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A Tool to Tally Podcast Listeners
Carl Bialik writes "The company Audible is making an effort to measure podcast audience, which could make the audio shows more attractive to advertisers. From the article: 'Currently in podcasts, "there's no measurability," says Matt Feinberg, a senior vice president for radio at Publicis Groupe SA's ZenithOptimedia. Advertisers have no idea if people are actually listening to podcasts, or if they're just downloading them and never playing them back, so there's no guidance for pricing the accompanying ads. "Prices -- people have been making them up," he says.' The service will cost podcasters: 'The company will charge three cents per downloaded podcast to report whether a downloader listened, and for how long. Audible will also offer tools that will stop the podcast from being emailed to others. It will charge five cents per download to track listening and attach the access restrictions. For half a cent per download, Audible will insert an ad relevant to the podcast.'"
Advertisers don't know if people look at their ads in magazines or newspapers, how many people actually look in the direction of their billboard, listen to their radio ad, or don't walk away when their TV commercial is on. Being able to see how many people download a podcast is probably more indicative of people that hear the ad compared to many other media.
They're just looking for MORE accurate data, but that's totally unnecessary. Ad agencies are very good at tracking usefulness of ad campaigns without specific numbers.
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