Podcast Analytics Archives

Nov 14

How to Calculate the Impact of Podcast Visibility Optimization

By Alexis Hue Podcast Analytics, Podcast Cover Optimization, Podcast Visibility Optimization

Podcast Visibility Optimization (PVO) helps increase your podcast’s reach by improving its position in search results on listening platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This article will walk you through simple steps to measure the impact of PVO on impressions and downloads so you can track your progress and calculate its ROI effectively.

What is Podcast Visibility Optimization?

Podcast Visibility Optimization (PVO) focuses on boosting your podcast’s visibility across major audio platforms like Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and Deezer. The goal? To get your podcast in front of more listeners by appearing at the top of relevant search queries.

How much of your audience is driven by search vs. – other activities such as social media or PR could easily be estimated by looking at your Spotify dashboard. In the example below, Search represents 30% of Impressions, a benchmark that most of our clients’ shows tend to exceed.

Podcast Visibility Optimization’s first impact: increased Search Impressions

As mentioned above, the goal of Podcast Visibility Optimization (PVO) is to increase the visibility of a podcast on audio platforms’ internal search results.

The core objective of PVO is not just to rank highly for search queries but to ensure potential listeners are discovering your podcast. After all, there’s no point in having top-ranking positions if the podcast isn’t being shown to a significant number of users on platforms like Spotify.

If a podcast has a high ranking on several keywords but a low number of impressions, it likely means the search terms it’s optimized for have a low search volume. This would not translate to valuable discoverability and discovery for the podcast.

So, with PVO, it’s crucial to track Search Impressions. As outlined in our previous article, Spotify Impression Data: What It Means and How to Use It, the “search impressions” metric in Spotify analytics represents the number of times your podcast appeared in users’ search results

This helps gauge the podcast’s overall visibility and relevance within the platform’s search results. To date, only the Spotify for Podcasters dashboard provides this impression data, allowing podcasters to monitor the impact of their optimization efforts.

Spotify’s search impression metrics are a relatively new feature. Currently, Spotify provides data in a rolling 30-day format without options to export or view historical data. To track progress, you’ll need to regularly record these metrics manually. Although time-consuming, this helps gauge which PVO tactics are working and refine your strategy.

Podcast Visibility Optimization’s second impact: increased downloads

Like every online marketing funnel, more impressions translate directly into more downloads. Spotify for Creators (formerly Spotify for Podcasters) provides a clear visualization of your podcasts’ funnel.

On your dashboard, you will find two conversion rates:

People you reached to People who showed interest. We like to call it “seen to clicked”.
People who showed interest to People who streamed. We like to call it “clicked to downloaded”.

So, by simply applying the conversion rates to your increase in search impressions, you can estimate the number of extra downloads you won by improving your show’s visibility.

Here is an example:

Before Podcast Visibility Optimization:

Search Impressions: 500,000
“Seen to Clicked” Conversion Rate: 10%
“Clicked to Downloaded” Conversion Rate: 80%
Total Downloads: 500,000 x 10% x 80% = 40,000

After Podcast Visibility Optimization:

Search Impressions: 700,000
“Seen to Clicked” Conversion Rate: 10%
“Clicked to Downloaded” Conversion Rate: 80%
Total Downloads: 700,000 x 10% x 80% = 56,000

The difference in downloads is the impact of your PVO efforts: 56,000 – 40,000 = 16,000

In the example above, we have used 10% and 80% conversion rates, as many podcasts fluctuate around those numbers. However, conversion rates can vary greatly depending on your podcast’s topic, branding, and the specific search terms you are targeting, so please use yours.

Podcast Visibility Optimization + Podcast Cover Optimization = the winning combo

While Podcast Visibility Optimization (PVO) is crucial for improving a podcast’s discoverability, optimizing another key element—the podcast cover art—is equally important.

Podcast Cover Optimization (PCO) focuses on enhancing the visual representation of your show to maximize the “seen to clicked” conversion rate. Your podcast may rank high in search results, but potential listeners may not click on it if the cover art doesn’t attract attention. Testing and optimizing cover art boosts the ‘seen to clicked’ rate, creating a strong synergy when combined with PVO strategies.

