Podcast Tracker Rankings by Episode Share (February 2022)

This is an archived version, the current version is here.

Now that we have a good idea of which podcast hosts are producing new podcast episodes, let’s turn our attention to third-party podcast analytics services.

These services are typically provided by a company that is not the podcast host, but can provide tracking and analytics by being specified as the underlying media file url, which then redirects back to the host. Sometimes, these services are implemented as custom prefixes (taking the original media url and adding a prefix to it), but not always.

By intercepting every episode media file request, these analytics services can provide a view that is potentially larger than what the underlying podcast host analytics can provide.

Podtrac, one of the most popular services, released some interesting data about their US download figures for September 2021.

But how representative of the entire podcast world is this data? How many podcasters use services like these?

We already did the work of analyzing every single new podcast episode published (about 1.6 million in February 2022), identifying which podcast hosting company it belongs to.

We used the actual media file url (past any tracking redirects) to identify the host instead of the feed url domain, which can often undercount hosts that offer custom domains.

Let’s now take a look at the tracking services themselves. Of the new episodes that were published in February, how many of them included one or more of these tracking services? Some episodes had as many as five of these redirecting trackers!

Note we can only observe “client-side” trackers. There are other podcast analytics services such as Triton Digital that receive private request logs directly from partner hosts. Like first-party podcast host analytics, the reach of these services is not measurable in a public way, and thus not included in this analysis.

Overall

At least one tracker was found on 12.21% of new episodes in February, growing 0.39% from last month.

For episodes that used at least one tracker, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Buzzsprout 13.11%
  2. Megaphone 12.58%
  3. Blubrry 9.72%
  4. Spreaker 8.08%
  5. Omny Studio 7.88%
  6. Libsyn 4.86%
  7. Simplecast 4.85%
  8. Soundcloud 4.57%
  9. Podtrac 3.52%
  10. Futuri Media 2.54%

Spotify (Chartable & Podsights)

At least one Spotify tracker was found on 4.69% of new episodes in February, growing 0.78% from last month.

Of these, 36.65% also included Podtrac, 6.35% also included Adswizz, 5.27% also included Podcorn, 1.12% also included Firstory, 0.54% also included Blubrry, 0.25% also included Magellan AI, 0.11% also included AdBarker, 0.04% also included Backtracks, and 0.01% also included Feedpress.

For episodes that used at least one Spotify tracker, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Megaphone 27.75%
  2. Omny Studio 15.42%
  3. Libsyn 7.90%
  4. Spreaker 6.27%
  5. Simplecast 6.07%
  6. Buzzsprout 5.51%
  7. Soundcloud 3.79%
  8. Nox Solutions 3.43%
  9. Podbean 3.15%
  10. SoundOn 2.64%

Individual Service Rankings

And now, the full list of individual podcast analytics services ordered by new episodes published during the month of February 2022.

1. Chartable by Spotify

Chartable was found on 4.48% of new episodes in February, growing 0.72% from last month.

Of these, 29.53% had one other tracker, 17.68% had 2 other trackers, 2.75% had 3 other trackers, and 0.03% had 4 other trackers.

36.49% also included Podtrac, 23.02% also included Podsights, 6.45% also included Adswizz, 5.21% also included Podcorn, 1.17% also included Firstory, 0.48% also included Blubrry, 0.26% also included Magellan AI, 0.12% also included AdBarker, 0.04% also included Backtracks, and 0.01% also included Feedpress.

For episodes that used Chartable, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Megaphone 26.82%
  2. Omny Studio 15.45%
  3. Libsyn 8.28%
  4. Spreaker 6.47%
  5. Buzzsprout 5.73%
  6. Simplecast 5.66%
  7. Soundcloud 3.95%
  8. Nox Solutions 3.38%
  9. Podbean 3.27%
  10. SoundOn 2.77%

2. Podtrac

Podtrac was found on 4.15% of new episodes in February, growing 1.13% from last month.

Of these, 28.79% had one other tracker, 18.38% had 2 other trackers, 2.97% had 3 other trackers, and 0.03% had 4 other trackers.

39.35% also included Chartable, 21.79% also included Podsights, 10.34% also included Adswizz, 1.59% also included Podcorn, 1.14% also included Blubrry, 0.16% also included Feedpress, 0.10% also included Backtracks, 0.06% also included AdBarker, and 0.05% also included Magellan AI.

