Spreaker announces enhanced podcast analytics dashboard

Podcasting is cool again: the success of ‘Serial’ brought the attention of the mainstream public back to a phenomenon that has been bubbling under the surface for over a decade, and the San Francisco and Berlin-based startup Spreaker is very well positioned to take advantage of that. 

The company announced this week the release of a new analytics suite that aims to help its creators identify and segment their audience and ultimately be able to monetise their podcasts more efficiently by presenting advertisers with well-rounded information. The new dashboard includes geolocation but also information on referrals (are listeners coming from Facebook or Twitter?) and basic demographic data. 

Analytics have long been the achilles heel of podcasting, since the biggest podcasting platform to date - iTunes - provides little in the way of segmentation and third party analytics tool can at best help geolocate the audience. 

At the same time, Spreaker has rolled out a new feature that allows podcasters to integrate the analytics for shows that are also being distributed via YouTube. The company allows creators to automatically generate a YouTube video with all the same metadata as that inputted on Spreaker, so it makes sense for that to data to now be a part of the main dashboard. 

Distribution to mainstream audiences - to those who may not check out a platform like Spreaker or download a show via a podcasting app - is still important: the company recently sealed a deal with iHeartRadio that allows its creators to submit their shows to the internet radio giant for consideration. 

Ultimately, monetisation will be a key factor in making podcasts work. Thankfully the format is now being taken seriously, the Internet Advertising Bureau has formed a Podcasting Standards Committee for example, but the majority of traditional advertisers still struggle to understand how to work with this new form of media. 

Some companies, like SquareSpace and Audible, have achieved impressive results by investing in podcast advertising, spending considerable amounts of money on networks like Twit.tv but also supporting smaller shows. Hopefully in time a more robust infrastructure will take shape that will allow podcasters at all levels to monetise their specific audience. 

(Andrea Leonelli)