Captivate Feature Releases & Changelog
08 January 2025
Migrated to a new support platform to continue to offer the best support experience for users
18 December 2024
Just some quick updates and bug fixes to round out the year. đ
Feature improvements
Removed the Chartable prefix from podcasts that still had attached
Improved performance on Episodes Overview analytics report
Improved messaging around invalid artwork upload
Bug fixes
Various bug fixes
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
08 November 2024
Just some nice quality of life updates to the dashboard this time around, as well as some bug fixes and tweaks. đ
Feature improvements
Added a âNoneâ permission to Network Team roles, making it nice and easy to add a team member to multiple podcasts on a network without needing access to the network itself
Improved chapter generation on Spark AI
Better pagination on Research Links
Bug fixes
Various bug fixes
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
05 November 2024
This time around, weâve got a great update for Captivate Sync, our WordPress plugin. This adds support for some newer dashboard features, as well as some bug fixes and tweaks. đ
Captivate Sync 3.0
Updated user interface
Dynamic show notes support
Ability to change single episode slugs, category archive slugs, and enable/disable archive pages
Display season and episode numbers with the episode title
Updated shortcode builder, allowing for more customization for how episodes are displayed
Permalink redirect to the episode URL
Private, exclusive, and early access episodes are hidden from the public search and access
Set default author for each podcast (perfect for network podcast sites)
Manual sync for each podcast
These are just some of the awesome new features and tweaks to make Captivate Sync even more useful for busy podcasters - check out the full feature release here.
Enjoy the update and improvement!
23 October 2024
Feature improvement
Improved the loading speed and usability of network level analytics.
15 October 2024
Just a quick update this time around, but a nice one. đ
Feature improvement
Weâve added the option to enable/disable Captivate Spark at show level, so if you have multiple podcasts you can choose to use on just certain shows.
Weâve also added the option to enable/disable Sparkâs transcript at episode level. Youâll still need to use Sparkâs transcription feature to create the other AI Assets (titles, summaries, show notes, etc.) but you can then disable the Spark transcript and use your own, if preferred.
Enjoy the update and improvement!
3rd October 2024
Updated Clarity on Spark AI Billing Screen
You can now choose between recurring monthly payments for Spark AI, that will be charged on the same day as your Captivate plan renewal, or buy one-off top-ups in Blocks of 5, 10, or 20 hours. Any unused hours will roll over until used.
30th September 2024
Hello, you wonderful podcasters! As we close out September and head into the final quarter of 2024, weâve got a huge feature release for you - so letâs jump in!
Spark AI Integrated AI Assistant
If you watched the special live stream reveal last Monday with Captivate MD Mark Asquith, you would have seen why weâre excited to bring you Spark AI, Captivateâs fully integrated AI assistant.
With Spark AI, weâre giving you the tools to drastically reduce the time spent in your podcasting workflow and to make your audience growth, podcast discoverability and creator marketing easier than ever before.
Not only does this bring AI tools to our podcasters, itâs done in the usual Captivate way that means it goes beyond just bringing you the basics.
So what does Spark AI offer?
Automatic transcription: simply upload your audio file and weâll do the rest, creating an accurate and fully editable transcription of your audio, including speaker separation and text separation (to ensure each transcript is assigned to the correct speaker)
Title suggestions: attention-grabbing episode titles that are optimized for SEO and clicks. You can even add more context about your episode and Spark AI will create titles based on that
Summary/intro: a nice, punchy intro to the episode that you can use for your show notes, or sharing on social media, etc
Episode show notes: Spark AI provides three options for you to choose from to use for your episode show notes
Key takeaways: a nice list of bullet points that are perfect for social media updates, or even just adding to your show notes
Chapter breaks, titles, and timestamps: perfect for episodes with multiple discussion points or topics, these chapters are fully clickable and can help drive more listens
Ad Marker Suggestions: recommendations on where to place your mid roll ads, based on pauses in the conversation and contextual gaps. Spark AI even tells you why it chose these ad markers!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) assets: make sure your episode is set up for search, with our tailored SEO title and meat description recommendations. We even provide keywords for YouTube, if you have a video version of your episode
Add Episode Idea: Spark AI will look at your analytics for the last 30 days, as well as the topics you usually talk about, and the trends across the whole web on those topics, and suggest three episode ideas for you
Title and Main Talking Points: based on the previous analysis, Spark AI will suggest a title for the episode, and key talking points for you and/or your guest to discuss on the episode
Guest Suggestions: based on the topics, Spark AI will then suggest what guests you could have on for that episode. Not only that, but youâll also see a short bio for the guest, links to their online profiles, and even questions to ask them on the episode!
