CoHost, the podcast analytics and internet hosting platform developed by Toronto-based company Quill Inc., has unveiled a brand new information function designed to alter how manufacturers and creators measure podcast progress. The “New Listener Metric,” launched in November, helps customers distinguish between loyal audiences and first-time listeners.
For Fatima Zaidi, founder and CEO of each CoHost and Quill, the replace represents greater than only a product enhancement. It’s a correction to a long-standing drawback in podcast analytics.
“The CoHost New Listener Metric reveals the variety of first-time listeners discovering a podcast,” she says. “It provides clearer insights past complete downloads. We needed to determine real new viewers acquisition over time.”
The function, now accessible throughout all CoHost plans, permits customers to separate new from returning listeners, spot traits after advertising and marketing pushes, and report viewers growth extra confidently to sponsors and management groups.
Past Self-importance Metrics
Fatima has lengthy been vocal about the necessity to transfer previous what she calls “self-importance metrics.” Whereas downloads have served because the business customary for years, she argues they paint an incomplete image. “If somebody listens to the primary ten minutes of your episode and drops off, that also counts as a obtain, but it surely doesn’t communicate to the success of your content material,” she says.
The New Listener Metric builds on CoHost’s current analytics suite, which incorporates information on listener demographics, engagement, and consumption charges. It zeros in on who is definitely discovering a present for the primary time.
For enterprise shoppers, this visibility is crucial, in accordance with Fatima. “We are able to now present our shoppers precisely which listeners have been with the present from the start, and that are net-new audiences introduced in via new campaigns,” she explains. “That’s been one of the frequent requests from our clients.”
How CoHost Measures New Audiences
Behind the scenes, CoHost determines whether or not a listener is new or returning by analyzing log information from its internet hosting infrastructure. Every time an episode is streamed, the platform information a novel “ping” on its RSS (Actually Easy Syndication) feed. By cross-referencing components similar to IP deal with and geolocation, the system can decide if the listener has beforehand engaged with the podcast or is tuning in for the primary time.
“We basically get a ping each time somebody listens to a present, and our technical staff can decipher whether or not their logs have appeared earlier than or in the event that they’re utterly new,” Fatima explains.
That information, when paired with metrics like consumption fee and listener drop-off factors, provides podcasters a richer image of viewers conduct. “When you examine your new listener depend along with your episode drop-offs, you can begin to see what sort of content material resonates higher with completely different audiences,” she provides.
From Company Roots to Analytics Powerhouse
To grasp CoHost’s place within the podcasting ecosystem, it helps to start out with Quill, the full-service podcast company Fatima based in 2019. The corporate shortly turned identified for serving to manufacturers like Expedia, Walmart, PwC, and BlackRock produce and market audio content material throughout North America.
The timing – simply earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic – proved pivotal. “Individuals stated launching an organization throughout a worldwide shutdown was a nasty concept,” Fatima remembers. “However podcasting actually blew up due to COVID. Corporations couldn’t spend money on in-person occasions, so that they turned to digital storytelling. We occurred to be in the precise place on the proper time.”
That surge in demand laid the groundwork for CoHost. “I constructed the company first as a result of I needed to know the market inside out earlier than constructing any software program,” Fatima shares. “We launched CoHost solely after years of manufacturing reveals and realizing the place the gaps have been.”
The company’s income funded the platform’s improvement, permitting Fatima to bootstrap each companies with out exterior traders. “Each hour I spent pitching traders, I may very well be pitching clients as an alternative,” she says. “The company ended up funding the product; we’re utterly bootstrapped.”
What CoHost Provides
In the present day, CoHost positions itself as a progress and insights platform for skilled podcasters, from company groups to unbiased creators. Its software program aggregates listener information from Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and different apps right into a unified dashboard that visualizes who’s listening and the way they have interaction.
“We are able to let you know your listeners’ age, family revenue, job title, firm, location, and hobbies,” Fatima explains. “It’s also possible to combine all of this information into your CRM (Buyer Relationship Administration) instruments.”
The platform’s flexibility extends past internet hosting. Manufacturers can use CoHost’s instruments as an optionally available prefix or plug-in, having access to monitoring hyperlinks that determine the place listeners originate, whether or not from social media, PR protection, or visitor promotions.
“We’re a progress and insights platform,” Fatima says. “We show you how to measure your podcast’s efficiency, and we show you how to develop your viewers.”
Why the Business Wanted a New Metric
The shortage of measurement requirements has lengthy been one among podcasting’s structural challenges. “As an business, we will’t even agree on what constitutes a obtain,” Fatima says. “Each time we sponsor a podcast convention, the most important debate is all the time that query.”
A part of the problem stems from how advert income is calculated. Networks and sponsors typically base charges on complete downloads, incentivizing podcasters to chase amount over engagement. “No person’s listening to how engaged these audiences are, or whether or not they’re even actual listeners,” Fatima says. “We’ve gotten into a nasty behavior of specializing in self-importance metrics simply to make stakeholders look good.”
She believes the New Listener Metric is a step towards more healthy measurement, which prioritizes group constructing and loyalty.
A Platform Constructed From Suggestions
Each function CoHost has launched comes immediately from buyer suggestions, Fatima reveals. “We are saying we’re a platform constructed for podcasters by podcasters,” she notes. “The New Listener Metric got here from repeated consumer requests asking inform if distinctive listeners have been truly new or long-time followers.”
The platform’s person base, which spans Enterprise to Enterprise (B2B), healthcare, finance, and know-how sectors, has pushed CoHost to broaden its information capabilities, from B2B viewers analytics to demographic breakdowns that tie podcast efficiency on to gross sales outcomes.
“We’re the one software that gives each demographic and sales-level information (age, revenue, job title, firm) that form of B2B-level perception is exclusive to us,” Fatima says.
The Delusion of Podcast Saturation
Regardless of rising competitors, Fatima believes the medium nonetheless has room to broaden. “An enormous fantasy is that podcasting is saturated,” she says. “There are about 4 million podcasts, and solely 18% are energetic. Evaluate that to 600 million blogs or 60 million YouTube channels; we’re nonetheless within the early phases.”
She attributes a lot of her long-term success to consistency. “The distinction between a profitable and an unsuccessful podcaster is consistency,” she provides. “Joe Rogan has been podcasting for 20 years. It didn’t occur in a single day.”
Smarter, Extra Accessible Podcasting
With most shoppers now producing each audio and video podcasts, Fatima sees viewers retention as the subsequent frontier. “Virtually 100% of our shoppers at the moment are video podcasting, however with video, retention drops as a result of it’s a must to take note of a display screen,” she says. “Ninety-four p.c of people that begin an audio podcast end the episode, however a 30-minute video solely has a 12% completion fee.”
That’s why CoHost continues to emphasise engagement and loyalty metrics. “We have to deal with numbers past simply views and downloads, particularly as codecs evolve,” Fatima says.
As 2026 approaches, her objective stays clear: serving to podcasters discover and develop their audiences. “Making a podcast is half the job. The opposite half is advertising and marketing it,” she says. “There are such a lot of inactive podcasts as a result of folks don’t understand how laborious it’s to search out listeners. That’s the problem we’re fixing.”
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