Spotify Podcasts Metrics and Responding When Listening Shifts Away From Music

You are a product manager for podcasts at Spotify, which offers music and podcasts in the same app. ### Clarifying Questions - How should engagement be defined: listening minutes, active listeners, or something else, and is it measured the same way for music and podcasts? - Is the podcast business mainly meant to earn ad revenue, to keep Premium subscribers, or both? - Are creators and advertisers in scope, or only listeners? ### Part 1 — Success metrics for Spotify Podcasts What metrics would you use to decide whether Spotify Podcasts is succeeding? ```hint Pick one number to steer by Podcasts involve listeners, creators and advertisers. Choose one metric to steer by, explain why it beats the alternatives, and protect it with guardrails. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - The goal of podcasts within Spotify and who must succeed for it to work - A north-star metric with supporting metrics for listeners, creators and monetization - Guardrails, including the effect on music listening ### Part 2 — Music engagement falls while podcast engagement rises You notice that engagement with music on Spotify is going down while engagement with podcasts is going up. What would you do? ```hint Same people, same hours? Before acting, find out whether the same people are moving their listening time from music to podcasts, and whether that shift is good or bad for Spotify as a whole. ``` #### Clarifying Questions for this Part - How large are the two changes, and did they begin at the same time? - Is total listening time per user flat, rising or falling? #### What This Part Should Cover - Checking the data, and the size, timing and overlap of the two shifts - Internal and external hypotheses, each with a way to confirm it - Whether the shift helps or hurts Spotify overall, and the action that follows from each finding ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Part 1 metrics that would detect and help explain the shift in Part 2 - Separating substitution between music and podcasts from overall growth or decline in listening - Weighing the different economics of music and podcasts before deciding what to do - A clear recommendation rather than only a diagnosis ### Follow-up Questions - If the shift came from a home-screen change that promotes podcasts, would you roll it back? What data would decide it? - How would your answer change if Premium churn rose at the same time? - How would you decide how much of users' listening time podcasts should ideally take?