Persona Training: by using any of our pre-set personas, and then customizing them to suit your style, Spark AI will be your best friend when it comes to creating content that is straight from your style and vibe!
Weâre really excited to offer Spark AI to all our podcasters, and at a super cheap cost.
The only aspect of this that costs us money is the transcription â so thatâs the only thing that costs you any money, at a simple price of $5 per month for 5 hours of transcription that rolls over each month if unused. For any additional ad hoc top ups, you can purchase one-off blocks of 5, 10 or 15 hours that remain on your account until used.
Check out the full release info for more details!
Bug fixes and feature improvements
Added checkbox option to automatically add/disable new network team member to all podcasts
Fixed a bug where some users were unable to use feed drops
Simplified the error message if trying to create an episode with no media file attached
We hope you enjoy these new updates and features - the team has worked hard on bringing those to you and we canât wait to see how you use them!
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
6th September 2024
Just a quick update to squish some pesky bugs. đ
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug where some Descript imports wouldnât load
Fixed an intermittent bug where some Apple Subscription episodes would return an error message
Enjoy the updates!
29th August 2024
Just a quick update, but a nice one. đ
Feature improvement
Weâve added a new Network Marketer role specifically for network team members that need to create feed drops across podcasts on a network (thanks Glenn Hebert for the suggestion!)
Weâve also fixed some minor bugs with this update.
21st August 2024
Apple Podcasts just announced their brand new web player, which means that listeners can consume your show directly via a browser.
Today, we've tweaked Captivate's analytics to report on any of those downloads as:
Apple Podcasts (Web Player)23rd July 2024
Just a quick one today, but itâs a big one!
Weâre super passionate about getting podcasters closer to the people listening, not just the number of file downloads that your podcast receives. Thatâs why Captivate has been fully IAB Certified from almost the day we launched (the IAB, or Interactive Advertising Bureau, is the industry standard when it comes to accurate podcast tracking and analytics).
Today, weâve got some exciting news to share - Captivate has officially achieved the IAB Tech Lab Podcast Measurement 2.2 certification, making us the first podcast hosting platform in the world to hit this major milestone.
This certification is the gold standard for podcast analytics measurement. It means our platform meets and even surpasses the highest industry standards for accuracy and transparency.
Read the full announcement here.
17th July 2024 - Captivate 2.5!
Captivate has always been praised for our easy-to-use and intuitive dashboard, and weâve taken that up a few notches. Our user interface (UI) has been fully overhauled to let you focus on the parts of Captivate you use for your show(s).
easier navigation tools, with top-level menus and expandable/collapsible sections in the main left-hand menu
set default displays for when you log in
added a multi-function Create New button to offer more options (Episode, Episode Idea, and Guest Booking)
Contextual Fly-Out Panels let you manage quick tasks in fewer clicks
A revamped visual look, with an additional focus on dashboard visibility and toolsets
These visual improvements continue our goal to make your Captivate dashboard experience as simple and as frictionless as possible.
But thatâs not all!
Unlimited Networks for all Captivate podcasters
In 2021, we introduced our podcast network and feed drop feature, making it easy for all Captivate podcasters to create a network and cross promote their shows on it. Todayâs release turbocharges that feature by removing the limit of how many networks you could have, depending on what plan you were on.
Now, every Captivate podcaster can have unlimited networks, with unlimited podcasts on that network. Better still, you can also have unlimited sub-networks under each main network, and then sub-networks under each sub-network!
This opens up a world of opportunities for the serious indie podcaster to become a full media production podcaster, with multiple shows, networks, and revenue opportunities.
Itâs a groundbreaking feature that gives enterprise-level network tools to indie podcasters.
Streamlined Team Member Roles and Permissions
Our hugely popular Teams feature is used daily by podcasters of all show sizes, enabling them to add team members to both podcasts and networks, each with their own log in and permissions. Now, with our revamped Roles and Permissions for both podcast teams and network teams, itâs even easier to give each of your team members the permissions they need.
Weâve removed the more granular approach of the previous permissions, and reduced that to four for both podcasts and networks:
Podcasts
Administrator
Producer
Publisher
View-Only
Networks
Network Admin
Network Manager
Network Publisher
View-Only
This new View-Only option is perfect for giving sponsors / potential partners access to view analytics for your show.
You can find more information about these updates on our Dashboard 2.5 blog post, and our help articles have also been updated with these changes.
We hope you enjoy these new updates and features - the team has worked hard on bringing those to you and we canât wait to see how you use them!
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
14th June 2024
Just a quick bug fix.
Bug fix
Fixed an issue where attempting to attach private YouTube videos to an episode would log you out of Captivate
Enjoy the update!
