When it comes to a podcast succeeding isn’t just about racking up impressive download numbers—it’s about recognizing the many different ways your show can make an impact beyond the stats. It seems that podcasters often default to downloads as their primary measure of success, but there’s a whole spectrum of meaningful metrics to consider. From audience engagement and email list growth to personal fulfillment and being recognized as an authority in your niche, there are countless ways to gauge your podcast’s true progress. Let’s explore how redefining success can help you stay motivated and continue improving your show, no matter what the numbers say.
Apple and Spotify Completion Rate
When you go into the dashboards of Apple and Spotify, you can see how far people listened to your show. I'm an old teach so for me 70% is a C. 80% is a B, and anything above 90% is an A. The beauty of both these platforms is you can click and listen at any point that shows a drop of so you can see if it was something you said that cause the dropoff.
Listeners: The number of unique devices that have played more than 0 seconds of an episode.
Engaged Listeners: The number of unique devices that played at least 20 minutes or 40% of an episode within a single session. Pausing or stopping an episode does not count as starting a new session.
Spotify shows People You reached (people who have seen your show), People who Showed Interest (they interacted with your show, which may be an indicator of episode titles o artwork), People who consumed (so they listened to your show).
Unprovoked Audience Feedback
This is my favorite. You put out an episode, and 24 ours later you've got emails in your inbox, DMs on social giving you feedback. For me, this is a great indication that your episode resonated with your audience.
Email List Growth
If the goal of your show is to monetize, this metric is KEY. I know for me, I focused on lead magnets and growing my list, and those efforts resulted in me growing my list by 39%
Growth in Community
You can look at your community growth, this could be Facebook, Discord, Heartbeat (my favorite), Circle, etc. School of Podcasting member Mark Lawley who does the Practical Prepping show with his wife Krista. They have 155 thousands people in their community. I do not recommend using Facebook (or any free service) for your community. Paul G shared in his interview how he lost a five figure community. I've been kicked out of my own Facebook group, and moved to Heartbeat (which now has a great AI tool that makes setting up a community a breeze).
Business Metrics
If the goal of your show is to grow your business, then looking at the number of customers, the revenue generated should be something to look at. I hear people all the time mentioned how they will measure the goals in downloads and later say they want to make some income. Then I believe you may want to measure your success in income.
Attribution Stats
If you ask people who interact with you and the answer to the question, “How did you find me?” If the answer is, “I heard your podcast” that is something you can measure and let's you know your SEO and word mouth is working.
Being Asked to Speak
We had unprovoked audience feedback, this is unprovoked opportunities to appear on other podcasts, speaking gigs, or other media appearances.
Are You Being Seen as The Authority
Have you heard yourself being quoted? You can see what websites are linking to yours (which may be someone you collaborate with). This article from SemRush explains how to see who is linking to your website?.
Consistency in Schedule
Consistency in schedule enables your audience to add you to their routine (which is huge). So are you better at coming up with remarkable content on a consistent basis.
Quality of Audience
So you're attracting people, but are you attracting the right people? Are they doing what you want them to do?
The Fun and Fulfillment Factor
Are you a better communicator/interviewer than when you started?
Do you feel more confident explaining your topic?
Do you enjoy the conversations you’re having?
For a lot of podcasters, that is the real win.
Updates & Extras
- Apple Podcasts now automatically adds chapters to shows not already using them.
- Adilo (video host) outage and platform update for School of Podcasting members.
Mentioned In This Episode
Podcast Best Practices Handout
Ray Arnott Interview on Partnerships
Podmatch find Guests, Be a Guest
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