Promote Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts equally: and here's what happens
This article is at least a year old
Since Podnews started our podcast, we’ve always tried to promote it equally on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. Our Editor feels quite strongly about this. The two players aren’t in competition with each other, but are pre-installed - Apple Podcasts preinstalled on iOS phones, while the Google Podcasts player is effectively preinstalled on every Android phone. (Here’s our Google Podcasts FAQ showing that).
The result of this equal promotion? Equal usage.
Apple Podcasts accounts for 14.5% of all downloads, using Apple Podcasts and iTunes desktop. Google Podcasts accounts for 14.1% of all downloads, through the Google Podcasts player. This split coincides with mobile visits to our website, as captured by Google Analytics, which are 53% iPhone, 46% Android.
14% looks low: that’s because 25% of all our plays happen on Google Assistant in the news briefing - you’ll find us in Technology. (We’re also in Amazon Echo devices).
It’s actually more skewed in Google’s favour than this graph shows: Apple Podcasts automatically downloads shows, which aren’t always played. But Google Podcasts never automatically downloads a show - the Google Podcasts app always streams podcasts (unless you specifically, and manually, download an episode). So arguably, Google Podcast plays mean more - since every one is being listened-to. There’s more detail on this in our article on how to understand podcast stats.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that many podcast hosts aren’t accurately measuring Google Podcasts. (We’ve tried a number of them). It might be worth checking that your podcast host is measuring them accurately.
For the official Apple and Google link buttons, and a special URL which opens the right player on a listener’s phone automatically, search for your podcast on Podnews, and click “link builder”.