28th May 2024
Just a quick update this time around, but a nice one. đ
Feature improvements
Weâve upgraded the Import Podcast tool to pull in Podcasting 2.0 tags from your previous host, including your showâs Unique Identifier, Funding, Value for Value, and more. Currently chapters and transcripts arenât pulled in, but we will be looking at those as a separate, dedicated project.
Enjoy the update and improvement!
10th May 2024
Feature improvements
Improved AMIE performance when there are a lot of dynamic additions to current and older episodes.
Enabled "Use Public Feed Audio" button when offering ad-free versions of your episodes.
3rd May 2024
Feature improvement
Made the status of AMIE processing easier to understand with a processing message if AMIE hasnât completed processing yet. The episode will be published once processing is complete.
30th April 2024
Hot on the heels of our last upgrade to Captivate Sites, weâve added another cool feature for podcasters who also offer video! Thereâs also a quick update to the episode display order settings - so letâs jump in.
YouTube video embed on Captivate Sites
On your episode editing screen, youâll see a new option for embedding a YouTube video:
Simply drop the URL for any video you want to add to your episode show notes, and that video will now appear as a playable video on the episode page of your Captivate Site, just under the default audio player.
This works whether youâre on desktop or mobile. For an extra cool benefit, if youâre sharing your Captivate podcast player link, a little video icon will be displayed next to the volume icon, to advise thereâs a video option available. When you click that icon, you can then watch that video directly on YouTube.
Not only that, but weâre using the podcast:alternateEnclosure tag from the Podcasting 2.0 initiative, which means the video will also integrate with podcast apps that support this feature, such as TrueFans.
And as an added bonus, weâll also show related videos from your channel on the Captivate podcast player - sweet! đ
Feature improvement
Weâve added a nice little feature to your Podcast Settings, where you can choose what order your episodes are displayed both in your RSS feed and your Captivate Show Player (the player with all your published episodes). Now you can have your newest episodes first on your RSS feed but oldest on your player, or vice versa - thanks to Captivate user Caroline PrĂŠvinaire for the suggestion!
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
23rd April 2024
We've added a fun little upgrade to Captivate Sites!
og:audio support is now built into Captivate, meaning that when your episode is shared, a native play button will appear directly within the sharing/receiving app where there is og:audio support.
As a bonus, if you have a show trailer and you share your top-level domain (e.g. inandaroundpodcasting.com rather than inandaroundpodcasting.com/episode/006), the play button will automatically link to playing your trailer!
Tip: this works really well in iMessage!
Note: this was already enabled on Captivate Player, so you're all set!
We also released a small update to AMIE to allow for more intelligent chapter support if we, the pesky humans, make a mistake.
18th April 2024
Weâre well into 2024 now, and the feature improvements and updates just keep on coming here at Captivate. Weâve got a great new update this time for our Podcast Player and Chapters tool, as well as the Sponsor Kit, so letâs jump in!
Feature improvements
The Captivate podcast player now supports clickable Chapters. Now, when someone uses the Captivate player on the free Captivate Site, embedded on your own website, via Captivate Sync, or directly on X (previously Twitter), your chapters will be displayed, including any artwork and hyperlinks you use.
Speaking of chapter artwork, weâve improved the way images are supported and displayed on the Captivate podcast player.
Weâve also added the ability to open any URL you include on your chapters, with a fully clickable hyperlink displayed on the Captivate podcast player.
Weâve added a neat little feature where you can click on the progress bar on the podcast player, and hold and drag the bar to a specific playback section.
Weâve updated the Sponsor Kit so you can now have a public display page to send to potential sponsors. This replaces the PDF version previously used.
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
3rd April 2024
April is here, spring is here, and some more updates and fixes for our lovely podcasters!
Feature improvements and updates
Analytics Performance Improvements. Weâve tweaked the analytics ingestion process to manage the data display during server refreshes
Reworked the Network Analytics and improved performance
Removed Google Podcasts from Distribution, Captivate Sites, and Podcast Player
Removed Voxalyze third-party tracking prefix
Renamed Podsights prefix to Spotify Ad Analytics, and added support for their new prefix
Improved wording around episode publish status to be clearer on each option
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug that could result in AMIE files failing to process
Fixed Edit Show and Edit Network forms to trim spaces in the descriptions
Fixed a bug where switching podcasts via the search bar didnât always update to that showâs analytics
Fixed a bug where the Preview Player on the episode editing screen would intermittently not play depending on browser location
Enjoy the updates and fixes!
21st March 2024
Just a quick feature update and a bug fix this time around.
Feature improvements
Update to Chapters and artwork/images
Bug fix
If using the search bar for the Network feed drop option, in some instances it was possible to accidentally check the wrong show while searching. This has been resolved.
