- How do I know if my show is actually underperforming?
- By percentile, not vanity numbers. In the first seven days: 26+ downloads is the top 50%, 72+ is the top 25%, 231+ is the top 10%, 539+ is the top 5%, and 3,062+ is the top 1%. Most hosts are doing better than they think and distributing worse than they think.
- How long does growth take?
- Paid distribution moves numbers inside a month. Positioning, topic strategy and search compound over quarters. We scope six months because that's the shortest honest window.
- What's AEO and why does it matter for a podcast?
- Answer engine optimization — writing episode pages so AI assistants surface and cite them. A growing share of the people looking for what your show covers now ask a model instead of a search box. Podcast back-catalogues are almost entirely invisible to those systems, which makes it cheap ground to take.
- Do I need to be on video?
- It's the single highest-leverage change most shows can make, and we've watched the split happen inside our own numbers. On a show we run, audio downloads are down roughly 40% from their 2024 peak while video views on the same episodes crossed 30 million in a month. The audience didn't leave — it moved. Judging a show by downloads alone now measures the shrinking half.
- What do you report on?
- Downloads, YouTube views, website visits, reach by platform, marketing contacts, leads, SQLs, customers, and cost per each. Growth work should be judged the way you judge every other channel.