Where to Start with Attribution
"This article is being reprinted with permission of the author Jeff Umbro (LinkedIn and Twitter/X);It was originally published on Podglomerate.com and you can view the original article here Where to Start with Attribution
Author: Jeff Umbro
Podcast attribution was relatively rare until Chartable’s launch in 2018. Prior to this time, many podcast advertisers were stuck using promo codes and vanity URLs. Most of the folks actually buying ads in the space were of the direct response variety. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these approaches. It served the industry well for a long time, but accuracy was always a question given how easy it was to game the system.
But when it comes to podcast marketing and advertising, Chartable’s launch represented the first time we could track the impact and conversion rate of paid ads, earned cross promo campaigns, interviews on other shows, and more.
If you’re reading this article, you likely have a few attribution-related questions, including which tools you should use following Chartable’s sunsetting after December 12, 2024. Luckily, The Podglomerate is here with a helpful guide as to what you should know and which tools you should use to optimize your podcast attribution strategy.
Keep reading below to learn more about what Chartable did and which replacements are worth considering for 2025. If you want to hear more about podcast attribution, be sure to listen to our recent episode of our Signal Award-winning series Podcast Perspectives. It features Pete Birsinger of Podscribe, and Cameron Hendrix of Magellan AI. You can also read a breakdown of their “attribution secrets” here.
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through these links, The Podglomerate may earn an affiliate commission, and you will receive an offer. The Podglomerate only advertises products and services we trust.
What Happened to Chartable?
Chartable was a beautiful, first-of-its-kind tool in the podcast ecosystem when it launched in 2018.
Chartable allowed podcasters to track their chart performance across Apple Podcasts and Spotify; eventually, Chartable launched its own chart system.
Chartable kept adding new features, and while not all of them landed in quite the way they were meant (I had high hopes for you, Chartable Connect), the intention was always to make podcast marketing initiatives easier for those of us in the trenches. Many of those features are broken down below, but I think it’s fair to say that there was no competitive service that offered the same suite of tools at the same price point.
Eventually, as we all probably know, Spotify swooped in and purchased Chartable for a lot of money, and it was never quite the same. And to make a long story very short, we’re now going to see the end of Chartable on December 12, 2024.
As sad as it is to see this day come, we are lucky enough to be able to see a number of alternative platforms that can hop in and replace Chartable (the features we all love anyway).
Chartable did a few different things, so I have broken everything down by function and my recommendation, in order of importance to The Podglomerate’s current workflow.
The categories include:
SmartPromos
SmartLinks
Chart rankings
Consumption
Demographics
Download tracking
Are There Alternatives to Chartable?
In short, yes. There are alternatives to Chartable, though you may need to use multiple tools to cover all of your key metrics. Unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all replacement. Before you choose a platform – or two – take an audit of what data you need to satisfy your podcast growth needs.
I’ll also mention that there’s been a gold rush to recreate a lot of these tools since the announcement of Chartable’s sunsetting, and we’ll continue to update this article to include new information about these alternatives.
What if You’re Using Megaphone to Host Your Podcast?
According to Chartable and Megaphone, anyone who is hosting their podcast on Megaphone will still have access to Chartable’s SmartPromo (podcast-to-podcast attribution) and SmartLink tools, currently via chartable.com and in the future through Megaphone’s dashboard. If these are the only two tools you care about, and if your show is hosted on Megaphone, you no longer need to finish this article (congrats!).
The rest of this article will not acknowledge Chartable as an option.
Podcast-to-Podcast Attribution Tools
Most podcast-to-podcast attribution functions by adding an RSS prefix to the RSS feeds of one or more shows, and using a software tool to generate a pixel that will run in a DAI ad campaign on another podcast, promoting the former. The software solution will track which IP addresses have heard this ad unit, and which IP addresses have downloaded an audio file from the original show’s RSS feed, and will tell you where there’s overlap. These are conversion events.