For episodes that used Podtrac, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Megaphone 26.14%
  2. Spreaker 15.16%
  3. Omny Studio 13.11%
  4. Soundcloud 7.35%
  5. Futuri Media 3.96%
  6. Nox Solutions 3.88%
  7. Libsyn 3.00%
  8. ART19 2.72%
  9. NPR 2.64%
  10. Simplecast 2.33%

3. Podcorn

Podcorn was found on 2.38% of new episodes in February, growing 3.00% from last month.

Of these, 9.03% had one other tracker, 1.92% had 2 other trackers, 0.44% had 3 other trackers, and 0.05% had 4 other trackers.

9.79% also included Chartable, 2.77% also included Podtrac, 1.23% also included Podsights, 0.25% also included Blubrry, 0.18% also included Magellan AI, 0.11% also included AdBarker, 0.06% also included Adswizz, and 0.02% also included Backtracks.

For episodes that used Podcorn, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Buzzsprout 60.93%
  2. RSS Podcasting 12.57%
  3. Libsyn 5.90%
  4. Podomatic 4.38%
  5. Podbean 4.20%
  6. Spreaker 2.51%
  7. Captivate 2.32%
  8. Soundcloud 1.64%
  9. Transistor 1.31%
  10. Simplecast 1.16%

4. Blubrry

Blubrry was found on 1.53% of new episodes in February, shrinking 1.76% from last month.

Of these, 4.15% had one other tracker, 0.83% had 2 other trackers, 0.02% had 3 other trackers, and 0.02% had 4 other trackers.

3.10% also included Podtrac, 1.41% also included Chartable, 0.73% also included Feedpress, 0.38% also included Podcorn, 0.26% also included Podsights, and 0.05% also included Adswizz.

For episodes that used Blubrry, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Blubrry 77.30%
  2. Amazon S3 5.24%
  3. Soundcloud 2.47%
  4. Libsyn 2.46%
  5. Amazon CloudFront 1.57%
  6. Internet Archive 1.44%
  7. Squarespace 1.09%
  8. Spreaker 1.02%
  9. Megaphone 0.90%
  10. Podbean 0.90%

5. Adswizz

Adswizz was found on 1.44% of new episodes in February, growing 2.07% from last month.

Of these, 37.74% had one other tracker, 7.80% had 3 other trackers, and 3.70% had 2 other trackers.

29.78% also included Podtrac, 20.04% also included Chartable, 10.78% also included Podsights, 7.77% also included Mediamétrie, 0.10% also included Podcorn, and 0.06% also included Blubrry.

For episodes that used Adswizz, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Simplecast 25.16%
  2. Futuri Media 21.48%
  3. StreamGuys 14.97%
  4. Omny Studio 9.15%
  5. Nox Solutions 8.63%
  6. Europe 1 7.77%
  7. NPR 7.49%
  8. BBC 2.84%
  9. WNYC 1.31%
  10. The Washington Post 0.30%

6. Podsights by Spotify

Podsights was found on 1.25% of new episodes in February, growing 2.94% from last month.

Of these, 60.17% had 2 other trackers, 20.44% had one other tracker, 9.85% had 3 other trackers, and 0.10% had 4 other trackers.

82.66% also included Chartable, 72.57% also included Podtrac, 12.47% also included Adswizz, 2.34% also included Podcorn, 0.35% also included Magellan AI, 0.32% also included Blubrry, and 0.01% also included Backtracks.

For episodes that used Podsights, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Megaphone 36.56%
  2. Omny Studio 32.61%
  3. Nox Solutions 12.82%
  4. Simplecast 4.73%
  5. ART19 4.18%
  6. Audioboom 1.81%
  7. WNYC 1.76%
  8. Transistor 1.30%
  9. Spreaker 1.13%
  10. Captivate 1.03%

7. Mediamétrie

Mediamétrie was found on 0.58% of new episodes in February, shrinking 8.19% from last month.

Of these, 19.38% had one other tracker.

19.38% also included Adswizz.

For episodes that used Mediamétrie, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Akamai CDN 31.76%
  2. Streamakaci 24.57%
  3. Audiomeans 23.22%
  4. Europe 1 19.38%
  5. Ausha 0.79%

8. Feedpress

Feedpress was found on 0.17% of new episodes in February, growing 3.46% from last month.

