In which I get some download tracking for my podcasts...
If you listen to podcasts you won't be surprised to hear adverts for Squarespace's hosting platform. It's also what this website and my associated podcasts run on.[1][2][3] The inbuilt analytics are pretty decent but when it comes to RSS feeds for podcasts they suffer from all the limitations that tracking RSS has.[4]
Podtrac is a service that aims to fix this.[5] Unfortunately it used to be a massive faff to get it working with Squarespace.[6] Fortunately following the latest update to the platform it is now really easy.
How-to
- Add your audio block as normal to your podcast blog post.
A standard podcast audio block.
- Edit the Audio block.
The audio block editing window.
- Go to the "Podcasting" tab.
- Add https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/ as the "Podcast Analytics URL".
The Podcasting tab with analytics URL.
- When you publish the post you will notice your download link now look like this: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/static1.sqaurespace.com/static/<uniqueid>/<episode>.mp3.
The new download link includes the podtrac URL with no extra faff.
- Enjoy your new podcast stats!
Now we just need some more downloads....
Tom Out!
References
[1] Wilkinson, T. A. and Lamb, M. (2018) Hat of Many Things. [online, Accessed: 24/04/18].
[2] Wilkinson, T. A. (2018) Dr Wilko's Campaign for Better Beverages. [online, Accessed: 24/04/18].
[3] Wilkinson, T. A. and Attwood, R. (2018) Unparliamentary Language. [online, Accessed: 24/04/18].
[4] Finn, K. (2014) Podcast Subscribers: These are not the statistics you’re looking for. [online, Accessed: 24/04/18].
[5] Podtrac (2018) Podtrac. [online, Accessed: 24/04/18].
[6] Shompole, L. (2018) Setting up Podtrac on Squarespace Podcasting . [online, Accessed: 24/04/18].