iHeart Media-owned audio adtech company Triton and video platform YouTube have signed a data integration partnership, the two companies have announced, bringing video podcast analytics to Triton’s measurement service.
With this partnership, Triton will add views of YouTube-hosted podcast episodes onto its IAB-compliant Podcast Metrics tool, which provides data on how podcast content is being consumed across platforms, allowing publishers to filter data based on a range of criteria.
“Video has added another dimension connecting podcast creators with their audiences,” said YouTube director and head of podcasting Kai Chuk. “The measurement and reporting of views provides critical insights to podcasters as they continue to produce the high-quality content audiences want and deserve, giving publishers a more holistic view of podcast performance data.”
Podcast Metrics users will be able to compare podcast downloads and views on their YouTube podcast videos using the same interface, as well as consolidate their video metrics across several programs.
The integration between Triton Digital and YouTube follows a number of new partnerships for the audio technology platform. This includes Triton’s acquisition of programmatic advertising intelligence platform Manadge and partnership expansion with ad delivery provider Basis Technologies to allow brands to purchase broadcast ads, in addition to other forms of audio, across its programmatic audio marketplace.
Sharon Taylor, Triton Digital’s senior vice president of podcast strategy and product operations, told PodPod at The Podcast Show 2023 that with the growing popularity of video podcasting, trying to figure out how to sell video ads in the podcast space will be a growing advertising trend.
“YouTube’s influence on video podcasting is undeniably transformative and this integration marks a significant step forward for Triton Digital,” said Taylor. “We’re confident that this will revolutionise the way podcasters engage with their audience, opening up a world of possibilities for content monetisation and audience growth.”
Previously, podcasting on YouTube has only been accessible to creators and channels that upload their podcasts as videos, but in May this year, YouTube was reportedly testing the ability to let publishers upload podcasts to the YouTube Music app as audio files via RSS feeds.
The New Statesman has been testing this feature via Acast’s YouTube integration, according to the brand’s executive producer Chris Stone, but Stone wrote in a LinkedIn post this week that publishing New Statesman’s full podcast output to YouTube has actually hurt the brand’s growth on the platform. He now plans to scale back the organisation’s use of YouTube for podcasts in order to pursue a more targeted approach.
“My hypothesis is that our YouTube channel is now heavily overweighted with audio-only content,” Stone wrote. “This is less popular with our audience, and in fact is now actively turning people off from the channel.”
YouTube had not made any public announcement of the beta testing phase until last night at Podcast Movement, during a talk with Google’s podcasting product lead Steve McLendan, PodNews reported this morning. McLendan also announced that YouTube will fully support RSS feeds for podcasts and that YouTube Music’s integration of podcasts will also complete its global rollout by the end of this year.
Other upcoming podcasting features from YouTube include enhanced analytics and improved discovery for podcasts as well as - according to PodNews - show-level automatic downloads and the ability to add any RSS feed, including private ones, to the YouTube Music app in countries where the app is supported.
