Apple Podcasts App Update Will Provide Creators, Advertisers, With Improved Analytics

While podcasts have been a boon for independent and legacy media outlets, the technical side of areas like analytics and advertising have generally been more makeshift. But soon, it’ll be easier for podcast creators to know who’s listening to their shows. Apple will release an updated version of the Podcasts app that will provide in-depth listener analytics to show creators, Six Colors reports.

The app update, which was unveiled at Apple’s WWDC, will allow show creators to see data like listener numbers, times when an episode is played, the points where users skip in a show and when they stop playing an episode entirely. Notably, this listener data will not be tagged to individual users, but instead, it’ll be anonymized and shown in aggregate.

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While the update is a relatively brief one for Apple, it has a larger effect for bigger ad-supported podcasts. Currently, most podcasts that rely on advertising can only pull from download numbers to gauge their popularity. While these numbers are a decent measure of a podcast’s popularity, the data still lacks the depth that creators and advertisers would both ideally like.

As a result, many podcast creators and advertisers have been operating at a disadvantage when determining ad rates and revenue. On Twitter, Matthew Lieber, co-founder at podcast network Gimlet Media, pointed out the potential scale of the update.

With Apple’s scale as a podcast platform for users, the availability of this information could have a significant impact on larger podcast creators. The growth of podcasts in the past few years have come alongside the ease of use for smartphones and general listener habits for shows and content. Shows like “Serial” and “S-Town” became strong word-of-mouth sensations and the current advertising model for podcasts has also allowed for individual podcasts like The Bill Simmons Podcast and networks like Midroll Media to grow.

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While some networks have developed their own apps to work around these advertising limitations, most networks have relied on basic platforms like the Apple Podcasts app and featured makeshift ad placement tools like promo codes to learn about their listeners. To be sure, Apple’s Podcasts app isn’t the only platform on which to showcase podcasts. But for advertisers and podcast creators, having more data about listeners likely will shift how the ads in your favorite podcasts might sound down the road.