Enjoy the updates!
2nd February 2024
Just a couple of quick updates, and a bug fix.
Updates
Removed Radio Public (closing down) and TuneIn (theyâre revamping how podcasts are submitted and have paused new submissions) from the Distribution section
Bug fix
In some instances, when using Chapters and AMIE together, AMIE could be removed if you added your first Chapter after AMIE had fully processed. This has been resolved.
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
26th January 2024
Well now, almost the end of January already - seems like only yesterday we were sipping on some egg nog! Time for some more updates, quick feature improvements, and bug fixes.
Feature improvements
Weâve added a âYou have unsaved changesâ banner to key pages on your dashboard, ensuring you save any important changes to your work
Updated the wording of the email sent to owners of a podcast when a Member cancels their premium subscription
Typo updates to the Captivate podcast player settings
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug that prevented updating profile pictures on your My Account page
Fixed a bug where Captivate Sync, our WordPress plugin, might remove Chapters from your episode when making updates via Sync
Small styling fix to AMIE
Small styling fix for checkboxes in the Episode Idea list
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
8th January 2024
Happy New Year, you lovely podcasters! Weâve got some great features coming up in 2024, but in the meantime here are some quick feature improvements and bug fixes.
Feature improvements
Episodes page will periodically refresh, enabling you to see AMIE and episode status without needing to refresh the page
Adjusted team permissions for editing external URLs
Updated error message on social images generation to be clearer on what the error is
Bug fixes
Fix to AMIE when replacing the media on a specific slot
Style fix to episodes list
Styling fix to Bulk Editor on AMIE
Fixed Playlist Player not changing the artwork when playing a new episode
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
14th December 2023
Itâs almost the end of the year, but weâve got one final feature release before we wind down for the holidays - and this one is a real superstar! Weâve also made some tweaks to existing features, as well as fixed some pesky little bugs. Letâs dig in!
Comprehensively import and graph your download analytics when moving from another host to Captivate
Previously, if you moved from one podcast host to another, you were unable to move your analytics with you, since thereâs no industry standard for moving analytics between hosts, and with the few hosts that do allow you to bring analytics in, youâre only able to enter a simple number.
Our new Analytics Importer changes the game for podcasters like you and makes it super easy to import your podcast analytics from any host that provides you with CSV file exports.
This allows you to access your full historical analytics from within the Captivate dashboard, including podcast app and listener location, episode data, country, and date range, letting you see your showâs growth from your entire podcasting history - not just from the date of your import to Captivate.
Once imported, youâll be able to see those analytics in a brand new Legacy Analytics tab, viewable as comprehensive, interactive graphs.
Having access to the complete history of your analytics means you can now give potential sponsors and advertisers the complete picture of your podcastâs audience, from your very first episode.
This kind of data import is an industry-first when it comes to depth, intuitiveness and flexibility, and weâre delighted to continue to help podcasters like you to make the best choices for your showâs growth!
5th December 2023
Just a super quick, but very cool, update today - Captivate now supports Delegated Delivery for Apple Podcasts Subscriptions!
One of the many ways podcasters can monetize is through premium content and memberships, whether at host-level with Captivate or via podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts and their Delegated Delivery feature.
If youâre using Apple Podcasts Subscriptions to offer premium subscribers on Apple Podcasts exclusive content, Delegated Delivery means you can create that content in Captivate and publish it straight to Apple Podcasts, and just for those paying subscribers!
Find out more with our help articles:
CHow to Connect Your Captivate Account to Apple Podcasts Delegated Delivery
How to Publish Member-Only Content to Apple Podcasts Subscription Members.
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
28th November 2023
The end of the year is coming up fast, but thatâs not stopping us releasing cool new features to enhance your podcast. Weâve also made some tweaks to existing features, as well as fixed some pesky little bugs. Letâs dig in!
Chapters for your podcast episodes
One of the best ways to make your podcast episodes more interactive is to use Chapters. This allows you to upload an image, a call to action/sentence, and an external hyperlink, all from your Captivate dashboard. As youâd expect, Captivate makes it super easy to add Chapters to your podcast episodes to enhance the listener experience!
Choose to use an image to make the Chapter stand out more, or just a sentence for listeners to jump to that section, and whether to include a link or not. And when you use Chapters alongside AMIE, it makes your sponsor messages pop, and easy to directly link to!
Chapters from Captivate fully supports Podcast 2.0 integration as well as the podcast apps that support Chapters, and is available now from your episode editing screen - check out our help article and start adding Chapters to your show!
