✊ Two hidden data points that predict podcast growth
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Happy hump day friends, 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. You can add the episode to your listening queue in your favourite podcast app or watch on YouTube. 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.
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