While the Key Metrics report focuses on the five key metrics that are most important to understanding your show’s growth at the top level, there are times when you will want to dive further into the metrics behind your show. The Show Overview page is designed to give you deeper insight into a specific show’s performance enabling you to formulate action steps to improve your performance and grow your show.
The Show Overview report has five main sections, each which drills down to more detailed reports. Here is what you’ll find in the five sections, along with the data points available in each and how to use them.
Section 1: All-Time Downloads
What it is: The total number of times your show has been downloaded (Global Downloads) across all of your show’s episodes from the point in time when you began measuring with Podtrac. Podtrac can’t see traffic to your show before the time you added the redirect. Downloads reported by Podtrac include both file downloads to a device as well as streaming delivery of podcast audio.
Why it’s important: We would consider this the least important metric on this page - more of a vanity metric. We’ve included it here because it is your biggest number and it is always fun to see how your show has grown over time, but it doesn’t have a lot of meaning without understanding more details about the show, e.g. show frequency, number of episodes, how long the show has been publishing, etc.
How to use it: We often hear podcasters cite All-time Downloads as in “we just hit 1 million downloads!” While it can be fun to share a large number with your audience and it feels good to see a number that is always growing, just keep in mind that on it’s own it isn’t really telling you anything about your show. As long as you have episodes available (whether you published new ones or not) this number will continue to grow.
Section 2: 30-Day Downloads and Audience
30-Day Downloads - Global and US
What it is: Total Global and US Downloads across all of your show’s episodes during the last 30 days. This number is updated every night to reflect the most recent 30 days. The month/month percentage number compares this current 30 days to the previous 30 days and lets you know if you are trending upwards or downwards over total downloads. Downloads reported by Podtrac include both file downloads to a device as well as streaming delivery of podcast audio.
Why it’s important: Downloads are the measure of how many times your show’s episodes are listened to. Your 30-Day Download number gives you an idea of the total monthly “inventory” for your show (if you are selling ads) and a good idea of how much traffic your show sees in a month.
How to use it: Use the absolute 30-Day Download number to give you a sense for the amount of traffic your show does in a month. Use the % change value to monitor whether or not your show is growing over time and by how much. The bigger the % change the better.
30-Day Audience - Global and US
What it is: Total number of Global and US listeners to your show across all of your show’s episodes during the last 30 days. This number is updated every night to reflect the most recent 30 days. The month/month percentage number compares this current 30 days to the previous 30 days and lets you know if you are growing your show’s audience. Audience is also sometimes called Reach referring to how many people you are reaching with your show.
Why it’s important: Audience is the measure of how many people are downloading your show. Your 30-Day Audience number gives you an idea of how many people you are reaching with your show each month.
How to use it: Use the absolute 30-Day Audience number to give you a sense for the size of your monthly audience and to give you some insight into listener behaviour. For example, if Total 30-Day Downloads is growing but 30-Day Audience is flat or decreasing, that means your existing listeners are listening to more episodes. If, on the other hand, both are growing that means you are bringing in more new people to your show.
Check the % change value often to monitor whether or not you are growing the number of people listening to your show.
Section 3: Episode Trends
7-Day Global Episode Delivery
What it is: For your most recent five episodes, the chart displays the number of Global Downloads for each of the first seven days (as available) since the episode was published. The Growth vs. Avg column on the chart compares the delivery-to-date to the average delivery for that same number of days across all episodes published in the prior 90 days.
By mousing over the lines in the graph, you can view both the daily and cumulative downloads for each episode during the first seven days.
Why it is important: For most podcasts, 80 to 90% of total episode downloads happen in the first seven days.
How to use it: Use this report to gain an understanding of how quickly listeners listen to your show. You can also check this report after posting a new episode to see how it is performing in its first few days versus the prior 4 episodes.
30-Day Average Global and US Downloads per Episode
What it is: The Average 7-Day Downloads per Episode is the average Global and US downloads in the first 7 days after posting for the most recent 5 episodes with 7 days of data. Downloads reported by Podtrac include both file downloads to a device as well as streaming delivery of podcast audio.
Why it’s important: For most podcasts, 80 to 90% of total episode downloads happen in the first 7 days.
How to use it: Knowing your podcast’s average performance in the first 7 days after posting gives you a benchmark by which to judge your current episode's performance as well as an idea of the size of your show.
While there are different time-frames over which you could look at average downloads per episode, we choose 7 days over 5 episodes for this report because it gives you an average of current episodes to use to gauge your most recent episode. This lets you focus on the growth of your current episode.
If you are interested in projecting downloads for future episodes for purposes of selling ads or just understanding longer term delivery, we recommend looking at a 30-Day download average.
Section 4: Top Countries
What it is: The Top Countries chart displays the top five countries for your podcast over the past 30 days and what percentage of your downloads are coming from each of those countries. The data is for a rolling 30 days and updates daily.You can find more detailed infor on the “Country” report under Downloads.
Why it’s important and how to use it: Knowing where your listeners are based helps you to program your content to your listeners. The data can also be useful when selling ads or sponsorships in your show to help you and your sponsors understand the audience they are reaching.
Section 5: Top Apps
What it is: The Top Apps chart displays the top five podcast listening sources for your podcast over the past 30 days and what percentage of your downloads are coming from each of those sources. We define a “source” as the app or software the listener is using to access your show. . The data is for a rolling 30 days and updates daily. You can find more detailed info on the “Client” report under Downloads.
Why it’s important and how to use it: Understanding how your listeners access your show can be useful in understanding how to promote your show as well as in understanding factors which can affect the number of downloads your show gets (e.g. a software update in a platform which causes a change in listener behavior).
To check out the Show Overview report for your show login at Podtrac.com. Then click on the show name on the left side of the screen.