Podcast listeners have always based their listening decisions on a small number of key touchpoints.
Most prominently, your show title, cover art, and episode titles.
In most places a listener encounters a show, these are the only data points a potential listener has available to determine whether or not a show or episode is interesting, relevant, and worth their time.
And so they make use of them, ignoring and passing over shows that might be objectively better in favour of those with more attractive packaging.
Obviously, this is a problem for us as creators.
Unfortunately, there's never been an easy way to know whether our packaging is limiting our growth... until last year that is.
In 2024, Spotify rolled out a new podcast discovery dashboard with a full visual representation of the listener acquisition funnel.
On the surface, this might seem to be just another confusing (perhaps even useless) chart to try and make sense of.
But when you know how to interpret the data, you'll find a treasure trove of actionable information to help you improve your show and your marketing.
Among other things, Spotify's dashboard allows us to pinpoint issues with our show that might be stifling our growth on all platforms.
Plus, when we look at the data from shows that Spotify promotes heavily through its algorithm, we can begin to decipher some clues as to how we can put it to use for our shows as well.
In this episode of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, Justin and I dig into Spotify's conversion rate data, as well as the benchmarks you can—and should—measure your show against.
If you want my personal feedback on how to improve your own conversion rate data to attract more listeners to your show, check out my Zap Micro Audits.
In these ultra-affordable audits, I'll start the timer and then pack as much of my best, juiciest, growth-generating advice as I can before the buzzer rings.
Stay Scrappy,
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If you're a Founder, Solo Biz Owner, or Professional Creator looking to double down on the Craft of your work while getting paid handsomely by clients you love to work with, I have 3 slots left for 2025 in my 1:1 Podcast Growth Engine Program.
In the program, we'll do a full assessment of your show, marketing, sales system, and offer, and then design a strategy and system to bring them into alignment, to help you sell more and grow faster while making better, more rewarding, more resonant work.
It's not an overnight process, but if you've already got the pieces in place, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect to add $100k in revenue over the next year.
Here's who nails the bull's eye:
You're a coach, consultant, service provider, or online educator with a high-ticket offer ($5k+) that already sells consistently.
You have a stable business that pays you a solid, predictable salary (ie. you're not in "need cash now mode") and are in mid-to-long-term planning mode, looking to build out the systems and strategy to take your business to the next level over the next 2-5 years.
You've got your core business assets already established—offer, sales process, email marketing, podcast, operations—but while all of them are performing OK, none of them are really optimized... and you know you're leaving money on the table and working harder than you need to to generate revenue.
You can see all the pieces and know you've built something of real value... but don't know how to connect them all in a cohesive way.
You understand business and marketing, but could really use some outside perspective from someone who deeply understands their work (creatively, strategically, and tactically) and what they're trying to do to bounce ideas off of, challenge their assumptions, and guide them.
If that's you (or close enough), reply with the words "Growth Engine" and I'll send over all the info on how the process works.
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