How does Acast measure ad delivery?
The way that Acast measures podcast data, meaning how many downloads your show gets, also informs how we measure ad delivery.
Acast measures ads in terms of 'impressions', meaning the number of actual ads delivered to a listener in an episode. For example, a listener might download one episode on your show, but in that episode they hear two ads at the beginning and end of the episode. That would count as 1 download in the Insights dashboard, but 2 ad impressions.
Ad impressions are only counted if on valid downloads (see above)
Ad impressions are only counted if the ad is within the request (see below)
If full-download: The entire episode is downloaded to the user’s device. All ads on a valid full-download are counted as impressions.
Example: A listener clicks the “download” button on their app for the latest episode of The Intelligence. All ads stitched into the episode are counted as impressions.
If progressive download: The longer the listener listens to the episode, the more of it will be requested. Ads on a valid progressive-download are only counted as impressions if the entire ad is within the requested portion of the episode.
Example: A listener clicks the “play” button on their app for the latest episode of The Intelligence. The app requests the start of the episode and reaches the pre-roll ad-position. The pre-roll ad is counted as an impression. Later, the app stops requesting the episode and does not reach the mid-roll ad-position — as no mid-roll ads were listened to, they are not counted as impressions.