Tools to Keep in Your Toolbox to Measure the Return on Your Investment

More and more, the big question we get from clients is: What is our ROI? 

There’s a misconception in podcasting (both among the general public, and among those of us who work in this industry) that measuring the ROI of a branded podcast is simply not possible. It’s true that the data we have access to in podcasting is different, and collecting demographic data about our listeners and their behaviour can require a little extra work compared to other digital mediums. 

But that doesn’t mean determining ROI isn’t possible. With the right metrics and tools in our toolkit, we can track the true value podcasts bring to a brand. 

Let’s start by looking at the key metrics we need to track to measure your branded podcast’s overall impact. 

Key Metrics to Track

1. Reach

The one metric many clients care about the most is downloads. Downloads are a complicated and problematic metric for various reasons that might be beyond the scope of this blog post. Essentially, just because an episode has been downloaded, does not mean it necessarily has been listened to. 

But that being said, the reason I think most people care so much about downloads is because they’re really asking a bigger question– they want to understand the overall reach of the podcast. How many people have heard about the show? How many of them are listening? 

Reach is definitely an important metric– if no one is listening to the podcast, then it’s fair to say it’s not going to be worth the time making it. But sometimes success when it comes to reach might be smaller than you think. If your target audience is quite niche, perhaps you really only need to reach a pretty small group of people to have a very big impact. This is often the case with branded podcasts! 

Downloads are still (unfortunately) the primary metric for measuring reach. But we can also look at streaming data from platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and web players to get a clearer picture of who is actually listening to the show. 

This gives us an idea of how many people are listening to the show. But that alone tells us very little about the business impact of the podcast. 

2. Engagement

Even if your podcast is reaching a lot of people, do they actually like the show? A really great marketing campaign might lead to lots of people clicking play on your podcast or downloading some episodes. But if they don’t actually enjoy the podcast, your show will not lead to positive business results. 

We can measure audience engagement by looking at average completion rates. Are episodes holding the audience’s attention? Do they like what they’re hearing after they click play? If they’re listening to entire episodes, we can assume they’re enjoying the content. We can track these completion rates via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

Another way to track engagement is by looking at follower numbers and diving deep into unique listeners. This helps us understand how many people are coming back episode-after-episode– a clear indication that they enjoy the show. 

Finally, we can also track ratings and reviews of the podcast. This serves as great feedback. Are listeners going out of their way to leave five-star reviews of the show (especially unprompted)? This is a pretty solid indication that they’re enjoying the show! 

We’re getting closer to a clearer picture of the podcast’s impact for your brand. But just because a lot of people are listening to your show and enjoy the podcast, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re generating business results. If you’re not reaching the right people, all of those metrics don’t mean much for your business. 

3. Audience Targeting

Collecting demographic data for your podcast can be tricky. Spotify and YouTube provide some broad demographic data, but it doesn’t tell you things like a listener’s interests, their job titles, or their household incomes. 

One great way to better understand whether your audience is your target audience, you need to go a step further. You need to actually talk to them. 

There’s a few ways to go about this. You can set up a listener survey (though keep in mind that this is self-selective– probably only your biggest fans will go the extra mile to fill out the survey). You can start conversations with fans on social media, creating a community for those who listen to interact with you. You can put call outs in the episodes, asking people to reach out to you via email or on social media. All of this will give you more information about your audience, and it also has a secondary bonus benefit– it deepens your relationship with your audience, making it a two-way conversation rather than just a one-way relationship. 

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These metrics help us understand how well your podcast is performing and whether it’s engaging your audience. But they don’t always answer the question: How is the podcast generating business results? 

There are other tools we can use to help answer these questions. We don’t always use all of these tools, and we don’t necessarily use them all at the same time. We make decisions about when to engage these tools when it’s appropriate, depending on the goals of our clients and the questions we’re trying to answer. But it’s important to understand these metrics and these tools, so you know what options you have to best answer the question of how your podcast is generating results for your business. 

Metrics That Directly Link to Business Results

1. Cost of Attention

One metric you may not have considered is the cost of attention. How much does one minute of audience attention cost? When you compare the cost of attention in podcasting to other forms of content marketing—such as social media posts, YouTube videos, or blog posts—you’ll often find that podcasts outperform other mediums in terms of audience engagement.

