Podcast Statistics: What to Pay Attention To – PCI 340

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How come I can't just use
Google Analytics or use my

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web stats?

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And the problem with that is they
completely measure different things.

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You're listening to Podcast Insider,
a weekly podcast, bringing insights,

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advice, and insider tips and
tricks to help you start, grow,

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and thrive through podcasting.

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With the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome.

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Let's dive in.

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This is Todd Cochran, c e o
and co-founder of Blueberry.

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And I'm Mike Dell, VP of Customer
Relations here at Blueberry. Today,

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we're gonna talk about podcast
analytics, you know, stats, and, uh,

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what stats you need to pay attention to.

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Hey, Todd, we got a
juicy subject today. Uh,

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we're gonna talk about podcast
analytics and, uh, you know,

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what do you wanna pay
attention to? What's important,

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what's not so important but fun?
You know, that kind of thing.

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You know, it, it's funny because, uh,

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I've been having a series of
meetings about this with the I E B N,

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which our stats are
certified compliant by.

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And what is important to someone on, uh,

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an advertising deal may not be important,

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is what someone that's just trying to
grow their show. So it really depends on,

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on the use case. But, you know, from
the beginning of podcast measurement,

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you know, podcasters are really, really
focused on really that play, listen,

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download, and they say, okay, if,
you know, if I've got, uh, 700 plays,

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that's, you know, means 700 people are
listening. But I think there's a much,

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much bigger picture you can
derive from your metrics than

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just, uh, looking at plays. And, you know,

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one of the things that I like
looking at is really that,

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that long-term growth line, you
know, how the show is doing over,

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uh, months and in my case
years and, uh, you know,

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it's been an ebb and flow
for me over the over time.

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Oh yeah. And, you know,
stats go up, stats go down,

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and there's not always a particular
reason for that other than, you know,

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people get tired of a show and they
take a break and then they come back.

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Or you may get a big burst, uh, you know,

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if you get mentioned something in the
news or something like that. But, uh,

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yeah, a question I get
a lot is, uh, you know,

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how come I can't just use
Google Analytics or use

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my web stats?

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And the problem with that is they
completely measure different things.

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You know,

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web stats are really good at covering
pages and how many visits you have to your

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site and all that stuff.

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But if you put an MP3 on your web server

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and somebody starts playing it or
downloading it, you're gonna, you know,

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it's gonna take it in chunks.

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And each of those chunks will
be considered a hit in web

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stats. So if one person
downloads your show,

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it might take 2030, you know,

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hits on the file to get the whole
file. So your web stats are gonna say,

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that was 20 or 30 downloads
and podcast stats.

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We, we filter that stuff out. You know,
we won't get into the geeky part of it,

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but suffice it to say, uh, they're
just different metrics. You know,

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we, we combine those 30 hits
or whatever it was on that file

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and condense that down into
one. We can do that, you know,

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via various geeky things.

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And I think one thing that, you know,

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has thank goodness gone by the wayside
is for a long time people thought they

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could look at the traffic to their
podcast r s s speed and say, oh, I had,

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you know, 82,000 hits to
my podcast feed. Well,

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that's exactly what it
was. It was a, a hit,

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it was basically a crawler or
a bot or something like that,

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looking at that, that geeky
data that's in RSS feeds.

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And that really caused lots of folks
to over-report in the early days of

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podcasting. But, you know, I think we,

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we broke that seal where folks aren't
doing that anymore. But, you know,

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I think one thing you have to just
remember is that web stats, again,

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are great to look at your web analytics,
so what's happening on your site,

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but podcast stats is specifically about
that media delivery and where it's going

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and how it's being delivered
and, and what apps and, you know,

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where in the world people
are consuming your content.

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So I think that the web stats
piece is good in its own right,

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cuz I like looking at that data too.

