Libsyn, which self-identifies as the first-ever, and largest podcast hosting company, is announcing today that it has been granted IAB certification for its podcast analytics.
The certification process is managed by the IAB Tech lab under its Compliance Program. Certified companies comply with the IAB V2 podcast measurement guidelines, which aspire to be the industry standard, and to some extent are the industry standard. The guidelines set rules for how to measure podcast downloads, impressions, and listeners.
Adhering to a well-known set of measurement rules helps the podcast industry grow by providing a reference for advertisers (the main monetary support for podcasting) to understand how their campaigns are delivering their exposure goals. this is especially a priority for brand advertising, as contrasted with direct response marketing (DRM) which measures effectiveness based on conversion of listeners to visitors.
“Meaningful industry-wide measurement has been difficult to achieve due to an inability to connect, track, and analyze user requests; measurement processes that use dissimilar, proprietary algorithms; and a lack of an agreed-upon set of metrics and their definitions,” according to the Libsyn press release.
For Laurie Sims, President of Libsyn, gaining certification was partly a matter of perceived responsibility. “As the first ever commercial podcast hosting company and the largest by both downloads and number of active shows, we believe we had a responsibility to the industry to be officially certified by the IAB Tech Lab,” she said.
VP Rob Walch notes that applying the guidelines isn’t the same as attaining IAB certification. “While we had updated our statistical analytics in late 2017 to best match up with these guidelines, we felt it was important to be officially certified as compliant with the IAB
V2 guidelines,” Walch said. “As we enter the 2020 yearly advertising buying season, this official certification will give advertisers the reassurance and confidence in our numbers that they need to place orders with Libsyn hosted podcasts.”