Analytics Dashboard Overview

The Analytics Dashboard add-on fills Benecaster → Analytics with charts of how your show is doing: who joins and leaves each tier, how many listeners are still checking their feed, which episodes and podcast apps get the downloads, how long each month’s new subscribers stay, what your membership collected, who cancelled but is still listening, and how a migration is going. It can also email you a digest. Everything is counted from what Benecaster already records on your site.

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Before You Start

• Install the add-on and switch it on for the show under Settings → Add-ons. It runs per show: a show where it is switched off keeps Benecaster’s standard Analytics screen (see Analytics Overview).
• The download figures need download tracking on for the show or the episode. See Download Tracking.

The Toolbar

The bar directly under the Analytics heading decides what every panel counts.

• Date range. Last 7 days, Last 30 days (the default), Last 90 days, Last 12 months, or a custom range. Days are counted in UTC, and today is included.
• Shows. This show (the default) or All my shows, which adds up every published show where Analytics Dashboard is switched on, and names the shows it covers and any it left out.
• Tier. All tiers (the default) or one tier, which narrows the panels it applies to.

Switching shows in Benecaster’s own show switcher puts all three back to their defaults. Date Ranges and Filtering covers each control in full.

Some panels show the state as of now whatever the date range, and some list every tier whatever the Tier choice. Each of those says so in a line under its heading.

The Panels

Panel headings are shown in capitals on the screen.

Subscriber growth by tier

One line per tier, a point per day, per week or per month depending on how long the range is. A tier’s line starts at its first daily count rather than at zero, so a new tier does not look like a collapse.

Notes under the chart explain anything the line cannot show exactly:

• Members linked by Member Sync with no start date, who cannot be placed on the line at all.
• Members linked by Member Sync who count as new on their real start date but appear on the line only from the day of the sync: “1 member linked by Member Sync counts as new on their real start date, but the line only includes them from the day of the sync, because Benecaster cannot tell which day the sync ran.” This applies only to members linked before Benecaster began recording the day of each sync, whose feed address has been reset since.
• Days when your Benecaster license lapsed and recovered. Those cut-offs and returns are labelled as the license, not as subscribers leaving and coming back.

Donations. When a show in view had a Listener Support donation in your dates, Donations bars appear on a right-hand money axis, with a Donations currency list when there are several. The tooltip gives the amount and the count. Currencies are never added together, and the Tier filter doesn’t apply to them.

Tier breakdown

Active, New, Churn and Net for each tier, with a Total row. Tick Compare with the previous period to add Previous active, Previous net and Change in active (with the percentage change). The previous period is the same number of days immediately before your range.

With donations in your dates, a Donations card sits under the table: {n} donations received in these dates., then {amount} from {n} donations per currency. A donation with no amount is counted but not added.

Revenue by tier

For shows on Built-in Membership: the amount collected in your dates (after {n} refunded), a Tier / Collected / Share table with a Buy-ups row and a Total, a bar per tier, and a By month line.

• It is cash collected, not a monthly rate. There is no MRR or ARR.
• Tax is left out, and buy-ups are their own row. A refund reduces a payment in proportion to what was kept and lands on that payment’s month, so a closed month can fall later. Test-mode payments are left out.
• One currency at a time, with a Currency list when there are several, each with its own decimals.
• Benecaster has recorded membership payments since {date}, and earlier months are blank.
• A show on another membership plugin gets a sentence instead of figures, because Benecaster can’t see that plugin’s billing. All my shows says how many shows it left out.

The Tier filter applies to this panel.

Tier movement

Upgrades, then Downgrades, each listed as from → to: count. A range with none says No tier changes in this period.

Feed engagement by tier

How recently each tier’s listeners have checked their private feed, as shares of the tier: Active, Low, At risk, Never set up and Not checked in yet (listeners who have not checked in but are still inside their set-up window). The five add up to 100%. A Checked in, last 7 days column and a Total row sit beside them. Point at a share to see its count.

This panel is always as of now: the date range does not apply to it.

Downloads by tier

Feed downloads in the date range, for shows with download tracking on. The download link on an episode’s web page is not counted, and downloads older than 30 days are included.

• A line gives the total: N tracked downloads in these dates.
• A Tier / Downloads / Share table. Downloads from your public feed are the Public feed row.
• By podcast app: an App / Downloads / Share table, most downloaded first. Apps are named from what they send with each download. Other apps are ones Benecaster does not recognise, Unknown app means the download named no app, and Web browser is a download from a browser.
• A bar chart of the top 5 episodes, one bar per tier. Show all episodes shows up to 100; Show the top 5 goes back.

With All my shows, the box adds up the shows that track downloads and says how many it left out. When no show in view tracks downloads, it tells you how to turn tracking on, with Open this show’s Details tab →.

The Tier filter does not apply to this panel.

Cohort retention

Each row is a month’s new subscribers (Joined in, Subscribers); each column (Month 0, Month 1, …) is the share still subscribed at the end of the month they joined and each month after. The last figure is as of the last day of your range. Point at a share to see X of Y still subscribed. The table uses whole UTC months, every month your range touches, and says which above it.

