New Google Podcasts Manager can Help Track Audience Growth

Podcasts have become accessible than ever before. Whether jogging in the park or diving into a new project, more people are listening to podcasts in more places.

Seventy-five percent of the United States population is familiar with the term podcasting, up from 70 percent in 2019. What’s more, nearly one-quarter of Americans listen to a podcast weekly.

With this in mind, Google redesigned its podcast app to help podcasters better understand and reach more listeners. The tech giant rolled out a new tool that it’s calling Google Podcasts Manager.

In a blog post announcement, director of engineering at Google, John Ciancutti said:

“Today, we’re introducing Google Podcasts Manager, a new tool to help podcasters gain insight into the evolving habits of podcast listeners so they can better understand their audiences and reach them across Google products.”

So, how does the tool work?

Using Google Podcasts Manager to Understand and Grow their Audience

The Podcasts Manager uses a simple verification process to ensure that podcasters’ shows are available to millions of Google Podcasts listeners.

Thanks to this tool, content creators on the platform can view metrics to understand how engagement evolves. Also, they’ll be able to assess the activities for recent episodes.

These include retention analytics, listening durations, minutes played, and more. What’s more, podcasters have the option of exporting these data into a third-party analysis tool.

The Podcasts Manager provides anonymized data analytics that includes the percentage of the audience that listens using various devices. These include phones, computers, tablets, and smart speakers.

With this information, podcasters can better understand and respond to their audience’s listening behavior.

For instance, if a majority of your audience listens to your show on a smart speaker, you could develop more family-friendly content. Similarly, listeners using phones can enjoy more long-form content.

Finally, Google says it’ll continue building on these features to help podcasters connect with an audience and create content that people love.