45. Stop obsessing over downloads. Do this instead

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Welcome to Podcasting for Business Owners. If you’re thinking of launching a podcast

Laura: Welcome to Podcasting for Business Owners. I’m Your host, Laura McCrae, a podcast consultant, educator and self confessed podcast nerd. If you’re thinking of launching a podcast or want to grow the one you have, you’re in the right place. Hold on to your headphones and let’s go. Hello and welcome back to Podcasting for Business Owners, the podcast that helps you share your story, lead your industry, and grow your network through podcasting. I’m Laura McCrae, and if you’ve ever looked at your podcast stats and felt all bamboozled and didn’t know what they mean, then this one’s for you.

Today, we break down the key podcast stats you need to pay attention to

Today, I’m breaking down the key podcast stats you need to pay attention to, from downloads to listener habits and how to use them to create a show that works for your business. Let’s start with downloads, because they get talked about a lot at, uh, the time of recording this episode. It’s May 2025. A download means someone who has listened to at least 60 seconds of your episode on a unique device. But don’t be fooled. That doesn’t mean they stuck around to hear the whole episode. This is why it frustrates me when people talk about download numbers, because they’re not the be all and end all. If they’ve only heard your intro, that’s not doing your content or your business any favours. Downloads can be helpful, especially if you’re pitching to sponsors or adding them to a media kit. But they’re more of a surface level stat or a vanity metric. We want to go deeper than that. Also, Spotify calls downloads streams just to confuse us, but they basically mean the same thing. Let’s talk about the difference between listeners and followers and the different terms that Spotify and Apple use. Let’s start with Spotify plays. This is the number of times a Spotify user listened to your content. Plays are only counted once per user per session. So if you press play on an episode, then pause and resume playing, that only counts as one play on Spotify. Apple, on the other hand, counts a play as any time. So someone presses play. So if you’re listening to an episode and you get interrupted by your kids about four times and you keep pressing pause and play, that’s going to count as four or five plays, because you press play four or five times. So when you look in Apple podcasts, your plays will no doubt be really high. Also in Apple, they separate Apple listeners and Apple engaged listeners. I’m going to tell you the difference between the two. So an Apple listener is unique. Devices that listened for more than zero seconds. They literally just press play. They may not have even listened to your episode at all. So I don’t even know why they bother putting this stat in, to be honest. On the other hand, Apple Engage listeners are, ah, devices that listen to at least 20 minutes or 40% of an episode. So this is a stat worth looking at. And then you’ve got followers on both Spotify and Apple on both platforms. These are people who hit follow and are, um, more likely to keep listening and get notified of your new episodes. So why do followers matter? Because followers are engaged listeners. They tell you who’s actually showing up regularly and that’s who you’re really making the show for. Personally, I wouldn’t bother tracking plays and listeners, but I would track engaged listeners and followers.

Your consumption rate tells you how much of your episode people are actually listening to

Now let’s talk about consumption rate and consumption hours. Your consumption rate tells you how much of your episode people are actually listening to. You’ll find this on Apple Podcast Connects. Unfortunately, you won’t find it on your podcast hosting platform. As a general rule, if people are listening to 70% or more of your episodes, you’re doing really well. If not, you might want to start shortening your episodes or maybe cut down any waffle at the beginning and get to the value faster. Spotify tracks this slightly differently using consumption hours. That’s the total time people have spent listening to your episodes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t break it down into specific episodes. That’s why I prefer looking at Apple for consumption rate, because you can look at the consumption rate for each individual episode rather than your podcast as a whole. Your consumption rate shows how engaged people are, not just whether they clicked play or not. Here’s why your consumption rate is so important. I had a client who had someone really famous on their show and her downloads went through the roof. They went really good for that podcast episode and she was delighted. But then when I looked at her consumption rate for that episode, it was only 30%. The majority of her listeners were

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turning off that podcast episode at 30%. So what that said to me was that people wanted to listen to this person, but then maybe that particular topic she was talking about wasn’t of interest to her listeners. She was more interested in getting someone famous on her show than talking about a subject that her listeners would actually be interested in. So that’s why I think it’s so important not to just look at downloads, but look at consumption rate too. Unfortunately, at the moment, we can’t see whether people are skipping past parts of the show. I’d love that to be a feature because I’d like to know if people are skipping through ads or skipping through your intro. The only thing we can see is where people actually drop off at the episode, so I hope that becomes a feature at some point.

