Understanding podcast consumption is a notorious challenge for creators and publishers. Audio host and distributor Spreaker has addressed that concern for its customers with the launch of a new analytics portion of the service.
The new dashboard informs creators of key listening metrics, including streamed plays, downloads, and size of an audience listening to a live podcast. It tracks “likes” on the platform, which is easy enough, and also extends social intelligence to uptake on Facebook and Twitter. iTunes access is in there, importantly, as iTunes is a major hub of podcast discovery and access. Geo-location of the audience drills down to the city level.
“Accurate measurement of podcasts is the holy grail to monetization of this hugely trending sector,” said Spreaker CEO Francesco Baschieri.
Spreaker’s drive toward better audience measurement includes an interesting component — using YouTube’s publicly available programming interface, Spreaker makes it easy for audio creators to make videos of their audio programs for YouTube distribution. YouTube’s analytics layer then gets combined with other sources used by Spreaker. The company intends this to help audio creators in two ways — better audience intelligence, and audience expansion via the world’s most-used Internet media platform.
Spreaker swims in the same water as AudioBoom (exclusive sponsor of our weekly podcast) and SoundCloud. Each service has differentiating features and unique values. In Spreaker, creators choose among several paid plans for recording and hosting audio programs. The company has carved the new analytics system into a few levels, and offers pieces of it within different plans, reserving the whole package for high-paying customers.