PUBLISHERS NOTE: As of June 2023, Backtracks FM is, unfortunately, no longer available. Check out similar podcast hosting and analytics tools below to track your podcast performance and explore the features they offer to gain insight into your show’s analytics.
Before Backtracks, podcast publishers and advertisers were not able to tell if a podcast that was downloaded was ever played. There was no system in place to verify this kind of data.
This Backtracks fm review demonstrates the advantages of what this platform can offer to podcast creators and publishers.
We’ll look at what Backtracks fm is and why it works well for advanced podcasters, as well as examine some of its features and merits.
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What Is Backtracks Fm?
Backtracks is an advanced podcast analytics and programmatic advertising platform. It is the world’s most advanced contextual advertising service for this purpose and connects advertisers with content creators in order to match the best content with the best ads.
It originated in 2016 by integrating thousands of podcasts with advertisements. Since then, it has carried out analysis of over 40 million audio pieces.
The service has the ability to differentiate between a download and a play, so it gives the most accurate statistical results possible.
Podcast contextual advertising look alikes, historical trends, detailed analytics and reports can give you insight into the performance of your podcast.
Backtracks’ purpose is not only to benefit one party in the podcasting world, but to work with all parties including audio publishers, listeners, and advertisers.
With any of its plans, a podcast creator will receive an embeddable player, monetization tools, and secure hosting.
Best For Advanced Podcasters
So what does Backtracks offer advanced podcasters?
Well, this comes down to matching the right advertising with the right content combined with advanced podcast analytics and media intelligence.
Contextual advertising presents the ideal opportunity for those who need assistance in raising their revenue. With this, Backtracks help podcasters to get the best adverts that most suit their content.
They also include the tools that publishers need to get their content out to listeners as quickly and simply as possible. This in turn helps the monetization of the podcast.
Despite all these audio advertising and podcast analytics aids to advanced podcasters, the interface is not difficult to navigate even for those who are just setting out on their podcasting career. Therefore it is suitable for beginners as well as the more experienced content creators.
Integrated Plugin
Backtracks has no integrated plugin, but it does make it easy to embed an audio podcast player. The Backtracks Podcast Player is a customizable and feature rich audio player for podcasts.
It is easy to embed into a site or just a page. Depending on what size your podcast is you can choose from Publisher for $99 per month, Publisher Plus for $199 per month, and Publisher Premium at $299.
For these prices, you get world class advanced analytics, unlimited storage, scheduled publishing, hosting, RSS and syndication.
You will also be able to import existing podcasts, have access to full audio quality, and avail yourself of third party integrations with other systems.
The more premium services offer dedicated support, consultation services and the opportunity to get a customized player theme to fit your brand.
Storage Limits
Backtracks offer unlimited bandwidth and storage, so there is no worrying about exceeding limit restrictions. It allows you to publish as many episodes as you wish and there are no time limits on how long each episode lasts.
Although some podcasters limit themselves to one or two hours per program there is no reason why you have to stick to this. Depending on the subject matter you can record a three hour plus episode.
There is no video support with Backtracks whose expertise lies in monetizing and publishing audio podcast programs.
Statistics
Backtracks has advanced analytics which help your podcasts by making decisions based on audience behaviors and insights.
Open Podcast Analytics (OPA) provides an open and common interface for relaying podcast analytics related events. It gives a snapshot of time download metrics while simultaneously making sure that your data is certified and standardized.
Switchboard is a tool for in-depth and accurate podcast analytics. It doesn’t matter how audio content is delivered or where it is hosted, and it works on any podcast episode.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provide a secure and standardized way for software to software communication without user interference.
It can work alone or with a Software Development Kit (SDK), software building tools for specific platforms. Backtracks has both APIs and SDKs.
The player also has podcasting measurement data and intelligence built in to extract audience insight in order to provide better content. It is also equipped with analytics for podcasts that provide RSS feed to track episode statistics.
These podcast analytics can determine if a download results in a listen as they collect in-depth listener and audio data. This can also let podcasters know how long a listener listened to a podcast and not only provide single download counts.
Analytics let a podcaster know what is working with their content as well as their ads.
Listing/Integration Into Podcast Directories
Although Backtracks uses the best monetization and analytic tools it is not equipped with the ability to distribute into podcast directories.
Advanced Features
The Backtracks platform has a range of advanced features that allows it to work on any device, any podcast and any host.
Targeted Advertising
In order to reach your target audience advertising needs to be specific for a podcaster’s niche. Launching a podcast with Backtracks allows you to use targeted advertising.
As it also provides verified podcast analytics content creators will be able to check that their advertising campaigns are having the desired impact on their audience.
The platform, with its advanced features allows the discovery and removal of any fraud. It will also detect bot traffic and will only allow real listeners to be included in data sets.
This includes the exclusion of listeners who listen to a podcast twice, this will not be included in the metrics and allows the results to be analytically correct.
Advertiser Provided Ads
The Backtracks platform allows podcasters to read their own ad copy as part of your podcast episode. By doing this you are giving your listeners a more personalized experience and this makes the impact more authentic. In turn, this will have a positive impact on sales.
Over 49% of listeners to podcasts believe that the host of a podcast uses the product or service that they are advertising and is thus more likely to take their recommendations.
Backtracks will also optimize a podcast by placing advertisements in the most appropriate and relevant places in the program.
Podcast advertising is not as widespread as other forms of marketing, despite the fact that podcasts are the perfect way for many companies to raise awareness of their brands. This medium is also a good way for businesses to increase customer engagement.
But choosing the right platform is essential. Backtracks allows advertisers to take the guesswork out of finding the right location for their marketing campaigns.
A user friendly index allows advertisers to search for the perfect podcast in their product or service niche. Backtracks has analyzed 25 million episodes and 800,000 podcasts in order to develop categories that are easily searchable. This helps advertisers find their best match.
Advertisers, once they have found the right podcast for their material, simply click and set the parameters, including dates that the campaign should run and how much they want to spend.
Once the adverts are purchased, advertisers can watch and wait for the actionable and useful data to come in from the Backtracks platform, all in real time.
An important element of this process is that Backtracks can provide this information without invading user privacy. Matching advertisers with the right publisher and content is done with AI and advanced heuristics.
Customizable Podcast Audio Player
The podcast audio player allows a podcast to be embedded in any site and as it is customizable it can be designed to fit more closely with the podcast’s brand.
With the audio search engine optimization (SEO) content creators can increase their SEO ranking. The audio player also allows publishers to share only what they want with the restricted sharing feature.
Drag & Drop Audio Engagement (SDKs)
Backtracks works across Apple and Android products and covers podcasters with podcast and audio SDKs, demo apps and sample code.
SDKs are also known as dev kits, or software developer kits. They are essentially a toolkit for building software for a specific platform. Typically an SDK will include a compiler which acts as translator of programming language, from one to another.
They also include code samples which provide a concrete example of a web page or an application. Testing and analytic tools are part of a devkit and provide insight into how a product or application performs in production and testing environments.
An SDK will also contain debuggers which help spot errors in the code and rectify it.
Final Thoughts
Depending on what podcasters want to achieve with their content using Backtracks fm as a platform can help in a number of ways with their advanced features such as a customizable audio player.
With their advanced analytics they can provide high quality data for both podcasters and advertisers alike.
We hope that you have found this review of Backtracks fm helpful and informative.
