What's the Difference Between Downloads, Listens, and Followers?

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I'm Danny Brown and you're listening to One Minute Podcast Tips, the show that helps you be a better

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podcaster in just a minute a week. If you want more specific tips just for you and your podcast,

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check out the Magic Mic membership at oneminutepodcasttips.com forward slash support.

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And now, this week's episode.

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One of the questions I see getting asked a lot online is what's the difference between a download,

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a listen, and a follower. So let's break that down. For a download, it depends on whether the

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platform is IAB Certified or not. The IAB, or the Interactive Advertising Bureau, is the industry

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standard for podcast analytics and measurement. When it comes to a download, this means one of

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two things. If a hosting platform is IAB Certified, a download is when someone presses play on an app

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or a web player and listens for at least 60 seconds, or downloads enough data to their device

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to listen back for at least 60 seconds afterwards.

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If a host isn't IAB Certified or is IAB Compliant,

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which are different guidelines than being certified,

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then they might use the IAB guidelines as a starting point,

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but have a different way of reporting and measuring analytics.

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Now, when it comes to Spotify for Podcasters and Apple Podcasts,

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there are some differences.

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Spotify for Podcasters, which is the reporting dashboard for Spotify,

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and Podcasts Connect, which is Apple's podcaster dashboard,

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has slightly different metrics.

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Spotify has Starts, which is zero seconds and over,

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and Streams, which is anything for at least 60 seconds, so closer to the IAB definition.

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Podcasts Connect has Plays, which is greater than zero seconds, and Engaged Listeners,

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so when someone's listened to at least 20 minutes or 40% of an episode within a single session.

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Both of these metrics, especially the streams and engaged listeners,

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are a good measurement of actual listeners.

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This is because you can have a download that isn't listened to,

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so auto-download on a podcast app, for example, a bot, automated scripts, etc.,

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so metrics around actual listen time are more valuable.

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It's why you have the likes of average consumption on Apple Podcasts,

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consumption hours on Spotify for Podcasters,

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and why we offer a consumption percentage at Captivate,

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where I'm Head of Podcaster Support and Experience.

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These stats show you how much of an episode is being listened to

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and where drop-off is happening, etc.

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So you can then look to see why and then optimize your content based on that data.

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Followers are what used to be subscribers,

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and these are listeners who have moved from just listening

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and now subscribe to your podcast,

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so they get each new episode as soon as it's released.

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So hopefully that's helped identify the difference between downloads,

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listens, and followers, and made things a little bit clearer for you.

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Until the next time, happy podcasting.

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Thanks for listening. If you enjoy One Minute Podcast Tips, be sure to share with your friends

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and other podcasters so they can enjoy it too. Until the next time, happy podcasting.

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