On average, podcasts keep listeners’ attention for much longer stretches (often 70%+ completion rates on episodes of 20-30+ minutes). Again, compare that to completion rates on YouTube video or average read times for blog posts. Even if you calculate the cost of attention for just one episode of your podcast, you’re likely to find it’s far more cost effective than other marketing initiatives. 

How does this tie to business results? Keeping listener attention for a long period of time allows you to embed yourself in the lives of your target audience. This deepens your relationship with your target audience, increasing brand recall, consideration, awareness– all great for generating real business results. More attention = stronger business results. 

2. Listener Surveys

We’ve already chatted about listener surveys a bit earlier in this post. As I said before, listener surveys come with their own challenges (those who respond are probably superfans rather than “average” listeners, collecting enough responses for statistically significant data can be a challenge, and we’re lacking a control sample of responses from non-listeners). 

However, we can include some specific questions in our survey to gain some helpful insights into the podcast’s business results. 

For example, we can ask questions like, “Had you heard of our brand before listening to this podcast?” or “How likely are you to purchase our products now?” or “Were you a customer of ours before listening to the podcast?” 

This data is obviously qualitative rather than quantitative. But it does provide us with valuable insights into how the podcast is influencing purchasing decisions and consideration. 

3. Brand Lift Studies

Speaking of qualitative data, one of the best ways to gather reliable data about the impact of your branded podcast is through a brand lift study. This research is typically conducted by a third-party firm and typically involves comparing responses of listeners who have heard your podcast with a control group that hasn’t. This helps measure shifts in brand awareness, affinity, and purchase intent. It’s a more scientific and reliable way to assess the influence of your podcast on listeners’ perceptions of your brand.

These studies provide a clear picture of how your podcast influences consumer behavior, helping to connect podcast engagement to tangible business results.

4. Pixel Attribution

Qualitative data is super valuable for giving a better understanding of what about the podcast is working, and why. But sometimes your CMO just wants to see the dollars in, dollars out. 

If this is the case, you might be interested in trying out pixel attribution. 

If your brand is willing to implement a tracking pixel on your website, this can be an excellent tool to measure the direct impact of your podcast on website traffic, conversions, and purchases. A pixel allows you to track the journey listeners take after hearing your podcast—whether they visit your website, sign up for a newsletter, or make a purchase.

However, podcasting is often used as a top-of-funnel tool to build your brand. This means tracking direct conversions might not be the most valuable– there could be tangible benefits to the brand that don’t lead to immediate web traffic or purchases. 

But still, with pixel attribution, we can track how listeners are moving down the funnel. We can see if the podcast drives listeners to lower-funnel content (such as blog posts, landing pages, email sign-ups, or other podcasts), which ultimately lead to conversions or sales. 

I wouldn’t recommend pixel attribution for every single podcast, in every case. It really depends on the goals or needs of our clients. But this is a valuable tool to keep in our toolbox, and sometimes it does make sense to pull it out!

5. Anecdotal Evidence

Sometimes, the most convincing ROI comes from anecdotal evidence. This is especially true for clients with high-ticket products or services, where one customer can make or break a quarter. 

Sometimes the sole purpose of creating the podcast in the first place is to create an opportunity for clients to reach out to prospective clients and invite them on the show as a guest. Even just one of these guests turning into a customer could be enough to justify the cost of the podcast. In this case, anecdotal evidence is the best tool to measure ROI! 

(If you go this route, just remember to make sure your podcast still has to be good, not just acting like a lead generation tool. If the podcast isn’t attracting and retaining real listeners, if the content is messy or the audio quality isn’t professional, your guests (and prospective customer) might feel like you’re wasting their time– the whole thing could backfire and have the opposite effect you’re seeking for! You still need to make a real show.)

Another way to track this data could be by adding a question to your checkout page, your website contact form, or even just asking potential clients why they’re reaching out during discovery calls. 

One customer could be enough to justify the entire production of the show! 

Wrapping Up

When it comes to measuring the ROI of your branded podcast, the most important thing is knowing all of the potential tools at your disposal to answer this question. There’s no single tool that will answer this “ROI” question for every brand. But we do have the metrics and tools at our disposal to answer these questions. It doesn’t serve anyone to avoid the question or dismiss it as impossible to answer for podcasts. We just need to know what these tools are capable, and assess the best option for each scenario.

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