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You know, you kind of wanna
have both if you're, you know,

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running your own website, you do wanna
run web stats, but four web stats things,

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you know, how long people are sticking
around on your site and, you know,

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a lot of that kind of stuff that you
can't really get from podcast stats

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directly. But, uh, you know, and,

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and one of the other questions I get
a lot is how many subscribers or now

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followers do I have?

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Well, fortunately we've, uh,

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we've made available our way of,

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of, uh, calculating that and that's
available through the Thrive package.

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But it's been a very difficult
figure to actually put your pencil

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on. You know,

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it's one of those things that
there's never an exact number

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and, and we have a little bit
of methodology that we're using.

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And a lot of it is just looking
at averaging. And, you know,

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if you get the Thrive package
and look at the subscriber data,

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there's a full explanation of how we're
calculating it. It's not complicated,

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but it does do averaging
over about 12 episodes.

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So it's one of those things where
we kinda look at over time to

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give you that, that
subscriber number. Now,

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before we had that fancy
graph in Blueberry stats,

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oftentimes what I would,

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would do is I would take the total
downloads for each episode for the last

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12 episodes after it had been
delivered for at least two weeks,

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add those number up and divide it by 12.

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And I would get a pretty close number to
what I would think would be my average

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plays or downloads.

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And then I would kind of back that off
just a little bit and then kind of come

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up with a subscriber number.
But there's nothing perfect.

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Our methodology is using pure math.

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Yeah,

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I used to do it a different way and
I still kind of do is I'll take an

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episode that's say a month old and
look at just that single episode

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and then go down and figure out where
they're coming from. If they're mostly,

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you know,

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the number of people that
are coming from a mobile app

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and something called
Podcatchers, which are PC apps,

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uh, like iTunes, the original, uh,

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desktop software or Apple
Podcasts on your device,

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although that'll come up as Apple podcast,

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but it still will show up as something,
as a pod catcher in our stats.

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You add those two numbers together and
that gives you kind of a rough idea as

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well. But it's, all of them are
kind of a rough idea. Guess.

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One thing to also understand is
there's the difference between

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true followers,

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someone that has followed or subscribed
to your show and those that are

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coming in via,

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let's say Spotify or they're just
loading the Apple Podcast app up,

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or they're loading and they're looking
for your show and they hit play.

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A lot of people do that today without,

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without ever following your show.

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So what happens is, is if
someone has followed your show,

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as soon as it basically becomes
available in the RSS feed,

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if you have your podcast application
set up to automatically download that

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episode so it's available for you
really anywhere you are on demand, if,

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even if you're in an airplane that
is really a true quote unquote

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follower, but it doesn't,

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we don't wanna discount those folks
that are coming in via Spotify

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or wherever and just hitting play.

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There's a different level of
commitment there, there's still,

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there's still listeners
of the show. I mean,

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part of our calculation that we're
doing in the subscriber stats is really

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looking at that first 24 hours
as well of how many immediate

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plays or downloads happened right away.

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And that is usually a good sign within
that first 24 hour period in episodes

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available that that is probably
someone that is followed or subscribed

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to the show. Again, in the end,

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what we really care about is that
that grand total number. And,

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um,

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I think that's what oftentimes we can
use as a pretty good indication where the

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show is going. So I don't think people
should get hung up on subscribers.

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I think they really should
just focus on overall what's,

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what's my line graph of my show
doing overtime? Is it growing?

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Yeah, you want people to, to listen. You
don't care whether they hit subscribe,

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although subscribers do download the
thing automatically and and that's

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cool. Or you know, followers and
subscribers by the way are the same thing.

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We just, the terminology has
changed over the last few years. So,

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uh, excuse us, uh, oldsters here by
saying subscribe all the time, but.

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And in people, I call 'em active
listeners, there's, you know,

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that's kind of an you think what's
an active listener, Todd? Well,

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active listener could be, and
kind of in Todd's definition,

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and you can call it the way
you want it as a podcaster,

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but it's that listener that
comes in again, hits, hits play,

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and just listens to it immediately.
I know Mackenzie does this.

