The Listeners tab in the Insights dashboard allows you to see the number of unique listeners that are downloading your show. This data is different from the total download data you can see in places such as the Overviews tab - it's not just listens, but the number of people creating those listens. You can think about this data as showing you the audience of your show.
As default, you will be able to see unique listeners for Yesterday and Last 7 days at-a-glance.
How does Acast calculate Listener download data?
In technical detail, the best way to use the raw data to figure out who is a 'listener' is by using a combination of the location data (IP address) and platform data (user agent). In a 24 hour window, it is the industry standard to count a unique combination of these two pieces of data as a 'listener'.
In practice, this means if we can see from the data the spot where a listen was started and on which individual app, we can be confident that this is an individual person and not a group of people.
Calculating daily, weekly and monthly listeners
On the Listener tab, it's possible to view unique listener data over a period time on either a daily, weekly or monthly view. This doesn't just mean that the weekly view adds up the 7 days of unique listeners - the unique listeners are recalculated to take into account listeners who download multiple times in a given period.
This means that the release schedule of your show might impact how the different views impact For instance, you might have a listener who downloads episodes twice a week on Monday and Wednesday, and on the daily view their data will appear on both days. However, on the weekly view they will only appear once.
Listeners Tab: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I've heard the phrase 'reach' or 'uniques' used to describe unique listener data. What does this mean?
I've heard the phrase 'reach' or 'uniques' used to describe unique listener data. What does this mean?
Reach is just a name of the number of unique listeners reached over time. It's often used in commercial spaces such as advertising because it describes how many people who can 'reach' over time.
Sometimes unique listeners can also be shortened to just 'uniques' which is just another way of talking about how many people actually downloaded your show during a period of time.
Is today's data included in the Listener tab?
Is today's data included in the Listener tab?
As Acast processes download data on a daily basis, data will only be available in the Listener tab the following day. You can get an estimate of today's total on the main Overview tab.