Apple Podcasts is giving creators advanced subscription insights and more

Apple Podcasts on iPhone
(Image credit: Apple)

Apple has announced new analytics tools that are designed to help creators track how their shows are performing in Apple Podcasts Connect.

The new tools are available for free to all creators and are designed to help them understand how well their podcast subscriptions are performing, including the tracking of free trials.

Subscriptions allow podcast creators to monetize their shows, offering things like ad-free episodes as well as bonus content and other features.

Listen up, podcasters

Apple announced the new feature via a blog post on its podcaster website, saying that "with subscription analytics in Apple Podcasts Connect, creators can see how listeners engage with their premium subscriptions on Apple Podcasts."

The announcement continues, explaining that "once a subscription is selected from the updated Analytics tab, creators can use the Overview tab to see how many listeners started a free trial, the number of paid subscriptions, the percentage of listeners who convert from a free trial to a paid subscription, and the estimated proceeds generated from their subscriptions."

The new analytics go further, allowing creators to see breakdowns of how their subscribers break down in terms of country or region, including by subscription status as well as whether those subscriptions are monthly or annual ones.

The Trends tab also features more information including a visualization tool that gives further insights into the performance of podcast subscriptions.

"For example, creators can filter the Trends tab by Active Subscriptions to view a visual breakdown of subscribers by Subscription Status, such as those who are in their first year versus those who have been subscribed for more than one year," Apple explains. "Creators can also use the Trends tab to view their Subscription Events, such as Activations, Cancellations, and Renewals, and filter Sales on the Trends tab by Subscription Duration to see the breakdown of estimated proceeds generated by monthly versus yearly subscriptions."

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.