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She doesn't really a follower
subscribe to shows she use,

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she just hits play on the, on the
shows that she follows. So again,

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every person that consumes
content is different,

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but it doesn't mean that Mackenzie's
even less dedicated to that show.

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It means that she still
follow over that show.

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She just uses the app in
a different methodology.

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Yeah, and there's nothing wrong
with any of that. So you, again,

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total listens or total
downloads, that's another thing.

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The term that's been changing a little
is the important number, you know,

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per episode. But again, it's,

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it is kind of neat to check out your
estimated audience and, and all that.

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Of course that's available at
uh, blueberry in the stats.

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And speaking of blueberry stats,

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most hosting companies have basic stats.

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Some are better than others. Ours we
like to think is the best, you know,

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but from almost any uh, podcast hosting
company, you'll get some basic stats,

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but you might want to get a second
PI opinion. So I've got, you know,

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third party stats here
on the list and you know,

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companies like Charitable and Pod
track and of course Blueberry,

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we have standalone stats. If
you're not hosting with us,

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prefixed stats are not always
available for use on some platforms,

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what used to be called Anchor, which
is what Spotify for podcasters,

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there's really no way to, uh,
put in any prefixes there.

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Let me add something about anyone
running a prefix, including blueberry.

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When we did our IB certification,

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the first certification we
did was basically on raw
log valves for our customers

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that hosted with us. And we held
back on getting the redirect,

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or some people call it pre Penn certified
into our second round when we went

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back.

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Because what happens in a pre penned is

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we don't see everything
that happens with that, uh,

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with that playback cuz we handed off
to wherever the media file is hosted

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and if we don't have the raw log data,
there's certain data that it's not there.

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So we had to build a model, and I
won't go into the complexity of that,

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but it, it was very, very complicated
and it actually, actually,

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it has to be verified as part of
our certification every 30 days.

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So we have to run some scripts and
do some testing. So one thing you,

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you need to know if you're running
on a prefix with any company,

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and I can compensate with blueberry,

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that number's gonna be a little bit lower
than it would be if you were had our

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hosted stats.

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And it could vary depending
on your audience makeup and
how they're listening to

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the show. Cuz every app
and device and, well,

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not just mostly every app has its own yes.

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Better way kind of way of doing things.

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And we have had to build a model
that basically says, all right,

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it came from this, I can count
it came from that. No, I can't.

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So typically a prefix
stats will run five to 12,

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maybe in as high as 13% lower
from a metric standpoint in

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getting total your, your
numbers on your show. Uh,

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just because we can't
qualify the, the download to,

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to meet the certification standard.

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So one thing to remember
is as usually hosted raw

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log stats with er, with
blueberry are the most accurate.

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Even if you're running the prefix with us,

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we still look at your raw log files
and that's what we report to you. So,

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um, that's the main thing to to know
here is if you're hosted with us,

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your stats that you get
are, are the most accurate.

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If you're not hosting with us and using
the prefix or even if you are using the

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prefix and hosting with us, you
still get the hosted reporting.

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Whereas if you're not hosting with
us, then you just get strictly the,

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the prefix reporting and it allows us
to keep our model in line cuz we get

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to see both sets of numbers.

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We're kind of unique in the space
and being able to do that. But as,

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like Mike said, it's not a terrible
idea to have a second opinion,

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but there could be some differences.

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And the main reasons there's
differences is really methodology.

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We go above and beyond and
maybe go beyond this, the,

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the specification of IB in
qualifying the number. When we,

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when we created the blueberry stats
platform, we basically had a little motto.

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We didn't care what the number was as
long as we know what the number was,

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we don't wanna under count, we don't
wanna over count. We, we've worked very,

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very hard really over the past. I I guess
when did the stats become available?

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2006. So, you know, we worked very,
very hard to make sure they're very,

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very accurate.

