Google’s new Podcasts Manager tool offers deeper data on listener behavior

Google has introduced Podcasts Manager, a new tool that provides podcast publishers with listening data such as minutes played, listening duration and other retention analytics, the company announced Tuesday.

Why we care

Podcasts have been an emerging format for some time now, but the lack of insight into listener behavior has kept more conservative advertisers on the sidelines while also inhibiting publishers from getting more revenue out of their ad inventory.

Google isn’t the first podcasting platform to make more granular listening data available (Spotify released similar features for advertisers in January), but the fact that it is doing so may signal that the industry is finally ready to provide publishers and advertisers the level of transparency available in other.

More on the announcement

• Google Podcasts Manager provides data on the number of listens per show and episode, number of listens per episode segment, percentage listened for each episode and anonymized device analytics.
• This tool only provides data for listens that occur on Google Podcasts platforms, like Google’s Podcasts app, Google Home and the embedded podcast player in Google search results.
• To add shows in Podcasts Manager, users must verify ownership of the podcast’s RSS feed.