As outlined in our previous article on Podcast Cover Optimization, testing and optimizing your cover art is essential for boosting the “seen to clicked” conversion rate. This, combined with the impression-driving power of PVO, creates the winning combination to take your podcast’s performance to new heights.

By aligning your PVO and PCO tactics, you create a synergistic effect that amplifies the impact of each strategy. Potential listeners are more likely to discover your podcast through improved search visibility and more compelled to click and check out your content due to its visually appealing and professional presentation.

Implementing this PVO + PCO approach allows you to maximize your podcast’s discoverability and conversion potential, ultimately leading to more downloads.

Flaws to the model

It is important to note that while allowing a quick estimation of your PVO efforts, the model has a few limitations:

Keep in mind that this model relies only on Spotify data. You may need to extrapolate based on Spotify’s share of your total downloads to gauge impact across all platforms (like Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music). For example, if Spotify represents 50% of your downloads, you could multiply the extra downloads by two for an overall estimate.
The conversion rates are broad averages, including Search, Home, and Library impressions. The conversion rates for search are likely different than the average of all impressions. Furthermore, the “seen to clicked” and “clicked to downloaded” rates may be higher or lower if you rank on branded versus generic search terms.

Conclusion

Podcast Visibility Optimization (PVO) is a powerful strategy for driving more listeners to your show. You can significantly increase your podcast’s discoverability and conversion potential by improving its rankings and visibility on major audio platforms.

While the PVO impact calculation provides a practical way to estimate the download benefits, the model has limitations, such as the need to extrapolate beyond Spotify data. However, the core premise remains true—improving your podcast’s visibility through PVO will directly translate into more impressions, clicks, and downloads.

Combining these PVO gains with optimized podcast cover art through a comprehensive PCO strategy will unlock an even more powerful one-two punch for podcast growth. By embracing PVO and PCO as complementary pillars of your marketing approach, you can maximize your show’s discoverability, conversion rates, and audience size.

The podcast landscape is crowded, but with the proper visibility optimization strategies, you can ensure your show rises to the top and reaches the listeners it deserves.

Jun 20

Love0

Boost Your Podcast Visibility with Spotify Recommender

By Alexis Hue Podcast Analytics, Podcast Visibility Optimization

Spotify Recommender is a powerful tool designed to deliver personalized podcast recommendations based on user preferences and behaviors. Let’s examine how podcast publishers could use it to boost the visibility of their shows.

What is Spotify Recommender?

Spotify Recommender is a sophisticated system designed to deliver personalized music and podcast recommendations to users based on their preferences and behaviors. Its primary goal is to increase users’ time spent on the platform. The more time a user spends on the platform, the greater the retention for premium subscribers or the more ads served to free users.

By delivering personalized and contextually relevant recommendations, Spotify aims to keep users engaged and coming back to discover new content.

Just as Google Discover helps articles and videos find their audience by understanding user interests, Spotify Recommender ensures podcasts reach listeners most likely to enjoy them. This similarity is crucial for podcast publishers.

Both Spotify Recommender and Google Discover use algorithms and machine learning to analyze user interactions and provide tailored recommendations.

For Podcast publishers, Spotify Recommender is a great way to enhance their visibility and discoverability on Spotify.

How does Spotify Recommender work?

Spotify Recommender operates through a combination of collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, and user profiling.

Collaborative filtering involves analyzing users’ listening habits to find patterns and similarities. For instance, if User A and User B both enjoy podcasts X and Y, and User B also likes podcast Z, Spotify may recommend podcast Z to User A. This approach uses a massive user-item interaction matrix, which helps understand the similarity between users and tracks.

Additionally, the system uses content-based filtering to assess the content of podcast episodes. By analyzing the metadata the publishers provide, Spotify can recommend podcasts with content similar to those a user already enjoys.

