How to Measure the Impact of Your Podcast Guesting Campaign

Have you ever wondered how much impact your podcast interviews have?

Are all those guest appearances really contributing to your personal brand, increasing lead generation or selling more products? Are you reaching your ideal customers or hitting those marketing goals?

Key metrics, such as episode downloads, can be very helpful when measuring podcast success. But other, less tangible outcomes matter, too. For example, how do you know what a podcast audience feels when you tell those personal stories? Are they effective, or do they miss the mark? (And what's going wrong if they do?)

‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’

Albert Einstein

Einstein's right, but when you've decided to run a podcast guesting campaign, you certainly need some ways to measure your PR or marketing efforts.

Measure success against your goals

It's almost impossible to measure the impact of your podcast guest campaign unless you know what success looks like for you.

For example, you might be doing a podcast tour to publicize your latest book or gather support for a Kickstarter campaign. In those cases, a successful podcast guest strategy would result in people buying your book or pledging to support your project.

On the other hand, if your strategy aims at brand differentiation and recognition, social media comments might be a better measure of success.

Perhaps your guest appearances are a deliberate part of your thought leadership development strategy. In that case, you'd measure success as increased peer recognition and more invitations to speak at industry events.

Keeping your goals in mind helps you see what's working, spot areas to improve, and tweak your approach for future appearances.

For Example:

Authors often record podcast interviews in the hope of gathering readers and selling books. Is that a sound strategy? Yes, if the podcasts speak to your target audience's interests. That's why many writing craft and business authors apply to be podcast guests on The Creative Penn Podcast, which has a loyal community of self-publishing authors.

Now, keeping your goals in mind, let's consider ways to measure the impact and success of your guest appearances.

1. Find out your episode reach

No matter your goal, you probably want to measure the success of your podcast interview via episode reach. Start by checking the stats.

Ask the podcast host for information about the week following your episode. Check on podcast metrics like downloads and retention rates, as well as any specific comments they received after it aired.

If you didn't research audience size and demographics before you pitched the show that could also be useful info. The more you know about the audience, the more you can tailor your podcast content to resonate.

2. Check website stats before and after your guest appearance

Referral Traffic

Web analytics tools help you monitor and analyze visitor behavior on your site, including how they arrived there. Google Analytics, for instance, provides detailed insights into referral sources so you can see exactly which podcast interview drives traffic to your website.

Google Analytics might be your first thought, but there are other tools on the market, too. Alternatives include:

• Matomo - calls itself a privacy-friendly alternative.
• Clicky- known for being straightforward and easy to use.
• Fathom Analytics - described as simpler and more accurate
• Mixpanel - its detailed analysis is good for understanding user behavior and engagement over time
• Heap - automatically captures all user interactions on your site

Track the number of visitors referred to your website from the podcast's website or show notes. For example, in Google Analytics, you do this by looking at the "Acquisitions" section, which breaks down traffic sources.

Search engine visibility

Do you see any improvements in your search engine rankings after your guest appearances?

Podcasts often include links (called backlinks) to your website in their show notes. When you get backlinks from reputable sources, like podcast show notes and websites, it improves your site's SEO  and can boost you in search engine rankings.

Count backlinks from podcast interviews by using tools like this free backlink checker from Ahrefs.

Simply type your website URL into the search bar and Ahrefs comes up with your site's Domain Rating ("the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to the others in the Ahrefs database on a 100-point scale.") It also lists all the backlinks and linking websites as well as the Domain Ratings of each linking website.

You can also find your site's Google rankings and traffic scores if you sign up to tracking tools like Semrush (paid) or Similarweb's free website traffic checker.

Landing Page Visits

A landing page is a standalone web page designed to capture visitor information or prompt a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or downloading a resource.

A landing page can provide valuable insights into how many visitors look you up after a podcast episode. Create a unique page to use each time you chat with a podcast host. Only mention the URL in podcast episodes. That way, you know the traffic on that landing page must come from podcast interviews.

Decide on a time frame (e.g., a day, two days, a week after release) and monitor traffic to this landing page in that time before and after the episode airs. If you've included a resource, check for download spikes, too.

Analyze the difference in traffic to this landing page before and after each podcast appearance. If you see a spike after a guest appearance, you'll know the traffic came from that podcast episode.

3. Social media metrics matter

If you appear on podcast episodes for PR purposes, brand differentiation, or recognition, social media platforms can be very useful. Here's what to track.

Social media mentions

Use third-party tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Mention to track mentions of your brand.

Monitor any spikes in social media mentions of your book or brand following your podcast appearance.

Check the engagement levels on the posts you write about the podcast appearance, too. Do you have an upswing in likes, shares, comments and DMs? High engagement metrics might mean that your episode content is making an impact.

Follower Growth

Track the number of new followers gained on your social media platforms in the week after each appearance.

What are your follower numbers before and after each podcast episode release? How do the growth rates compare? Does one episode have more impact than another? Can you relate that to the podcast's own social media following or download numbers?

Use a social tool like Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Social Blade to track followers across your social media accounts. Or simply manually check how many followers you have just before each episode goes live and how many you gain afterwards.

You might expect a show with a large podcast audience to generate more responses, but that's not always the case. However, high engagement metrics from a smaller podcast probably indicate their audience found your interview particularly enjoyable or enlightening. If so, you might pitch them again down the track or use Rephonic's 3D graph tool to find and pitch similar podcasts in that niche.

