Free. One of the most powerful words in the English language. Many podcasting platforms available today use some sort of “freemium” business model to entice eager podcasters to join their system. Typically its free podcast hosting, with a limited feature set, all designed to move the podcaster up the line and into paid services. There are even a few out there who are completely free, all the way, except for the minor detail that they own the podcaster’s hard work. Nothing is truly free in the long run. Given the massive growth in the podcasting space over the past year or so, we thought it was time to talk about versions of free stats.
Not So Basic Podcast Stats
First, let’s define terms. In an ideal world, Podcast Statistics (or, “podcast media download statistics”) provide content creators and media buyers detailed network delivery statistics, analytics and audience demographics, and track how the media is engaged. Other podcasting platforms offering podcast stats often list them as a feature, and a basic one at that. Podcast Stats from Blubrry, on the other hand are anything but basic. Even our “Basic” Free Podcast Stats. If you’re in podcasting, you have a story to tell to the world. And you might even want to make a little money on it too. In order to monetize, you need to the size of your audience– how many people consume your content. But that’s not enough. You also need to know what devices, where they are, how they’re finding you, when they’re consuming your content, and who is linking to you (a signal that you are considered “authority” on a topic). That’s the data sophisticated media buyers and brands will need in order to evaluate if your podcast & audience are a good fit for telling their story. And all that data is no good if it’s delivered to you an a confusing or unusable format. Blubrry’s Free Podcast Stats provides all of those things. And while we obviously want podcasters to check out our paid services, like Podcast Hosting and Pro Podcast Stats, we haven’t hamstrung our Free Podcast Stats. It’s a fully functional, robust analytics and reporting platform.
Podcast Stats Alternatives
Over the years, we’ve seen podcasters use a variety of methods to arrive at actionable audience insights. The approaches fall into a few categories: FeedBurner feed stats, web server stats (e.g. AWStats), JavaScript web stats (e.g. Google Analytics), and URL shortening hit counters (e.g. Bit.ly). For an in-depth analysis of the relative strengths & weaknesses of using these tools for podcast stats, please take a look at our writeup. The short version, though, is that each of those only gives you a partial view of your audience, where they are, and when & how they consume your podcasts.
Why Blubrry Podcast Stats Are so Fresh
Of the options listed above, only Blubrry Free Podcast Stats will give you the critical information you can use to grow and monetize your audience & podcast. Blubrry Free Podcast Stats measures downloads from websites/web pages as well as from your podcast RSS syndication feeds, including popular desktop and mobile Web browsers. We also report on 100+ desktop and mobile podcatchers including Apple Podcasts, Stitcher for iOS and Android, and many more.
When multiple downloads come from the same unique IP address, our proprietary algorithm filters and determines which are actual downloads (sometimes multiple requests for a single media file from the same unique IP address result from only one end-user). Even better? Blubrry includes both our calculated download total and the unique IP total. We do this so you can see the difference between the actual unique download total and the reported download total. Even even better? You don’t have to host your podcast with Blubrry to receive these Blubrry Podcast Stats benefits. Blubrry was started over a decade ago by podcasters, for podcasters. Sure, we hope you find enough value to explore our other offerings–we are in the business of podcasting, after all. We want you to have the best tools to tell your unique story and share your individual perspective, so we continue to offer free Podcast Stats.