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Retention

Retention shows the percentage of your audience listening or watching at each point of a specific episode. It shows where, on average, your audience stops listening or skips past content.

Each platform measures retention slightly differently. Apple Podcasts tracks audiences with 15-second resolution, Spotify uses per-second resolution, and YouTube's resolution varies based on the length of the video.

What are those sudden dips in the retention curve?

Sample retention curve

Dips in your episodes retention graph are indications of where, on average, your audience tends to stop listening to that period of time in the episode. Usually we see dips in retention:

  • During ad breaks. Audiences may be skipping past ads to get back to your show.
  • At the beginning of an episode. This is a good indicator to review the first minute effectiveness of your show.

We often see drop-offs at the end of an episode. Audiences don't typically stick around to the end credits.