Feature improvements
Reworked the waveform editor for AMIE
Sped up the loading time for the waveform editor
Made scheduling remember the preset youâd used (i.e., 24 hours in advance)
Visual update for the artwork uploader
Improved error messages to be clearer and more helpful for specific issues
Removed non-standard timezones that caused some analytics to display â0â
Updated the Deezer logo
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug where reordering multiple AMIE files may not save in the correct order
Fixed where scheduling early access for Membership tiers didnât always use your showâs timezone
Fixed artwork uploader for guest bookings
Fixed an issue where specific types of transcripts were causing errors
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
8th November 2023
To continue to bring the best experience to our Captivate podcasters, weâve migrated from StackPath CDN to Akamai CDN. This change will bring a number of new benefits such as faster load times across your dashboard, and your embedded Captivate podcast player.
It also offers better tools for Captivate to work with in the future to offer newer features to you, the Captivate podcaster.
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
4th September 2023
Weâve been busy behind the scenes already this month to bring you some nice little feature improvements and minor bug fixes.
Feature improvements
Now you can delete guests if they have only cancelled bookings
Updated our transcript srt file parser - now youâll be advised if thereâs an issue with the transcript formatting on the srt file
When inserting links into your show notes, weâll automatically add an https:// prefix to ensure proper linking format across podcast players and apps
The Tagged Ad Content editor table headers are now sortable
The Episode Idea list now updates after you delete an Episode Idea
Added a search bar to the Guest section under Guest Booking
Guests can now be sorted by full name in the Guest section
If you have a Private Podcast and were trying to add subscribers that were already subscribed, the error message may not have been clear previously as to what the issue was. Weâve improved the messaging to make it easier to identify.
Bug fixes
Fixed an issue with Network Feeds that might cause issues when submitting to Apple Podcasts
Previously, if you had duplicate podcast app links on your Marketing Links section, you were unable to delete the duplicate. This has been fixed.
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
17th August 2023
Just a quick update this time, with some additional security features, a dashboard update, and a bug fix.
Dashboard updates:
Added a Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) section inside the log-in area
With Stitcher closing down this month, weâve removed it from the Distribution section as well as the Captivate podcast player and Link Analysis section
Bug fixes
Resolved an issue where certain types of YouTube URLs could cause conflicts with Membership pages
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
14th August 2023
Just a quick update this time, with some nice little bug fixes.
Updated the analytics to make Cumulative Totals and Unique Listener data easier to analyze based on the date when the report was created
Updated Guest Booking to warn users if a date in the past, or current date, is being used to block dates
When creating a new show, weâve updated the Network feature to only display if you have a Network already enabled
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
9th August 2023
Hello there. Today we released a couple of security updates:
Phase one of multi-factor authentication for signup and login. Phase two will roll out over the next two weeks.
Updated payout approval processes for earnings withdrawls to your bank account.
As you were, podcaster!
2nd August 2023
Updates to Listener Behaviour Chart:
Updated the clickable legend to include more obvious click areas and the display of total figures
Fixes to percentages
25th July 2023
Already halfway through the year - time is flying by! Time for another quick but cool release for all Captivate podcasters!
Unique Listeners on Analytics Listener Behaviour Report
Adding to the already awesome analytics data we provide you, weâve added Unique Listener data to the Listener Behaviour report. Now you can see how many Unique Listeners you have alongside your Downloads for each reporting period. You can also view Unique Listeners in your individual episode analytics report - sweet!
Simply hover over the charts with your mouse to see the breakdown.
Weâve also released some various bug fixes to continue to improve your experience. Enjoy the updates, and thanks for being a Captivate podcaster!
19th July 2023
Various bug fixes
4th July 2023
Happy 4th of July to our American friends! While you hopefully enjoy some nice downtime, we have a quick update to our Episodes section for all our lovely Captivate podcasters!
New icons for AMIE
Weâve changed up the AMIE icons on the Episodes list section. Now, instead of a separate column, youâll see a little AMIE icon included on the Published Status badge.
Drop down to show where AMIE file is in use
To make it even easier to see where you have ads/AMIE content in your episodes, you can toggle the drop down icon for either all episodes, or individual episodes. This will show you the type of content (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll), how many slots are in use, and the timestamp where itâs inserted if itâs a mid-roll.
Clickable episode titles to make editing access easier
All episode titles in the Episodes list section are now clickable, and will take you to the episode editing screen for fast and easy editing options.
Enjoy the updates, and thanks for being a Captivate podcaster!
30th June 2023
Just a quick update here!
Added support for Voxalyze tracking prefix
Fixed a minor bug on Network Sites colour optimization options
28th June 2023
Summer is here, nice weather is here, but that doesnât mean we have to take a break from podcasting - far from it! Which is why we have some awesome updates and quick bug fixes for you lovely Captivate podcasters!