You can also track the impact of a baked-in ad, which could consist of a host being interviewed on another podcast, a collaborative episode between two shows, a feed drop on another show, or a simple embedded ad unit. You track these Baked-In events by mapping the RSS prefix from one show to another, as opposed to using a pixel via DAI ad insertion.
Try These Podcast Attribution Tools
There are a number of software solutions that can manage this prefix and pixel tracking, including but not limited to:
Magellan.ai: Magellan AI is a prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers integrations for ad sales, tracking, and reporting, and solutions for podcast to podcast and podcast to web attribution. The service also has a robust set of sales research tools that will be a goldmine for any publisher’s advertising team. Pricing varies.
Podscribe: Podscribe is a prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers integrations for ad sales, tracking, and reporting, and solutions for podcast to podcast and podcast to web attribution. The service also has a robust set of sales research tools that will be a goldmine for any publisher’s advertising team, as well as their marketing teams, who can use this tool to research conversion rates on other podcasts. Pricing varies.
Podtrac: Podscribe is a prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers solutions for podcast charts as well as podcast to podcast attribution. Pricing varies.
Swap.fm: Swap.fm is a brand new prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers podcast-to-podcast attribution, and has a clever tool that allows you to see retention of a listener based on the specific cross promo campaign run. This platform is much more focused on podcast tune-in campaigns than the rest, though is also the newest company working in the space.
Audio-to-Web Attribution
Most podcast-to-web attribution functions by using a software tool to generate a pixel that will run in a DAI ad campaign on another podcast, promoting a web page, and a second pixel on the desired landing page. The software solution will track which IP addresses have heard this ad unit, and which IP addresses have hit this landing page, and will tell you where there’s overlap. These are conversion events.
There are a number of software solutions that can manage this pixel tracking, including but not limited to:
Magellan.ai: Magellan AI is a prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers integrations for ad sales, tracking, and reporting, and solutions for podcast to podcast and podcast to web attribution. The service also has a robust set of sales research tools that will be a goldmine for any publisher’s advertising team. Pricing varies.
Podscribe: Podscribe is a prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers integrations for ad sales, tracking, and reporting, and solutions for podcast to podcast and podcast to web attribution. The service also has a robust set of sales research tools that will be a goldmine for any publisher’s advertising team, as well as their marketing teams, who can use this tool to research conversion rates on other podcasts. Pricing varies.
Spotify Ad Analytics fka Podsights: Spotify Ad Analytics, or SPAA, is a prefix and pixel-based attribution service, similar to Chartable. The platform offers integrations for ad sales, tracking, and reporting, and solutions for podcast to podcast and podcast to web attribution. Pricing is set up on a CPM basis, meaning you’ll pay based on the scale of the campaigns you’re running.
SmartLinks for Attribution and Sharing
Chartable SmartLinks had two major functions:
Track download attribution by link and source ID. Basically, you could generate a link to a show or an episode. When someone clicked on a SmartLink, your Chartable dashboard would show you how many clicks vs downloads occurred within a window of time. Users could also use a Source ID (SID) tag, similar to a UTM tag, in order to determine where these clicks and downloads were coming from (i.e. Facebook vs. LinkedIn).
Provide a platform-agnostic experience for social sharing. When setting up your SmartLink, you were able to set up conditional redirects, meaning you could send Mac users to Apple Podcasts, Android users to Spotify, etc. This was hugely helpful when sharing a link on social media. Prior to conditional redirect, many podcasters were sharing links to their own landing pages, or sharing multiple links to their show on various platforms.
Alternative SmartLinks
While there are a lot of new players working to build similar services for podcasters, there is not yet a solution that achieves everything Chartable did. Here are some good alternatives.
Linkfire: Linkfire offers a beautiful landing page solution to share on any platform, and includes a lot of useful features, such as integrating email newsletter signups and social media links. It will also automatically connect with your show’s Apple Podcasts Connect data. However, it will not track any other listening data outside of the Apple ecosystem. You can integrate other links such as Spotify’s Trackable Sharing Links, but it’s a somewhat manual process, and still precludes all non-Apple and non-Spotify users. There are various tiers of pricing, and you can learn more here.
