Playback
Note
This pages describes Bumper's current approach to aggregating playback data across consumption apps. This new approach was adopted to accomodate Spotify's plays metric, which was introduced in May 2025.
For a description of Bumper's previous approach, please refer to Plays.
The Bumper Dashboard uses "playback" as a generic term to aggregate:
Though not identical, these platform-specific metrics generally correspond to "qualified playback session initiations" by viewers and listeners.
Unlike verified listeners, plays are not deduplicated by user within a given time period (day/week/month). Also unlike verified listeners, plays can be summed across time.
Playback vs. Verified listeners
YouTube views
YouTube does not provide detailed documentation about how video view counts are calculated. YouTube's documentation says:
A view occurs when a person watches your video. In order to preserve accuracy in view counts, irregular playbacks (like spam) are removed from the public view count metrics. In incrementing view count, YouTube algorithmically determines user intent.
The Bumper Dashboard ingests YouTube view counts directly from the YouTube Analytics API. YouTube view counts in the Bumper Dashboard should match what users see in YouTube Studio.
Spotify plays
Spotify plays are a Spotify-specific metric that counts qualified episode playback initiations. According to Spotify's How we count engagement metrics article, Spotify plays represent:
Number of times a Spotify user actively watched or listened to your content on the Spotify app.
Spotify play counts in the Bumper Dashboard should match what users see in the Spotify for Creators dashboard.
Daily episode-level listeners in Apple Podcasts
Apple Podcasts Connect does not provide an equivalent metric to YouTube views or Spotify plays. While Apple does offer a metric called "plays", these Apple "plays" do not align with YouTube views or Spotify plays (more details below).
Without a true equivalent of YouTube views or Spotify plays, the Bumper Dashboard uses the sum total of daily-resolution episode-level verified listeners. This is a reasonable proxy for the total number of times playback was initiated by an Apple Podcasts user.
Please note:
- This approach results in a cap of one episode plackback initiation per Apple Podcasts user per calendar day
- The sum of daily-resolution episode-level listeners is different from all-time episode-level listeners. All-time episode-level listeners are deduplicated across time.
Though not ideal, the Bumper Dashboard will use this estimate until Apple Podcasts offers a playback metric that corresponds with other major podcast consumption platforms.
Frequently asked questions
Why not use Apple's play metric?
Because Apple Podcasts plays are very different from YouTube views and Spotify plays. Apple has a very specific definition for the word "play" as it appears in Apple Podcasts Connect. An episode's play count represents:
The total number of times people pressed play on your episode.
This figure includes all presses of the play button, including clicks/taps of the play button to resume playback after pausing an episode. So, if I:
- Press play once to initiate playback of an episode
- Pause the episode partway through
- Press play again to resume playback of the same episode
- Pause the episode again
- Press play again to resume playback of the same episode
Then I am a single listener, responsible for multiple play actions.
Crucially, Apple Podcasts "play" actions count a very different thing than YouTube views or Spotify plays.
Why is historical estimated play data missing for Apple Podcasts?
Bumper's "estimated plays by day/week/month" for Apple Podcasts relies on episode-level timeseries data. Apple Podcasts Connect makes this timerseries data available for up to 300 of the most recently-released episodes.
The episode-level and show-level all-time "estimated plays" totals include all episodes, but timeseries (by day, week, month) may not include historical data prior to the 300 most recent episodes.
This limitation also means the sum of daily/weekly/monthly "estimated plays" may not equal the all-time total displayed in the Bumper Dashboard.