Monetization Updates
We recently brought Memberships and Tips to all of our users on every plan, giving you even more ways to monetize your show and let your loyal listeners and fans financially support your show.
Today, we released three upgrades to our Memberships platform that continues to cement it as the most powerful option for gaining listener support for your podcasts.
Free trials on Memberships
While our Memberships feature is a great way to offer exclusive perks for monthly fees, sometimes listeners arenât quite ready to make the jump. Or, you might want to offer seasonal special offers. Weâve made that easier to do by adding the option of giving each of your Membership tiers a free trial.
You can choose the amount of time you offer a free trial, after which the paid Membership will begin. Itâs a simple way to let listeners see for themselves what benefits they get when supporting with a full Membership.
âTimed Exclusiveâ - Make an episode Exclusive after a certain date
Automatically make any of your public podcast episodes Exclusive after a certain date. This is perfect for building up your library for premium members on your top tier Membership, whoâll be the only ones able to access your earlier episodes or bonus content. Itâs a great lead generator for listeners to upgrade their Memberships.
Additional customization options for Membership Page
Configure how tiers with availability limits appear on your sign up page
Display number of membership slots available.
Show sold out memberships on sign up page
Add images to Membership tiers
Make your Membership tiers pop, with the ability to add hero images to each tier. This can be customized to showcase highlights, your brand colours/design, etc, and can help separate each tier to make it easier for listeners to choose which tier they want to support.
Extra customization options on Captivate Sites
Our free Captivate Site that comes with every podcast hosted with us already has some great customization options, to help you make it look just how you want it. Now weâve added even more customization tools, with additional colour control over the Listen For Free and About sections. Previously Captivate would auto-populate the colours based on your show artwork - now you can have full control over how these sections look.
UI improvements
Added Monetization routes to Omni Search bar for additional access
Usability improvement to Research Links with helper text advising how to use in show notes
Design clean-ups to dashboard and sites
Bug fixes
Fixed private podcast listener counts not showing up on single subscriber analytics
Enjoy these awesome updates, and thanks for being a Captivate podcaster!
19th May 2023
Just a quick update with some nice little bug fixes.
Updated the footer display on the Tips and Memberships page for mobile browsers
Fixed an issue where the Tips currency on Captivate Sites would default to the show currency, now it displays based on the tipperâs location (USD, EUR, GBP)
Tweaked the Share to Twitter option in your Tips dashboard on Captivate to include more info on the tip
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
17th May 2023
As we roll out of spring and into summer, the weather is heating up - and so are things at Captivate with this red hot new product release for all Captivate podcasters. No time to waste - letâs check out the awesomeness!
Memberships and Tips
Captivate has always been about providing you, the serious independent podcaster, the tools to save you time, grow your show, and monetize your podcast. With our new Memberships and Tips options, itâs never been easier to allow your most ardent fans to support you and your show.
Whether itâs a recurring monthly payment with Memberships, or a one-off donation through Tips, now you can generate ongoing earnings for doing the thing you love!
Memberships
This powerful option lets you create multiple tiers for your supporters, and offer them exclusive benefits for their monthly support:
exclusive episodes
early access
merch
live stream or meet-up invitations
Not only that, but you can limit the amount of supporters for each tier, which then opens up even more possibilities:
mid-roll sponsor with limited slots
pre-roll or post-roll sponsor with limited slots
Not only can listeners support your show, but now potential sponsors can lock in their ads straight from your public supporters page! Create as many tiers as you want, and update at any time - sweet!
Tips
While Memberships are great for monthly support, your listeners might only be able to support you with a one-off payment, and weâve got you covered there too with our Tips feature. Set three default amounts, or let your listeners choose a custom amount they want to give you.
And if you use the free Captivate Site for your show, you can display these tips along with your custom call to action for visitors to support you.
You can easily create a public landing page to share with your listeners, your newsletter, and/or social media to make it easy for them to support.
Your Earnings page will give you an overview of your revenue for This Month, Last Month, and All-Time, so you know how youâre doing. And with our direct integration with Stripe, withdrawing your earnings straight to your bank is just a button click away!
Captivate Creator Suite
Captivate continues to lead the way when it comes to the tools we provide all podcasters from day one, to both save time and money. And our new Creator Suite showcases just how you can use these tools to bring a complete experience for your listeners, sponsors, and advertisers.
From episode planning and research, guest booking and management, dynamic ads and content, and memberships and tipping, Captivate has you covered with everything you need to launch and grow your show!
Check out the Captivate Creator Suite today!
UI improvements
New episode publishing and editing screen
Deprecated the Optional Summary field on the episode editing screen
Enjoy these awesome new features, and we canât wait to see you using your Membership and Tips!