I’m giving away one free place in the podcast launch programme

Just a quick heads up before we get to the next section. I’ve got a little birthday giveaway happening. If you’ve been thinking about starting a podcast but haven’t taken the leap yet, this is for you. I’m giving away one free place in the podcast launch programme. It’s the same step by, uh, step system I use with my one on one clients to take them from a podcast idea to getting published. To enter, just rate and review this podcast, take a screenshot and share it to your Instagram stories. Tagging me in at podcast support services. You need to do this by Wednesday 11th June 2025, which is my birthday. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to start your podcast, maybe this is it.

When you change hosting platforms, you need to update your download stats

Now back to the episode. So Apple and Spotify also track things differently. Spotify tracks demographics like age and gender. It also tracks plays, followers and device type, whereas Apple tracks listener behaviour. Like I, um, mentioned how long people are listening for. It also tracks followers and engaged listeners, but don’t expect the numbers to match. Each platform is only showing the data from its own listeners. There are some stats you can usually find on your hosting platform. So your hosting platform is Buzzsprout or Libsyn or something like that. Here’s some stats that often get overlooked. You’ll find these on your hosting platform. They’ll show you geographic location. This stat is more helpful than you might think if you’re planning an event or want to run location based ads. Your podcast host should show you where people are listening from, even down to which city. So you know where to run your events and you know where to start advertising. Another stat your hosting platform will show is is what devices and platforms people listen to your podcast on. So for example, it will tell you if they’re listening on their phone. So people generally listening to podcasts on their phone are um, multitasking. These people are less likely to click on your show notes on the spot, so keep your CTA short and repeat them so that they can remember them because they’re not going to click while they’re driving or putting the washing out. Desktop listeners, on the other hand, are more focused and they’re more likely to click links or book calls with you straight away. Then it’ll also track whether people listen to your podcast on smart speakers or smart TVs. These people are also passive listeners, so say any URLs or calls to action clearly and slowly so that they can remember and come back to you later. If you’re ever planning on changing your hosting platforms, here’s some things you need to know so you don’t lose your download stats. You need to remember to redirect your RSS feed from your old hosting platform to your new one. You can generally find information for this in the hosting platforms themselves, or if there’s a chatbot you could talk to in the hosting platform, they’ll show you how to do it. Then, after you’ve done that, you need to update your RSS feed in Apple and Spotify manually again. There’ll be directions on how to do this on your Apple and Spotify accounts, or you can just send a query through and Apple and Spotify and someone will get back to you on how to do it. So when you change hosting platforms, your RSS feed changes, and Apple and Spotify need to know what your new RSS feed is because your podcast followers are following that particular RSS feed. So when your RSS feed changes, you need to let Apple and Spotify know so that your followers are following the new RSS feed. Otherwise they won’t hear your new podcast episodes. But what you need to do before you change your hosting platforms is make a note of all your download numbers, because these don’t carry over to the new platform. You’ll start back at zero, and you don’t want to lose that information. So what stat to focus on? You don’t need to track everything. Instead, look for patterns. Are your listeners staying longer? Are you growing your follower count and do certain topics outperform others? That’s where you

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really want to look. So when I create reports for my clients, I’ll look in their Apple account and their Spotify account, and I’ll look in their hosting platform and pull all the data together and I’ll work out which episodes are working for them. Which ones, um, aren’t what guests their listeners enjoyed listening to, which ones they didn’t, whether their followers are going up, everything really. I’ll put it into one document for them so they get an overview of exactly how their podcast is going, and then we’ll plan future episodes based on what their current listeners like. I understand most business owners don’t start a podcast to geek out on stats, but when you understand the right ones, it becomes easier to grow a show that gets results. If you’re curious about your own performance but still don’t know how to interpret your stats.

Head to the Show Notes to learn more about my podcast Growth Audits

Head to the Show Notes to learn more about my podcast Growth Audits I’d uh, love to help you make your podcast work even harder for your business. I’ll show you what’s working, what’s not, and where your growth opportunities are hiding. It’s tailored to your show, your goals and your content. You can find all the details on my website at uh podcast support services.com au I’ll put the link in the Show Notes. Thanks for listening and I look forward to speaking to you next week. If you found value in this podcast, please leave. A five star rating and a review would be even better. Your Support shows that this is a good show which will attract high profile guests and in turn deliver greater value to you. This podcast is produced and edited by me. Don’t waste your time on editing. Let me help you with your podcast. Check out the links in the Show Notes to get in touch.

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