Of these, 10.49% had one other tracker.

6.55% also included Blubrry, 3.79% also included Podtrac, and 0.15% also included Chartable.

For episodes that used Feedpress, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Feedpress 60.31%
  2. Spreaker 12.33%
  3. NPR 6.81%
  4. Libsyn 4.34%
  5. Blubrry 3.09%
  6. Simplecast 2.36%
  7. iVoox 2.10%
  8. Podbean 2.06%
  9. Anchor 1.10%
  10. Fireside 1.03%

9. Firstory

Firstory was found on 0.08% of new episodes in February, shrinking 11.84% from last month.

Of these, 68.30% had one other tracker.

68.30% also included Chartable.

For episodes that used Firstory, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. SoundOn 99.19%
  2. Soundcloud 0.24%
  3. Castbox 0.08%

10. Magellan AI

Magellan AI was found on 0.02% of new episodes in February, shrinking 4.11% from last month.

Of these, 48.56% had 2 other trackers, 23.87% had one other tracker, and 6.17% had 4 other trackers.

75.31% also included Chartable, 28.40% also included Podcorn, 28.40% also included Podsights, and 13.58% also included Podtrac.

For episodes that used Magellan AI, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Spreaker 44.86%
  2. Megaphone 34.57%
  3. Podbean 7.82%
  4. ART19 5.35%
  5. Omny Studio 4.12%
  6. Buzzsprout 3.29%

11. Backtracks

Backtracks was found on 0.01% of new episodes in February, shrinking 0.09% from last month.

Of these, 52.51% had one other tracker, 2.23% had 2 other trackers, and 0.56% had 4 other trackers.

36.87% also included Podtrac, 17.32% also included Chartable, 4.47% also included Podcorn, and 0.56% also included Podsights.

For episodes that used Backtracks, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Anchor 31.28%
  2. StreamGuys 30.73%
  3. Transistor 9.50%
  4. Spreaker 5.03%
  5. Podbean 2.79%
  6. Simplecast 2.79%
  7. Captivate 2.23%
  8. Fireside 1.12%
  9. Soundcloud 1.12%
  10. Podtrac 0.56%

12. AdBarker

AdBarker was found on 0.01% of new episodes in February, shrinking 17.15% from last month.

Of these, 58.77% had 2 other trackers, 8.77% had one other tracker, and 7.02% had 3 other trackers.

72.81% also included Chartable, 37.72% also included Podtrac, and 36.84% also included Podcorn.

For episodes that used AdBarker, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Buzzsprout 35.09%
  2. Libsyn 34.21%
  3. Captivate 19.30%
  4. AdBarker 4.39%
  5. Castos 3.51%
  6. Simplecast 3.51%

13. Podkite

Podkite was found on <0.01% of new episodes in February, shrinking 41.51% from last month.

For episodes that used Podkite, here are the top underlying podcast hosts:

  1. Spreaker 54.55%
  2. Transistor 45.45%

Analysis by John Spurlock

Thanks to the Podcast Index for crawling every podcast, and giving us a signal of when to check for new episodes.

And thanks to the Open Podcast Analytics Working Group for maintaining a list of media url patterns and analytics services patterns. We’ve incorporated these patterns along with some of our own to come up with the host and analytics service identification and metadata for this ranking.

Updated 2022-03-03, with data for the month of February 2022, added AdBarker.

Updated 2022-02-19, added new overall breakdowns of how many new episodes use at least one tracker, and how many use at least one Spotify-owned tracker.

Updated 2022-02-08, with data for the month of January 2022.

Updated 2022-01-10, was missing data for December 31, now fixed.

Updated 2022-01-07, with data for the month of December 2021.

Updated 2021-12-04, with data for the month of November 2021.

Updated 2021-11-18, added Backtracks.

Updated 2021-11-14, with data for the month of October 2021.

Updated 2021-10-21: Added Adswizz and tweaked the host identification to choose the last known host in the redirect chain instead of the first, in an attempt to better capture customer-driven host migrations.

Updated 2021-10-14: Added a section about how direct server-to-server analytics integrations are not publically visible, and thus out of scope.

Updated 2021-10-13: Removed Podtrac as a host under itself, even when it is the last media file url in the redirect chain.

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