strategies to launch grow and monetize your show. This week's question comes from Dan

Dan :

is Dan at Sky pilot faith quest podcast and I have some questions about the apple podcast analytics. I love the Buzzsprout analytics using them all the time and find them very helpful. Then I go to the Apple podcast analytics, and I find them really confusing. Sometimes there's information about a particular podcast that is lacking On the next screen. It seems inconsistent within its own podcast analytics as well as compared to what you all offer. Tell me what I should be looking at there. Should I even be using them? Is there helpful information there? What are your recommendations?

Gilon :

Thank you so much for your question, Dan. So Apple podcast analytics offers some additional data points that they don't necessarily share with podcasts hosting sites, such as Buzzsprout. And while having more information is usually a really good thing. You can need to know what you're looking for and what you're looking at when you're an apple podcast Connect. So in this episode, we're going to tell you and explain a little bit about why the data points might look a little bit different. And then how to get the most out of Apple podcast analytics. So let's talk about why you might see some download discrepancy between your hosting site and Apple podcasts Connect. So with the hosting site, they're going to show you across the board how many listens an episode is getting Apple podcasts is not set up that way, Apple podcasts Connect is going to only show you information from listeners that meet two specific set of criteria. The first is that the listener has to be using the most current version of the apple podcast app. The second is that that user also has to give him permission for their diagnostic information and their usage data to be shared. On top of that, there is a 72 hour lag time so if someone listened to an episode that you posted on Monday, you're not going to see that reflected in your stats until Thursday. On top of that, if you get less than five people that meet that criteria, Apple is going to register Zero data for that episode. So the key here is if you want to find out information about how many listens that episode is getting, you're going to want to check in with your hosting site like Buzzsprout is going to show you how many listens you've gotten over the course of all time, as well as where maybe your audience is listening from. So if you're not going to get an accurate reflection of your download information from podcast Connect, what is it good for? Actually, there are three really good data points that podcasts Connect can offer you. The first is average consumption by episode when you land on the analytics dashboard for your podcast, scroll down until you see recent episodes. Once you're there, look at the stat in the far right column. The percentage you see here is the average amount of time your audience is listening to each episode. For example, if you have a 20 minute episode with a 75% average consumption rating, that means that people are listening to about the first 15 minutes of that episode. So the next data point you can see in podcast Connect is episode listen duration. Click through to one of your episodes to see Graphs showing you the percentage of listeners that are still tuned in at any point in your episode. If you're doing everything right, you should see a gradual taper from the beginning to the end of the episode. If you see a sharp drop in listeners, click on the portion of the episode and listen to it to figure out why so many listeners build at the same time. For example, there was an episode entitled finding the best podcasting microphone, we noticed that people stopped listening around the 90 minute mark, we went back and looked at that, we noticed that that was where we kind of identified that podcasting microphone and so people didn't really have a reason to keep listening. So what you want to do is really think about why people would drop off really explore that if that's that you've given them an answer, and they don't need to listen anymore if it's more of a clickbait kind of title. If you had an ad run in the middle, just reverse engineer why everyone might have disconnected at that point so that you can create more content that has people stay on for the duration of the episode. The last thing that you can learn from podcast Connect is how many new listeners subscribed after listening to a particular episode. Below the listener duration graph for each episode, you'll see a row of additional statistics. On the far right you'll notice a percentage called devices subscribed devices subscribed as a percentage of unique devices that subscribed and listening to the episode. For example, if you have an episode that has a 20% Subscribe rate versus an episode that has a 90% Subscribe rate, you're gonna want to look at what you did to get 90% subscription. Because if you can do more of that, it'll result in more podcast listeners. It's gonna help you grow your podcast tremendously. Well, Apple podcasts can offer you some specific data points for a portion of your audience. We really do recommend that if you want a more holistic look at your podcast performance, you check back in with your podcast hosting site. Thanks so much for your question, Dan. If you have a question that you would like us to answer on a future episode of the show, definitely go to speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout or click the link in the show notes and leave us a brief audio message. Don't forget to subscribe to the Buzzsprout YouTube channel and subscribe to Podcasting Q&A wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. That's it for today. Thanks You're listening and as always keep podcasting

Intro
"How are the Apple Podcasts analytics helpful?"
Why are my stats different in Apple than in Buzzsprout?
Average consumption
Episode listen duration
Devices subscribed
Which stats should I use?