There are many reasons why you may want to see how many listeners a podcast has, but it can be a little tricky to find that exact information.
Independent hosts that don’t have sponsors may want to look at their audience stats to encourage potential sponsors to work with them. Tracking their popularity and progress will help them work out how valuable their content is.
Guests on podcasts may also be interested in listener statistics for shows that they are about to guest star in. Entrepreneurs often do this to determine the amount of exposure their services and products will get.
Podcast directories and networks also need this data to work out how popular a podcast is, so they know where it needs to rank on their listings. If not how do I know if my Podcast is doing well.
These are just some of the reasons why you may want to look at podcast listener statistics, but you don’t have to be a commercial podcast to see how many listeners you have!
We’ll cover how to see how many listeners a podcast has in this post, including looking at Spotify listener metrics, using Google Analytics, and looking at social media.
Podcast Hosting Analytics
If you are the owner or operator of a podcast, you can typically access analytics provided by your podcast hosting platform. These analytics can include information such as the number of downloads, the number of subscribers, and listener locations. Examples of such platforms include Libsyn, Podbean, and Spreaker.
Third-Party Analytics Tools
There are several third-party tools that can provide additional insights into your podcast’s performance. These tools can help track things like listener engagement, episode popularity, and social media mentions. Examples of such tools include Podtrac and Chartable.
Platform-Specific Data
Platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts provide some level of analytics to podcast creators. For example, Spotify for Podcasters offers detailed insights about your listeners, including their age, gender, location, and how long they listened to each episode.
Surveys and Direct Feedback
While not as precise as some of the other methods, conducting listener surveys or soliciting direct feedback can also provide valuable insights. This can be especially useful for understanding your listeners on a more qualitative level.
Spotify Listener Metrics
Spotify has exploded in popularity over the years, as over 515 million listeners used the streaming service end of Q1 in 2023.
Spotify provides an extensive set of podcasting tools for listeners and podcasters. The set comprises an analytics control panel with data covering listening behavior and user interaction.
Looking at listener data through Spotify is one of the most accurate ways to determine how many listeners a podcast has, as the information comes right from the source.
Can You See Who Listens To Your Podcasts On Spotify?
To find this information, you need to go to the Spotify For Podcasters webpage and log in with your podcaster information.
Once you have logged in, you will be sent to the main dashboard page. You can look at detailed statistics for your show by clicking the podcast banner.
This includes Total Listeners & Followers, and Starts and Streams.
A Spotify listener is an individual person who has played a show’s episode a minimum of one time. The total number of streams is different, as this covers users who have played the same episode several times.
Itunes Listener Metrics
Spotify isn’t the only service that helps you look at a podcast’s progress! Itunes is one of the other popular streaming services, with over 18.5 million episodes and 525,000 shows on offer.
Itunes also has tools that can help people track the popularity and progress of their episodes.
Podcasters will need to make an Apple Podcasts Connect account before they can look at use Itunes to see how many listeners a podcast has. The service lets podcasters look at several statistics, which are:
- How many times users have played an episode
- How many users have subscribed to a show
- If listeners skip through the second mid roll or intro or not
- Listener demographics
Itunes podcast listener data analysis concentrates on delivering information about every episode. Listenership information comes from different devices that have played an episode a minimum of one time.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools used to look at website traffic, but it can also help you look at performance information.
Other than looking at the number of independent listens, you can also look at other metrics, like minutes played and plays.
The human attention span has declined from 12 seconds to 8.25, so content creators and advertisers have an even smaller opportunity to get their message across.
This is why it’s so important to know how long people listen to specific podcast episodes and where they tune out.
A podcast play shows how many times a person has pressed play and listened to the episode for a minimum of five seconds on a specific day. The minutes also show how much time people spend tuning into one episode.
Google Analytics is an efficient way of looking at this data and adapting your content to match.
Social Media
A podcast’s social media account can tell you a lot about the number of listeners and how engaged they are. You can generally find a podcast’s social media information on its official webpage.
Look at their Instagram feed, Facebook page, and Twitter account. How many followers does the account, or the host, have? Is there a lot of positive audience engagement? Is the account active?
While you won’t be able to look at specific listenership data, you will be able to get an idea of the type of listeners a podcast receives and how popular it is.
Ask The Host Directly
If you want to find out the most reliable podcast information, you need to travel straight to the source. This involves asking the publisher, host, or owner.
Emails are one of the best ways of requesting this information, but if you cannot find the email address, you can try asking through social media.
After you’ve sent your request, remember that there’s no guarantee that the person will reply. However, this chance will increase depending on your intention. For instance, if you are thinking about sponsoring a show, you may get a fast response. However, if you are trying to look into competitive shows before initiating your own podcast, you may see fewer results.
A note to remember is to be wary of publishers or hosts detailing their all-time download total. This is how many times all of their shows have been downloaded since the podcast began.
This figure doesn’t tell you how many listeners they are receiving for every episode.
Further reading:
How Do I Get More Listeners On My Podcast
The Bottom Line
The methods above can help you work out how many listeners a podcast has.
Some of these, like the Spotify and Itunes methods, are ideal, as the data is taken straight from the source.
If you want to find out information about another podcast, asking the host directly can also help you find out accurate data.
By working out how many listeners your podcast has, and how they react to your episodes, you will be able to adjust your content to improve your audience engagement rate.