The figures are approximate, and the note under the table says by how much: subscribers erased at their request, history removed by your data retention setting, Member Sync members with no start date, and subscribers whose join is older than Benecaster’s records.

The Tier filter does not apply to this panel.

Migration funnel

Shown only when the Migration Wizard add-on is installed and has at least one migration for a show in view. One row per migration, newest first, named by platform and import date: Imported, Still to finish, Signed up, Lapsed and Deadline, with a Total row when there are two or more. These are the same figures as the show’s Migration tab, and Open this show’s Migration tab → takes you there.

• It is always as of now: the Migration Wizard keeps running totals, not a history, so the date range does not apply.
• The Tier filter does not apply: it counts everyone in each migration.
• Signed up includes anyone who chose a free tier. Lapsed is everyone whose deadline passed before they signed up.
• A migration with no record of which of your tiers were free is called out: nobody in it is timed out at the deadline, so anyone still to finish stays that way. See The Migration Dashboard.

Win-back: cancelled subscribers still checking their feed

The {N} cancelled subscribers are still checking their feed (last 30 days) line on Subscribers opens this page, at Analytics → #/analytics/winback. It starts with the headline in the same words, then breakdowns By tier they cancelled from, By podcast app and, under All my shows, By show, then one row per person: Subscriber (name and email, or Account deleted), Cancelled from, Last check-in (UTC), Check-ins a day and App.

The bar adds Checked in (the last 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, 180 or 365 days, up to what your feed request log keeps; it opens on the chip’s window, so the counts agree) and App to Shows and Tier. Tier and app narrow the list, not the breakdowns. The list always counts back from today.

Still checking in, by day charts it per UTC day over its own Date range. Days older than the log keeps come from Benecaster’s daily summary, drawn as a dashed line: it also counts followers, single-episode buyers, resubscribers and links used on another show, and has no tiers. With the log off, both say so and link to Settings → GDPR / Privacy.

This page shows real people’s names and emails. See Privacy and Data Handling.

Panels from other add-ons

Other add-ons can add their own panels after these. They follow the same toolbar.

Digest Emails

Digest emails, a button in the add-on’s bar (#/analytics/settings), sets up per-show emails. All are off by default.

• Pause all digest emails stops them without losing your settings.
• Daily digest: Send the daily digest, and Send it: Only when the subscriber count changes (the default) or Every day.
• Weekly digest: Day of the week, Monday by default.
• Monthly digest: Day of the month, 1 to 28, 1 by default (Up to the 28th, so every month has the day.).
• Send time → Send at: 09:00 by default, one time for all three, in your site’s time zone, which the screen names.
• Send to: tick boxes of every administrator, Name (email), with the Administration Email Address ticked by default. At least one is required.

Click Save digest settings. The Preview box shows any digest (Digest, Preview digest) with its subject and body, and Today this digest would not be sent: … when it would be skipped.

What They Say

Each show sends at most one digest a day, at Send at: the monthly on its day, otherwise the weekly on its day, otherwise the daily. They cover the last complete UTC period: yesterday, the 7 days to yesterday, or last calendar month.

• Daily: Subscribers (the count and its change on the day before) and New and cancelled.
• Weekly adds new and cancelled per tier, Top episode (with download tracking on), Feed engagement ({pct} of subscribers checked their feed in the last 7 days ({n} of {total}), as of today.) and How your show compares (with usage sharing on: paying subscribers against the platform median).
• Monthly adds A year ago: …, the churn rate against the month before, the top 3 episodes, and Who stays (the group that joined six months before, with 60 days of history needed).
• Worth knowing leads any digest with a callout: your first paying subscriber, the first time you pass 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 or 1,000 paying subscribers and every 1,000 after, or unusual churn (at least 3 cancellations, and at least double the previous four periods’ average).

A digest with nothing to report is never sent.

Links in the Email

Manage digest preferences → opens Digest emails on that email’s own show, after you log in. Unsubscribe from the … digest works without logging in: it opens Unsubscribe from this digest? with an Unsubscribe button, then You are unsubscribed. Opening the link changes nothing, so a mail scanner can’t unsubscribe anyone. It is per person, per show and per digest, and only an administrator can start it again: Digest emails shows a line under that person (Unsubscribed from the weekly digest by its email link on {date} (UTC). They get nothing from it until you send it again.) with Send the weekly digest again.

Switching the add-on off for a show keeps its digest settings.

Exporting

Every panel has Export CSV, and Export PDF makes a report of the whole screen. See Exporting Analytics Data.

The Tour

Analytics Dashboard Tour is listed under Tours, in the footer of every Benecaster screen, when the add-on is switched on for at least one show. It has five steps, ending on Digest emails. On a show where the add-on is off, it doesn’t start.

If a Panel Cannot Be Drawn

A panel that fails shows This panel could not be drawn. in its own box, and the rest of the screen keeps working. Reload the page; if it persists, contact support.

For Developers

Every panel reads a REST route you can call yourself, each figure can be changed with a filter, and other add-ons can add panels. See the Analytics Dashboard recipes under Developer Recipes.