4. Email signups: a highly effective marketing strategy

If increasing your email list is the goal, you'll measure the success of your podcast interviews by the number of signups after your episode airs. Email lists help create a personal connection between you and your target audience. They're also a powerful marketing channel because you can send offers to people who are more likely to welcome them.

During your podcast interview, mention your newsletter, who it's for and what value it offers. You might include an exclusive freebie to podcast listeners to encourage them to join.

You can increase the success of your podcast interviews by posting about them on the social media platforms where your audience gathers. You might also add a blog post on your website to complement the interview and attract new audiences for the podcast and your newsletter.

Consider adding interesting information, snippets and quotes, backstories or questions. Always include a newsletter sign-up link on those posts, too.

Track the number of new email sign-ups. It's easy to do using an email marketing platform like ConvertKit or Mailchimp. These providers usually provide detailed reports, or you can look at the data over a specified time frame.

If you're using analytics tools, you might create a custom segment that includes only the traffic from the podcast’s referral source so as to isolate the data from visitors who came to your site after the podcast appearance.

Or you could set up a goal in Google Analytics to track when a visitor completes the signup form so you can monitor the number of signups over time.

What are the sign up numbers before and after each podcast interview? If they increase, you've achieved that goal.

5. Sales, leads and business growth

If your stated goal is increasing leads and conversions, you'll want to measure the number of signups or purchases made as a direct result of your podcast appearances. Here's how to do it.

Set up Discount Codes

Provide a unique discount code during the podcast to track sales generated from the appearance. (You often hear these codes mentioned in podcast ads and affiliate links, but you can create a code for your own product and services, too.)

You can easily make discount codes in e-commerce stores (e.g., Shopify or WooCommerce) and in some payment processors like Stripe.

To create the code in Stripe, use the prefilled_promo_code URL parameter to prefill a promotion code when sharing a payment link. Learn more about how to generate promotion codes for Checkout.

You might also track sales through a unique landing page (see above) or even manually if you don't have a platform set up. Just get listeners to use the code when they contact you, and keep an eye on how many people use the codes in the days or weeks after your episode appears.

Measure sales by keeping track of how often the discount code is used.

The easiest way is to access reports from the platform you use for sales and signups. However, you could also use a spreadsheet and manually record each time someone uses the code. (You might also set up an automatic notification to help.)

Spreadsheets would work well for a small business but might be overwhelming if sales flood in.

Lead Source Tracking

You can track leads automatically through your Analytics tool or through a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool like HubSpot.

Or, try doing it the old-fashioned way by asking new customers (or leads) how they heard about your business. Then, count the number of responses mentioning the podcast.

UTM Tracking Links

Add UTMs (Urchin Tracking Modules) to any links you give to the podcast show notes so you can track where visitors to your website are coming from. These tags help you see how many people clicked the link because of the podcast.

Use an analytics tool like Google Analytics 4 to track traffic from these UTM-tagged links.

Some UTM examples:

6. Audience feedback can be invaluable

No matter what your goals are regarding podcast interviews, gathering your audience's perspective can give you valuable insights.

Read comments and reviews to get feedback from the show's audience on the information you gave and how effective your key messages were. You might notice phrases like "great podcast guest", "valuable information", "unique insights" and "thought leader".

Positive reviews will boost your confidence and show you're on the right track, but negative comments or reviews can be constructive too because they can highlight areas for improvement or ways that you went off brand. Reading them might encourage you to improve your storytelling techniques, offer more valuable content or change your talking points.

Try getting more feedback from your own audience, too, by posting a short survey or asking for DMs on social media.

You might even dive deeper by jumping on a personal call with those audience members you already have a personal connection. These people might be friends, industry experts, colleagues, course members, someone who answered your survey, replied to your email newsletter or sent a thoughtful DM.

This sort of information is qualitative data. Harking back to Einstein's quote, it's hard to count in numbers but invaluable when you want your audience or peers' opinion on how effective they find your podcast interviews.

7. Peer recognition of industry expertise

If developing thought leadership is your goal, then your best metrics might be increased recognition in your industry or niche.

For example:

• Are you starting to hear comments from peers in your industry?
• Are people approaching you at conferences, inviting you to speak, asking you for your opinions or help?
• Are podcast hosts reaching out to you for interviews?
• Are industry leaders messaging you or commenting on the thoughts expressed in your podcast content?

Choose podcast interviews that will actively show your thought leadership and lead to a deeper connection with people in your industry. Then, use the relevant metrics above to measure the impact.

Final thoughts

Using podcast interviews as a deliberate strategy for recognition or business growth could be a game changer for your business. Or not.

But you can set yourself up for podcast guest success by following these steps.

• Find and pitch your next podcast interviews with Rephonic. Discover successful podcasts using our search filters and 3D graph. Then check the key metrics, listen to episodes and reach out using our pitch templates.

• Create a podcast one sheet to demonstrate to podcast hosts what value you offer them and their audience.
• Craft a signature story to captivate listeners and create several versions to use in different situations. Practice telling it in front of the mirror and to audiences whenever possible to hone your storytelling abilities.
• Foster your reputation as a good guest by always turning up on time, being genuinely helpful, giving your time and expertise generously and promoting each episode once it's available.
• Reflect on each episode's success using the performance metrics discussed in this article and work on improving for the next episode.

Sounds like a plan?

Sign up to Rephonic to kickstart your next podcast guesting campaign.