21st March 2023
March is almost over, and Spring is finally here! And with the new season comes some quick and minor bug fixes and UI improvements.
Previously, some team members werenât able to bypass the welcome message when signing up. This has been resolved.
Hide/unhide email under Podcast Settings has a small tweak where you can now manually hide the email again after unhiding it.
Changing your show title or artwork will automatically change the wording of your show for the image on your shared social media posts.
A small display update to the analytics tooltip when hovering over a date, to better reflect the amount of downloads for that period.
8th March 2023
Well look at that, itâs March already - 2023 sure is marching on! And with that, weâve got a pretty big release for you, along with some quick and minor bug fixes and UI improvements.
RSS feed Enhancements, powered by Podcasting 2.0
An initiative to make podcast RSS feeds more interactive, Podcasting 2.0 brings awesome new features to your podcast. With this update, Captivate is supporting a host of these features (known as âtagsâ) to offer powerful RSS feed enhancements for your show.
Podcast Unique Identifier, letting you generate shareable QR codes for your podcast
Locked, allowing you to lock from show to prevent erroneous exports to other hosts
Podcast Custom Text, great for adding custom text to your feed for owner verification purposes and more
Podcast Funding, letting you add donation links directly to your RSS feed
Podcast Location, letting you identify any specific geo-location for your podcast
Podcast License, enabling you to choose the type of license associated with your show, and how much can be used/reused
Podcast Medium, perfect for identifying the type of content in your feed (the default is podcast)
Value for Value, where listeners can support you financially through SATS (satoshi) via podcast apps that support these micropayments
Check out our help articles to get the full lowdown on these new feed enhancements!
Improved Pre/Post Roll bulk editor
Weâve improved the layout of the Pre/Post Roll bulk editor. Previously these two actions were on the same tab - now, changing pre/post rolls is on a separate tab from removing pre/post rolls. This helps avoid any confusion, and makes it even simpler to make changes to your episode pre and post rolls.
Clearer upload process bar on media file uploads
Weâve added a nifty little animation on the file upload progress bar, that will show you how much of the file conversion is left. This is great for any m4a/mp4 video files that need converting to mp3, or larger audio files that need longer processing.
Improved mobile view for AMIE
Weâve improved the display when using AMIE on mobile, to make the bulk editor and AMIE usage on episode pages more responsive. This greatly improves the ability to add/change/remove AMIE files on the go.
Added support for Network Level Feeds
You asked for it, weâre providing it! Now you can create a network level feed for all the podcasts in your network, and use that to distribute your network to podcast apps, platforms, and more - sweet!
Team member search improvements
Find team members more easily with the new search option in both the single podcast team member list, and the network team member list.
Update to the Episode Planning feature
One of our more popular features, episode planning is perfect for visualizing the flow of upcoming episodes. To make this even more focused, weâve removed the episode summary option, and added new production notes and episode details instead. This makes the planning feature solely focused on each episode, tightening up your workflow to save you even more time.
Bug fixes and UI improvements
Guest booking URLs in show notes on the Captivate podcast player should correctly open in a new browser tab
Added Global Player to the marketing and single promotional links
New styling for table buttons (on Episode list page)
Minor visual update to uploading/inserting AMIE files
Expandable writing area on episode planning
Visual WYSIWYG editing option on all editors for Episode Planning sections
Weâd also like to give a big shout out to to Glenn the Geek for his help on this!
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
6th February 2023
Well look at that - itâs February already! Where did January go? Ah well - new month, new updates, as well as some nice little bug fixes.
Playlist Player formatting
In some instances, the Playlist Player would cut off at the bottom of the embedded player. Now the full player will show, including the first episode on the player.
Improved auto-redirect when changing RSS feed
Previously, if you changed your RSS feed to a different URL (rebranding your show, for example), sometimes the old feed wouldnât auto-redirect to your new feed address. This has been resolved and your old feed will automatically redirect to the new one.
Default publish time for your podcast
You can now leave the default publish time for your show blank under Podcast Settings, instead of needing to have one set. This lets you publish your podcast immediately, as opposed to the default time in the previous setting.
Automatic Unhide Email when using the Distribution feature
In our last release, we added a new default where we hide your email address from your public RSS feed, to protect your privacy. However, for podcast apps that still require emails, this could cause an issue when submitting a new show for approval.
So now when you have a new podcast and you want to submit your show to appear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc., weâll automatically unhide your email for 24 hours to enable you to complete the submission process.
Improved mobile view for episode sharing
Weâve improved the display for your episode-sharing options to include the full HTML embed code option, as well as some small visual tweaks.
