GMP's Analytics: Understanding Episode Performance

Welcome to the 43rd episode of "Good Morning, Podcasters!" Today, we are going to dive into the analytics of the show and see if there is a specific day of the week that performs better in terms of downloads. My name is Fuzz Martin, and I took over the show on Halloween in 2022. In this post, I'll share my analysis of the performance of the episodes, and how you can apply these insights to your own podcast.

The show is posted three times a week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There are five main content pillars that the show is sorted into - marketing, social media, public relations, advertising, and general podcasting topics. To perform these analytics, I used a Google Sheet to analyze my release date, release day of the week, episode title, episode content category, and downloads within 3 days, 7 days, and 30 days of publication.

Days of the Week Performance Analysis

Let's start by looking at the day of the week performance. First, I sorted the data by the number of downloads within 3 days of publication. Wednesday was the most downloaded day, followed by Monday, and Friday had one episode in the top 10.

Next, I pulled the data for 7 day downloads. In the top 10, Monday and Wednesday each had 4 downloads, and Friday had 2. When I increased the sample size to the top 20 episodes, Wednesday had 9 downloads, Monday had 6 episodes, and Friday had 4 episodes.

In the top 20 7 day downloads, Wednesday had 8 downloads, Monday had 6, and Friday had 5. Although Friday was in last place, the sample size may have been small. To find out, I'm going to change my launch schedule to Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday for the next month or two to see if it affects listenership.

Content Pillar Performance Analysis

Next, I analyzed my content pillars. It was difficult to analyze because some technically cross over between categories, like advertising and social media, or marketing and pretty much anything. So far, I've posted 14 episodes about general podcasting, 8 about marketing, 10 about social media, 5 about advertising, and 5 about public relations. In the top 20 7 day downloads, general podcasting, marketing, and social media had the most downloads, while PR was almost non-existent. However, this may not be a scientific conclusion as there are too many variables to consider and only 5 PR episodes were posted.

To find out, I'm going to experiment by creating some more PR episodes this month and see if they continue to underperform or if it's just a result of when they were posted.

Discovering Most Popular Episodes

Finally, I took a look at my most discovered episodes. These are the episodes that had low early downloads but increased the most from week 2 through today. Episodes on Podcast Trademarks, Merchandise, and What Gen Z is listening to all underperformed upon launch but were later discovered. This data can be used to create more episodes like these, as they might perform better with time.

Analyzing the performance of your episodes can give you valuable insights into your listenership and how you can improve your podcast. If you're interested in checking out my OP3 analytics, I've made them public. You can view them at gmp.fm/stats. Don't forget to stay tuned for the next episode, and let me know how you're using analytics to improve your podcast.