Finally, the Spotify Recommender system logs all user interactions, including follows, ratings, shares, listens, and completion rates, to build comprehensive user profiles. These profiles consider genre preferences, mood, and temporal listening patterns, providing contextually relevant recommendations.

What are the Similarities and Differences between Spotify Recommender and Google Discover?

Both Spotify Recommender and Google Discover are personalized content delivery systems, but they serve different types of content and utilize distinct methodologies.

Similarities:

Personalization: Both systems provide personalized content based on user preferences and behavior. They use machine learning algorithms to analyze user data and deliver relevant recommendations.
User Profiling: Both platforms build comprehensive profiles of their users based on interaction history, which helps in delivering tailored content.
Continuous Improvement: Both systems continuously update and refine their recommendations based on the latest user interactions and data.

Differences:

Type of Content: Spotify Recommender focuses on music and podcasts, while Google Discover provides a wide range of content, including articles, videos, and news.
Recommendation Basis: Spotify uses a combination of collaborative filtering and content-based filtering, emphasizing user interactions with audio content. Google Discover, on the other hand, relies heavily on user interests and engagement with various types of web content.
Visual Emphasis: Google Discover strongly emphasizes visual content, requiring high-quality images and videos to engage users. While valuing visual elements, Spotify focuses more on audio features and user listening patterns.

What Should Podcast Publishers Do to Leverage Spotify Recommender?

Create High-Quality Content: Your podcasts must offer high-quality, engaging content. That’s the key to retention and what will trigger users to listen to more episodes, follow, share, and leave excellent ratings. Avoid clickbait titles, as they can lead to negative user feedback and lower your content’s visibility in recommendations.
Optimize Podcast Metadata: Ensure that your podcast metadata is complete and accurate. You have five levels to optimize: show title, publisher name, show description, episode title, and episode description. It also helps if you provide additional context and information.
Grow your Podcasts’ Authority: Spotify will always promote shows with high authority. To boost your authority, you need to increase your number of followers, have excellent ratings, a reasonable completion rate, etc. This should already be part of your Podcast Visibility Optimization efforts.
Leverage the Host Recommendation Feature: Take advantage of Spotify’s Host Recommendation feature by indicating which podcasts you would recommend. The Spotify Recommender uses this data in its algorithm, and your recommendations will also appear on the “More like this” tab on your podcast.

To do this, log in to Spotify for Podcasters, pick a show, head over to the “Details” tab, and look for the Host Recommendation section.

Then, look for the show you want to recommend or type its name: Spotify will provide suggestions. To expand your reach and audience base further, you may also want to collaborate with other publishers to set up cross-recommendations.

Publish Fresh Content: Regularly publish new episodes to keep your podcast feed active. Consistent content updates can help maintain listener interest and engagement. Refresh evergreen content periodically to keep it relevant and discoverable. Highlighting past popular episodes can also attract attention from users who may have missed them initially.

Following these simple tactics, podcast publishers can effectively leverage Spotify’s recommender system to enhance their content’s visibility, attract more listeners, and ultimately grow their audience.

How to track your podcasts’ performance in Spotify Recommender

Good news for podcast publishers: You can monitor your podcast’s performance in Spotify Recommender! You need to use Spotify for Podcasters, which gives you plenty of valuable insights, including streams, listeners, and impressions.

Spotify Impressions are divided into three categories:

Home: Recommendations, recently played shows, and podcast previews
Library: Saved shows or episodes and user-created playlists
Search: Listener search, top podcast charts, and editorial recommendations

So, by monitoring your impressions in the Home category, you can somehow see how your podcasts’ perform within Spotify Recommender.

Is it perfect? Clearly not, as Impressions Data has some current limitations, but it should indicate whether your efforts are boosting impressions within Spotify Recommender.

Conclusion

Spotify Recommender provides an effective way for podcast publishers to boost the visibility of their content. Publishers can attract new listeners by understanding how the algorithm works and then focusing on high-quality content, optimizing metadata, leveraging host recommendations, and publishing regularly.