Author Topic: iTunes stat tracking question  (Read 6235 times)

blisti

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iTunes stat tracking question
« on: February 28, 2012, 09:34:57 am »
Hi there,

I'm using the paid Blubrry analytics service and am receiving daily emails with analytics for my podcast. 

My question is this:  Does this service track how many people are subscribing to the show via iTunes?  Or does iTunes not allow third party access to this information?

Also:  I am not using Feedburner.  Do I need to be?  Or is Blubrry enough?

And if I *do* use Feedburner, does this screw anything up?  Meaning:  Does it change my feed url?  And would that then screw up my iTunes, etc?

I'm trying to get the most accurate stats possible so that I know what to tell advertisers when they ask me how many listeners I have.

Any insights you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
BL

angelo

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Re: iTunes stat tracking question
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2012, 01:57:42 pm »
It's not possible to get exact subscriber numbers in iTunes. Feedburner subscriber statistics over the past few years aren't really accurate anymore now that we're living in a world with cloud based managed services like iTunes. Basically iTunes pulls your feed, then multiple iTunes users get your episodes, so Feedburner "subscription data" isn't realistic. This applies for everything out there, not just iTunes. Even Google Reader messes up the concept of subscription statsitics with FeedBurner. Essentially, Feedburner was great from when it was launched till about 2008, then it pretty much lost it's primary purpose due to technology changes.

Blubrry Statistics does not track subscriptions, it tracks media downloads. Think of it this way, with podcasting, there are now 3 things you can track: web traffic, feed traffic and media traffic (via Blubrry Statistics). With blogging you just have the first two available to you.

To learn more about FeedBurner and podcasting, click here: http://www.podcastfaq.com/syndicating-your-podcast/feedburner-for-podcasting/ Unless you have a reason to be using FeedBurner, don't use it! It's nothing but trouble for non-techie people. and yes if you do something wrong you can permanently screw p your Feed address, which iTunes and all other podcasting apps will then fail to pull.

If your using Blubrry statistics, then you should know by now that "iTunes" only makes up a part of your audience. There are a lot more places, devices and software that consumes podcasts, and lucky for you, Blubrry Statistics measures that!

blisti

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Re: iTunes stat tracking question
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2012, 08:56:21 am »
Thanks so much for the info.  So this basically means that the number of unique listeners that Blubrry is telling me I have is possibly only a fraction of the people who are actually listening. 

If I have, say, 10k unique listeners via Blubrry, then I have to imagine that there are at least a few thousand more subscribing via services like iTunes, which are untrackable.  (I'm a podcast junkie myself and I subscribe via iTunes almost exclusively.) 

It's a guessing game.   

Thanks again for the insight.

angelo

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Re: iTunes stat tracking question
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2012, 10:54:17 am »
You miss-interpreted what I said!

Blubrry Statistics are exact numbers of MEDIA DOWNLOADS - When someone commits to downloading your podcast, they are for sure either listening to it or syncing it to their iPod or iPhone. this is an exact number of who listend to that particular media file (episode)

FeedBurner measures FEED SUBSCRIPTIONS - When someone subscribes to your podcast in iTunes, they subscribe to your feed. They get the latest episode when your feed updates in iTunes. If say 100 people are subscribed to your podcast through iTunes on their iPhone for example, iTunes pulls your feed once and propagates the info to all 100 of the folks subscribed to your podcast. When They get that info, the media file associate to that episode is then downloaded from your web site (or where ever your media file is hosted) to that iPhone/iPod. That media download that those 100 folks make is what Blubrry measures. And technically, your 100 subscribers may see that you have a new episode, but if they never click play/download, they never technically listened to your podcast, thus Blubrry never registered the download (because it never happened).

To recap:

Web Statistics - Data gathered when users visit your web site
Feed Statistics - Data gathered when users are subscribed to your feed (See my first post why this subscription data is not accurate)
Media Statistics - Data gathered when the media is purposely downloaded (this is exact data). Furthermore, this is measured both for you web traffic and your feed subscribers (because downloading the media is a separate process that happens at a different instance of time than the HTML web page load or the feed subscription). The media is downloaded anytime someone clicks play/download for that specific media file.

With podcasting, advertisers are more interested in who listened to the actual episode, not how may folks over the past X years have subscribed to your podcast. You can think of feed subscriptions as the equivalent of TV viewers who are subscribed to cable TV service. You can think of media downloads as your "audience", this is what advertisers pay on and what TV networks determine if a show should be canceled or not.

Please let me know that you understand the difference.

blisti

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Re: iTunes stat tracking question
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2012, 10:26:43 am »
I think so.  I understand the difference between Feed stats and Media stats.

I'm still not 1000% clear if Blubrry is able to track stats via iTunes.  Like, if I subscribe to my own podcast via iTunes, and listen to it in iTunes or on my phone, does Blubrry track that?  Is that included in my stats? 

angelo

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Re: iTunes stat tracking question
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2012, 01:59:46 pm »
Blubrry tracks the "download". you could listen to that podcast 1-100 times, and the playback is not tracked. Playback is not tracked for privacy reasons.