Learn your REAL podcast global ranking - NOT your listen score!

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a podcaster is

understanding the wider picture around your own podcasts

performance. There are sources of data, if you know

where to find them, that can give you an overall picture,

but it's still not that accurate. In this episode of the

podmaster, I'm going to talk you through exactly how you can find out

what your global podcast ranking is,

what to ignore, and what to bear in mind.

Now, as I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, it can be

really frustrating as a podcaster to get the real facts

around your podcast data. Most podcast

hosting companies offer you a dashboard with some

analytics data in it. Usually it's called stats.

You'll look at it and it will give you the data on

actions taken on your RSS feed. Just the other

day, the newsletter pod news linked to

an article written by somebody that really well explained

what IAB downloads are. So I'm going to link to that in the episode

description for you to take a look. But IAB download numbers

are only part of the story.

Of course, in previous episodes I've mentioned how important it

is to get into your Apple Podcasts connect

dashboard so you can see Apple podcasts specific

data, your Spotify for podcasters dashboard

so you can see data relevant to Spotify itself.

But what about when it comes to comparing your podcast

data with other podcasts? There's not

really that much available to tell you how well your podcast is

doing. Let's face it, every other aspect of life

gives you a ranking, a percentage score based

on your performance. Be that in school, with your

exams, you'll get 92%, which will give you an

a in your working life. You might have regular

KPI's that you need to keep to even elections are

run based on percentage performances. You

need a certain percentage of the electorate to vote for a

candidate in order for them to get first past the post and

be selected. So why is it so difficult to

pin this down in podcasting?

So why is it so difficult to pin this down in podcasting? Here's

the reason. Siloed data now there is a measurement

body called the IAB. I mentioned it before, IAB

certified downloads. This is the interactive

advertising bureau, or as some refer to it, the Internet

Advertising Bureau, saying as that's the space with the most impact that it

has, but it still only gives you the core

central data. The IAB do not release

the stats to tell you your global podcast

ranking. So it's weird then that there's a website that a lot of people

refer to when they're talking about their global podcast ranking

listen notes. If you've never visited this website before,

don't start now. Don't bother. It's wildly

inaccurate, but what listennotes does is it offers you a

listen score. This is a plucked out of the ether

figure where they make a guess as to how many people are

listening to your podcast episodes based on

coincidental data like your social media followers, the number

of podcast episodes you've released, how popular those episodes seem to

be, it doesn't really give you a very good picture. It's

a guess. And unfortunately, some people use

this for less than scrupulous reasons. There are certain podcast

managers and podcast consultants who claim

an entitlement to you giving them your hard earned cash

based on the fact that they once had a top 1%

podcast. They didn't. They're using the listen note

score, but shamelessly. They stick this on their

website for some kind of faux credibility so that you'll feel

comfortable passing with your cash.

Now this global ranking data is not easy to come by,

which is why it's taken my team and I a long time to figure

this out. I've had to work with data scientists to plug the

various sources together, make various

calculations that are based on balance and fairness

and parity in terms of the data measurement.

Some sources are based on seven day measurement, other sources are based on 30

day measurement. So therefore, calculations need to be made in order to

balance those to make them a fair comparison. Now, various

podcast hosting companies have their own data, which

they use to rank their customers podcasts in a

chart that doesn't get released to the public. Why?

Who knows? Maybe they value their customers privacy, or maybe

they don't exactly want the public knowing how their

podcasts rank. In general, if they've got lots of podcasts

with only one to 10% scores, it doesn't reflect well

on them as a hosting company. To date, there are only a couple

of podcasting companies that offer their

data publicly. One of those is Buzzsprout,

the other Libsin. Now this is where the complication

lies. Both of those are using IAB

certified stats, but they're using them in different

ways. Buzzsprout insists their

stats are the only true IAB

certified stats. They claim Libsyns are not as

accurate, but Libsyn has been around a lot longer.

That said, Spotify for podcasters has definitely

become the number one podcast hosting platform.

Why? Because it's free. Who wouldn't host their podcast on

Spotify if they don't really care about results which is,

to be fair, what probably 50% to 80% of podcasters

do. They go, ah, I'll have a dabble, I'll stick a podcast out there

and then that's it. What listen notes does is

include and factor those podcasts into

its data. So when you're getting your global

ranking, as listennotes calls it, you're being compared to

podcasts that maybe only ever released a trailer or one

episode. Maybe they didn't even bother because at one

point you could actually get your podcast accepted by Apple

automatically through what Spotify for podcasters

was previously known as Anchor. So that

data is extremely skewed when they claim there are 4 million

podcasts in the podcast index.

Yep, that's true. That's how many feeds there are in

total. But they're not active podcasts. The true

number of currently active podcasts is

sub 500,000. And when you break it down into

categories, that number is even far lower. It's a

complicated calculation to make, which is why it's taken me

absolutely weeks to get on this.

We can now proudly publish a

calculator in which you can stick your podcast

download numbers into it, and get a

genuinely accurate, to the best of our ability

reading on your global podcast ranking. I will

tell you this. Now, this is the baseline figure. If your

podcast is getting fewer than 90 downloads per

episode within 30 days on average, you are not in a

global top 50%. That's just a fact. I'm going to manage

your expectations now. So if you're getting 50 downloads per

episode within a month, you're not currently able to call

yourself a top 50% podcaster. And of course,

the numbers increase incrementally as you increase your percentage

rankings. Now, the elite

podcaster that can call themselves a top 1%

podcaster, it's not hundreds, it's

obviously thousands. I'm not going to share the number here because I don't want

anyone to feel massively disappointed when they're listening to this and

feel disheartened and want to give up. The number is intended as a

guide to you and you alone on your podcast.

I'm not really looking to tell you what number the top

1% podcasters are getting in their downloads every

month, because that's their business. They are

entitled to celebrate if indeed they are hitting that mark. But

you need to understand that none of this really even

matters. It matters to you to know how your podcast is

performing. That can help you with everything from driving your

show forward, developing it, improving the content,

and seeking out monetization be it through advertising or

sponsorship. What it's not useful for is thinking to

yourself, oh, my podcast only gets x amount of

downloads, whereas the top 1% podcasts are getting those

amount of downloads. Ah, it's not fair. The whole

system's rigged against me. No, because here's another part

of the picture that you may not have factored in. Those

podcasts that are top 1%

podcasts according to global rankings may

not be there fully, organically or ethically.

We all know that there are podcasts that cheat the system. They

artificially inflate their download numbers in order to get attention

via either the charts, if that's their strategy, or to

advertisers if they're looking to hit minimums so that they can

make revenue from their podcast. Comparing yourself to

any other podcast is an innings to nothing.

It's a game you won't win. The only

thing you should be comparing your podcast ranking against

is your future goals. And that's it.

So I say it again, this is meant as a guide for you

to understand how your podcast is

performing in the bigger picture. It is not intended

as a stick to beat yourself with and feel

that you're imperfect. Your podcast is

the only thing that matters to you. Nobody else's

podcast. Go check out the global podcast rankings

calculator now. I'll stick a link in the episode description, but

you can find it directly at Podmastery co

ranking. That's Podmastery co

ranking. Thanks for listening and I'll speak to you again soon.

The Podmaster is a podnost podcasting production. Find

out more about us at Podnows dot co dot Uk. That's

podknows dot co dot UK.