What makes Castos podcast hosting different than the rest? Well, we’re glad you asked…
Playback Analytics
Podcast analytics are tough. Believe us, we just spent the last 6 months building an analytics platform that really makes a difference.
Sure we can show you how many people listened to an episode, and what type of device they listened on, and where in the world they downloaded or streamed your episode…but the real secret sauce is telling you how long they listened for.
Until now podcast hosting providers were only able to give you information about what happened when the file ‘went out the door’, and nothing past that. And today we’re changing the game.
Castos Analytics is the first podcast hosting platform to give you actual playback duration data for your podcast episodes in the browser. Why in the browser you might ask?
In a lot of ways this is just a limitation of podcasting technology. iTunes podcasting app, 3rd party iOS or Android apps all download files from a server, and once they’re on your phone or desktop there’s no visibility to those files anymore from your podcasting platform/analytics provider.
But, one thing we can measure is the actions that your listeners are taking on the website, via the embedded media player.
The Castos podcast player that is published on every page of your show’s website (i.e. https://myshow.castos.com) and the embeddable player that is available for each podcast episode is able to track how long your audience is listening to each episode.
Knowing how long your website listeners are tuning in to each episode will give you a representative sampling of what your broader audience is engaging with your show. Typically we see that in-browser listens constitute around 10% of all listens for a podcast episode, so while this isn’t the majority it should give you a good indication of how well each episode is resonating well your audience.
Seriously Simple Podcasting WordPress Plugin
Podcasting is a great form of content to create, and a great way to share your voice with your audience. But the nasty truth is it’s hard work creating a podcast.
You have to record the audio, edit it together with your music and intro/outro, write Show Notes for each episode, and then publish it. And in many cases with traditional podcasting platforms you have to do this in two places: your website and your media hosting platform. With Seriously Simple Podcasting no more!
With Seriously Simple Podcasting you can manage both your podcast RSS feed and your podcast episode content right from WordPress. And with the Castos hosting integration your podcast audio files are uploaded right from the WordPress post editor to our dedicated media hosting servers.
So your website will run quick, and your podcast listeners will enjoy a seamless streaming or download experience.
Customizable Media Player
Having a podcast player that looks good on any site is absolutely essential for a hosting service to provide to their customers, and it is our sincere hope that we’ve done that with the Castos player. Offering the customizable media player in both the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin and as an embeddable player from your Castos hosting account gives anyone the ability to have a great looking podcast player to share with their audience.
Here is what the standard Castos player looks like. This is the player that is displayed on each of your podcast episodes on your Castos podcast website (https://myshow.castos.com) and that is available as an iFrame embeddable player on any website.
In WordPress via our Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin the color scheme of this player is fully configurable, so the player will look great with any cover image for your show, and your WordPress theme colors.
