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This week's tip comes from listener Michelle Brannam, host of the Living Her
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Purpose With God podcast, who asked a great question.
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How can you tell if a sudden download spike is genuine or just bot traffic?
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Seeing a big jump in your podcast downloads is always exciting.
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But before you assume you've gone viral, it's worth taking a few minutes to
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understand what's actually behind these numbers.
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Because sometimes a spike is genuine and sometimes it can be caused by automated
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traffic, feed crawlers or bots. So where do you start?
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The first thing I check is where these downloads came from.
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Most people listen to podcasts in dedicated podcast apps on their phone.
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So if a sudden spike is mostly coming from something like Chrome on macOS or
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another desktop browser, that's worth looking into.
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Not because these downloads are automatically bots, but because it's different
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from how most people normally listen to podcasts.
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The next thing I look at is location. For example, if you suddenly see a large
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number of downloads coming from somewhere like Ashburn, Virginia in the US, don't panic.
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Ashburn is home to some of the world's biggest data centres,
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so automated traffic often appears to come from there.
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Next, I look at what was downloaded. Did one episode spike, or did your entire
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catalogue suddenly jump at the same time?
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If it's one episode, maybe it was shared in a newsletter, mentioned on another
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podcast, or picked up on social media.
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If dozens of episodes all receive a similar number of downloads over a short
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period, that's another clue that's worth digging a little deeper.
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And it might be something as simple as a new follower who has auto-download
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on their podcast app, so they're downloading a chunk of your back catalogue
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when they start following your podcast.
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And finally, ask yourself whether the rest of your analytics support the story.
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Did you gain new followers? Was there more traffic to your website?
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Did your newsletter get more sign-ups?
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And were more people talking about your podcast online?
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Because one of the best ways to spot unusual activity isn't by looking at just
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one metric, it's by looking at all of them together.
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Analytics tell a story and the trick is making sure it all adds up.
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So celebrate the spike, just spend a few minutes making sure you understand
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what your analytics are actually telling you.
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Until the next time, happy podcasting.
