Podtrac has attained certification from the IAB Tech Lab for its podcast measurements, as compliant with the IAB’s V2.0 guidelines and de facto industry standard. The news stands out because of Podtrac’s role in the industry as a prominent ranker of podcast audience metrics for publishers and podcast shows. The company releases a monthly Top 10 list of podcast publishers (based on audience size, and also including number of plays) and another monthly ranker of top shows (which does not disclose any numbers).
In today’s announcement, Podtrac explains two unique challenges facing the company, which it solved to the satisfaction of IAB Tech Lab.
One is how to count a podcast’s audience through a measurement redirect. The challenge emerges when the original host is not IAB-compliant. Podtrac built a proprietary solution which removes any improper (non-compliant) counting. The problem especially pertains to partial downloads, and how they are accounted in a show’s metrics. According to the Podtrac, the company “disclosed the complete details of its process and analytics to the IAB Tech Lab and an independent technical auditor, and after a rigorous review, they agreed that this produces counts for partial downloads consistent with the guidelines.”
The second challenge and unique certification is about multiple listeners connecting to the podcast through one IP address — the IP address is typically used to identify a single listener. Again, solved with “a proprietary algorithm,” says Podtrac.
To summarize the company announcement: “Publishers and advertisers can be confident in the counts Podtrac provides. The longest-running podcast measurement system — currently measuring more than a billion downloads a month across tens of thousands of podcasts — is now verified as compliant by the IAB Tech Lab.”