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Yeah, just, just to know that, you know,
if say you're hosting with blueberries,

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so you've got our hosted stats and you
want a third party for a second opinion,

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so you do charitable or pod track or
whatever, it's gonna be different. Not,

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you know, they're never gonna be
exactly the same. As Todd was saying,

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the methodology, you know,

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we filter probably differently than
all the rest of them. And you know,

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that's nothing wrong with that.
It'll still show you the trending.

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It's really about bots and da it's
stuff, stuff coming from data centers,

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you know, that kind of
stuff gets thrown out and,

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and we try to stay on
top of that. So again,

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everyone should be relatively
close, we would hope.

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But especially if you're going from hosted
to a redirect, you could see a drop.

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Now if you see a much higher number,

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I think that would be caused for a
concern and definitely drop us a note.

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It support asking about this and
maybe the vendor you're working with,

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how do you use metrics to grow
your show or improve your show?

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And what we've tried to do
here at Blueberry recently
within the last year is to

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provide you actionable information
within your podcast stats to help

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you grow your show,

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to know what works and what doesn't
to basically measure growth.

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You can see if you're going
in the right direction,

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insights on where and
when people listen. So we,

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we've put a couple of, uh, new
charts in. One that's been really,

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really popular is obviously the retention
graph that's been in the system for a

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while.

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Yeah, that's been a,
that's been a big one. And,

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and what's nice about that
is if you see some, you know,

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see that a lot of your listeners
are dropping off at a certain point,

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go look at that certain point
of your show and say, you know,

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is this feature or this, uh, segment
of my show is that turning people off?

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And just remember the retention graph.
If you look at it, remember this point,

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if it's above the blue line,

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that means someone is click play and
we've been able to track how long

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they've listened and it's good
within, you know, 10 or 15%.

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And everything below the blue line
is where someone has definitely

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completely downloaded the episode.

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It'd be either followed or
subscribed to the show. It's, uh,

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more than likely where
someone has, uh, opted in.

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So really that data above the blue line
and the retention graph is important.

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Of course,

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we've got the some new graphs in the
system now where you can see pacing,

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you can basically see how one episode
compares against the other As far as

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uptake in listeners, and I love
this because you can now go and say,

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okay, I did an episode on a, B, C,

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I did another episode that was similar
to it and then I did another episode that

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was completely different.
And you can do a, an A, B, C,

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D or e comparison of episodes to look at

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over time how they paste.

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And if all your shows are
pacing almost the same,

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that's not a bad thing,
that's actually a good thing.

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That means that you're getting good take
up on the episodes that you're putting

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out and people are listening
to all your content.

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Now if you have some
shows they're pacing much,

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much lower and they're all over the place,

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then maybe you gotta think about how
you can tighten up your content a little

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bit to get that,

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to get that pacing squeezed together
where they're all tracking, uh,

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within maybe five or 10% of each other.
So you'll wanna look at that. So again,

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if the, if your lines are almost
on top of one another, again,

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it's not a bad thing, that means
you've got good, good consistency.

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Whereas if they're really separate,

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then that is actually where the challenge
lays is where you may wanna look at

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what did I do different
in one episode or another.

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Yeah, it's like if you
have a YouTube channel,

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you'll see that certain videos do better
than other videos. So maybe it's a,

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a title issue, you know,

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you titled this episode in in
a way that turned people off or

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you know, things like that.
You, you just want to, you know,

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look at your stats and then just,
you know, hey, what can I tweak here?

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Or is there something I should tweak
here? Or, you know, whatever. But,

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you know,

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basically stats tell you what happened
and it's up to you to figure out

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why. And we give you the
tools to do that and,

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and a lot of other stats systems
do too. But, uh, I think we're,

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I think ours is better.

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And there's,

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there is definitely one chart in our stats
now that I'm surprised we haven't got

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as much feedback on it. It, it, you look
at it and you're like, oh my god, I'm,

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I'm doing horrible.

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But really you have to read
the definition of what the stat

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00:19:01,480 --> 00:19:04,800
is providing and how we're calculating
it and the averaging that we're using.