Podcards is actually a very clever solution as a SmartLink replacement. It allows podcasters to create a sharable platform link, and you can track download data by adding a prefix and integrating your various dashboard logins. However, the platform does not allow for conditional redirects nor episode specific linking.
Podlink solves the platform-agnostic question by providing easy to use landing pages, but users cannot track download or click data.
Magellan AI ListenLinks just launched a few weeks ago, but uses a prefix solution to allow for the creation of a landing page that will track clicks vs downloads. It allows for Source ID tags, which is great, but it currently doesn’t allow for episode-level linking, nor conditional redirects.
Podtrac SmartLinks are a great tool recently launched. It allows for a prefix solution to allow for the creation of a landing page that will track clicks vs. downloads. It allows for source ID tags, which is great, but it currently doesn’t allow for episode-level linking, nor conditional redirects.
Swap.fm SmartLinks are a great tool recently launched. It allows for a prefix solution to allow for the creation of a landing page that will track clicks vs. downloads. It allows for source ID tags and conditional redirects, which is excellent, but it currently doesn’t allow for episode-level linking.
Chart Rankings
Chartable included a live listing of all category and country specific chart rankings from Apple, Spotify, Stitcher (for a time), and their own bespoke charts. All of these were updated relatively in real time, and allowed for paying users to see a historical listing of chart rankings (30 days for non-paying users).
Alternatives:
Rephonic is a tool that allows for you to see any public data regarding your show. This data includes chart rankings from Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, but only allows you to see these rankings in real time, and not historically.
Podgagement just launched a new real time and historical chart feature that seems to do everything Chartable did. The program is still in beta.
Podstatus: Provide real-time chart tracking, but not historical charts.
Podchaser Pro: Offers the last 90 days of chart data and is exploring historical access.
Data Sources:
Of course, all of this chart data is being pulled from Apple Podcasts and Spotify directly, so users can always review these platforms.
Consumption Data
At one point Chartable connected directly with Apple Podcasts Connect and Spotify for Podcasters in order to deliver an at a glance picture of how listeners were consuming an episode of any given podcast, i.e. when and how frequently listeners were dropping off an episode. This allowed the podcaster a great idea of where they may want to implement editorial changes in their productions to assist them with listener retention. Soon after Spotify purchased Chartable, they removed the integration with Apple Podcasts Connect.
That said, all consumption data is still available to podcasters directly from their Apple Podcasts Connect dashboard, their Spotify for Creators dashboard, and their YouTube Studios dashboard.
Demographic Data
Chartable also did a great job of pulling in demographic data from Spotify for Creators, including gender, age, location, and household income data. All of this information is still available directly from Spotify for Creators. Interested podcasters can also look into receiving enriched data via prefix tools like CoHost for deeper insights.
Download Tracking
Like many other third party analytics platforms, Chartable’s download tracking was enabled by a prefix implementation. There are innumerable tools that work in a similar fashion, but it’s always been my opinion that you should be tracking downloads directly from your hosting platform as a point of truth.
If the process still sounds daunting, The Podglomerate can give you the support you need. Have questions? Email us at listen@thepodglomerate.com to learn more about our services.
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Jeff Umbro, (LinkedIn and Twitter/X)
Jeff Umbro is the founder and CEO of The Podglomerate, the award-winning company which produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. The Podglomerate is a boot-strapped organization which now works with more than 90 podcasts in 2024, accounting for hundreds of millions of downloads. Jeff has written for and been quoted in Bloomberg, Morning Brew, Adweek, Quartz, Hot Pod, Paste, The Daily Dot, and more. Prior to launching the Podglomerate, Jeff had his hands in audience growth and business development for companies like Product Hunt, Serial Box, VotePlz, Talkshow, and Goldberg McDuffie Communications.