The Podcast players tab in the Insights dashboard allows you to view which platforms your listens are happening. From here you can view your downloads by Apps, Websites and Devices.
Podcast players: Apps
'Apps' in the Insights dashboard means any podcast platform that has been downloaded on either iOS or Android, such as phones or tablets. Popular examples of podcast player apps include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or Pocket casts.
By default, the Downloads by apps section shows you daily listens by your show's top performing apps over the last 30 days, for all episodes. To see more apps, simply search by name and select from the list below the graph.
In order from your show to be downloaded by listeners, it needs to be available from the app. How you submit and distribute your show varies from app to app - some like Apple Podcasts need to be submitted (which you can do so from the Acast distribution tab) and some will automatically pick up your show. You can learn about this in more detail in the 'Distribute your Podcast' section of our Learn center here.
It's important to note that if your show has received 0 downloads from a particular podcast app, it will not be available to select from the list.
Podcast players: Websites
'Websites' in the Insights dashboards shows the location of any web-based downloads. By default, Insights will show the top three websites group by top domain, meaning the main 'address' of the website.
Clicking into any website will open up a submenu that shows the specific web locations (URLs) where the downloads have happened, along with a percentage breakdown of the total.
How are listeners downloading my show on a website?
Downloads on website using a direct link to an episode audio file, or using the Acast embed player, will appear under the Websites tab. As an example, Spotify's web player directly links to the episode audio file which is why it appears in the Websites tab as open.spotify.com.
Podcast players: Devices
The Device tab within Podcast players shows you what kind of device your listeners are using most often to download your show. Device types including in this tab on Insights include:
Mobile
Desktop
Smart speaker
Wearables
TV
Podcast players tab: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I’m seeing a lot of downloads in the Websites tab from web locations and referrals that I can't explain. What’s happening?
If you notice an unexplained increase in downloads from specific websites or referrals in your show's Insights dashboard, it could be due to a practice known as "pre-loading." This occurs when a website downloads the episode as soon as it's opened, rather than when a listener actively clicks "play." As a result, this can lead to a spike in download numbers and artificially inflated website audience figures.
We've written an article that explains the technical side in more detail, and some best practices in how to avoid it - you can read more here.
What does "Other" represent under Apps and Devices in the Podcast players tab?
"Other" is a category you might see under Apps or Devices in the Podcast players tab. These are downloads that come from an app or platform that Acast hasn't yet been able to identify and label in our system
There's a number of reasons why a download may appear as 'Other' as opposed to a defined platform:
It might be a smaller app that is not yet categorised in our system, but has grown quickly and recently. In this situation, we work to identify these apps and correctly label them so they appear in your Insights dashboard.
The open podcasting ecosystem - meaning all the apps and platforms that can access your show and make available to listeners - is always changing and sometimes platforms make changes meaning we can no longer recognise them in the raw data. Don't worry, we can quickly identify this and fix in our database.
The number of downloads under 'Other' varies from show to show. I can depend on how and where your listeners are getting your show, and where in the world they are.
Acast distributes to any app that accept your show's feed, which is currently over 100 apps and platforms. In recent research, we found some estimates of the landscape that are worth sharing:
Apple is by far the largest, at around 2 out of 3 listeners using the Apple Podcasts app that is preinstalled on the iPhone.
It is followed by Spotify, which is many times smaller but is still significant.
Then there are players like Pocket Casts or Castbox, each of which have a couple of percentage points, and which jointly comprise about 20% of the total listenership.
There are dozens of additional apps (e.g. Breaker, Castro) that represent less than 1%.