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00:19:05,140 --> 00:19:10,080
And the main thing to know
is that as long as that chart

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line is over time moving upwards,

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00:19:12,530 --> 00:19:15,480
it gives you a good indication that
you're growing. And if it's flat,

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it's basically your show is,

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00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:22,120
is kind of treading water and it
gives you some ideas on things you

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00:19:22,120 --> 00:19:22,960
can do and, you know,

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00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:26,640
tie that in with the audience survey
data that's in the stats system.

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You can build a pretty big picture of
your audience and maybe things you need to

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do to help grow your show. But I,

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I think the stats are just one thing
to think about on, on your show.

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00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:39,720
There's an, you know,

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00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:42,600
there's obviously lots of other components
here that we're not gonna talk about

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today, but, you know, just
look at those metrics,

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don't get obsessed with them
and, uh, use the data we've,

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we've provided to make logical
decisions about your show.

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And if there's something you
do not understand, then uh,

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that's where our support
team comes in at blueberry.

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00:19:56,960 --> 00:20:01,480
Yeah. Get ahold of us. We'll, uh, we'll
try to explain as best we can and uh,

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and that, and that'll even help
us explain to other people.

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So it's kind of cool.

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00:20:05,340 --> 00:20:08,680
And if you're one of those folks that
comes in and hits the stats refresh button

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00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,680
every 15 minutes, don't obsess,

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00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:15,840
come look at it once a day and focus
on the content. Focus on people.

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00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:17,440
Usually they're obsessed with their stats.

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00:20:18,010 --> 00:20:22,200
If you take that energy and move it
into other things, social promotion,

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00:20:22,590 --> 00:20:24,480
increasing your content quality,

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00:20:25,090 --> 00:20:28,160
that'll pay much more benefits
than sitting there and
hitting the refresh button

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00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:30,080
every 15 minutes cuz
we know some of you do.

343
00:20:30,660 --> 00:20:35,120
Yep, for sure. And you know, one
of the fun things which, you know,

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I don't know how important
it is, but it, uh,

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is the maps that you can see, you
know, where your listeners are,

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00:20:42,220 --> 00:20:45,600
you know, you were saying you had, you
had a listener down in uh, Antarctica.

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00:20:45,630 --> 00:20:50,320
Well, you know Yeah. And not that
that's useful for growing your show,

348
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:52,480
but it's really cool and gives
you something to talk about.

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00:20:52,550 --> 00:20:55,800
Yeah. And you know, and I did a call out
for this individual said, Hey, where,

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00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:57,720
where are you listening?
You know, how, you know,

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00:20:57,720 --> 00:20:59,840
what are you doing down in
Antarctica? It was a scientist,

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00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:03,960
it was down there on the ice and he'd
load his phone up with podcasts and go out

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00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,760
and do research and then about every two
weeks he was back to do a refresh and

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00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:10,880
get more content. And that's
when I heard from him. So it's,

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00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:13,960
it's kind of cool to have those
kind of, uh, call outs as well.

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00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:17,520
That's some of the fun stuff you can get
from stats when you see that listener

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00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:20,200
that's in some where wayward
country and you're running,

358
00:21:20,420 --> 00:21:22,520
why are they listening there? You know?

359
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:25,440
And it's always good to get that
response from that audience member.

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00:21:25,790 --> 00:21:28,280
Yeah, for sure. Well, I I think we,

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we got a nice overview here of
stats and if you have any questions,

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00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:35,160
of course you can get ahold of us and, uh,

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00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,480
ask the question and
we'll try to help you.

364
00:21:38,070 --> 00:21:41,480
Thanks for joining us. Let's meet
up next week. And in the meantime,

365
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:44,360
for more information to
subscribe, share or follow,

366
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:49,440
check out the show
notes@podcastinsider.com to
check out our latest suite

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00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,040
of services and help Blueberry can
help you leverage your podcast.

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00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,320
Visit blueberry.com. That's
blueberry without the ease.