Podcast settings visual updates
To make things flow more naturally, weâve restyled some elements including the copyright override section and where your author name and email sits.
Bug fixes
Updated the link for Podcast Websites in Growth Labs
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
16th January 2023
Just a quick update this time, but its a good one! Plus some nice little bug fixes.
Hide your email address from your RSS feed
Ever get an email from a company youâve never heard of asking you to claim your podcast on their platform? Thatâs usually done by scraping your public RSS feed to get your email address - naughty!
So we now hide your email by default. You can unhide for 24 hours, useful if you need to confirm your podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.
You can find this new feature under your Podcast Settings.
Bug fixes
Improved the adding and removing team member section
Updated the resetting and changing password section
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
4th January 2023
Happy New Year, Captivators! It may be the start of the year, but weâre already up and running with some nice, quick improvements for you - letâs jump in!
Analytics improvements
Following on from our last round of improvements to make our analytics nice and easy to read, weâve simplified them even more. Now, when you look at the reporting date range, itâs from the exact day and time youâre currently in (based on your podcast settings) to the same time for the date range youâve chosen.
So, if you check analytics at 10.00am, the report will start at 10.00am on your chosen start day. On top of that, the Last 28 Days report now includes today - sweet!
RSS feed auto-redirects
Previously, if you changed your showâs RSS feed to a new one (new name, rebrand, etc), in some instances it wouldnât auto-redirect the old feed to the new one. Weâve fixed that, and your new feed will be the default.
Collections are now Playlists
To be more user-friendly and follow along with industry naming practices, weâve changed our Collections feature to be Playlists instead. Still the same great feature, but now a nice, simple name everyone will understand! You can find the new Playlists feature under the Content Management section in your dashboard. Thanks, Glenn!
Improvements to Playlist RSS feeds
We tidied up the RSS feeds for Playlists, making them super easy to manage.
Enjoy the updates and improvements, and hereâs to another excellent year in podcasting!
19th December 2022
Weâve got some nice updates for you with this time around, to give you some sweet features and tools in this final release before the holidays!
Analytics improvements
Weâve made it even easier to understand your analytics. Now, tracking will be from midnight to midnight for the podcastâs timezone (this is under Podcast Settings). So, if your show is in the Eastern US time-zone, tracking will be from midnight to midnight Eastern US.
Captivate Sites improvements
Linking your own custom domain name to Captivate Sites is now easier than ever, with an entirely new, guided area to help you to connect your domain and activate your free SSL certificate. If youâre on currently using an older version of custom domain settings within Captivate, your dashboard will even prompt you to update to the new version. Fancy.
Import show warning update
Previously, the error message on imports from another host may not have been as clear as it couldâve been. Now, weâll advise what the specific issue might be so you can double check (and our support team is always around to help, too).
New resources in Growth Labs
Weâve also added to our Recommended Resources section in Growth Labs, to offer even more choices and great offers for every Captivate podcaster!
Boomcaster - remote recording and live streaming platform. Get a 30-day trial and 20% off your first three months as a Captivate user.
Janet Murray - content planning webinar workshop replay.
New tracking prefix support
To complement our analytics update, weâve added three new tracking prefixes for you to use!
Podder
Podkite
Magellan
These are perfect for additional audience data you can offer sponsors or advertisers, as well as seeing where your podcast charts globally, and more.
Enjoy the updates and improvements, and happy holidays!
28th November 2022
Weâve got a bunch of quick updates and bug fixes this time around, to help make your Captivate podcasting just that little bit easier!
Show Import Improvements
When you import a show to Captivate from another host, now weâll show you the progress on your dashboard to let you see the amount being imported as they are moved over to us.
Media upload fix
Previously, there could be an issue for some users where they were unable to upload a PDF. This has been resolved.
Audio file upload improvements and speed updates
Weâve changed the progress bar on file uploads, and increased the speed of upload and conversion (from m4a/mp4 to mp3 files), so now uploads should be smooth and fast! This includes matching AMIE audio to episode audio bitrates.
Attribution Link tracking
In some cases, Attribution Links werenât being displayed. This has been fixed and your Attribution Links will now show the relevant link analytics.
Attribution Link checking for redirection links
There were some instances when an Attribution Link couldnât be created, down to reserved top-level links saved for Captivate use. Captivate now checks for this to advise you if this is the case.
Minor artwork issues with Apple Podcasts
For some shows, Apple Podcasts would download show artwork as opposed to viewing it, which could cause display issues. This has been resolved.
Enjoy the updates and improvements!
9th November 2022
Weâve got a great release this time around that benefit all existing Captivate users and new ones, as well as some updates to make your life as a podcaster easier!
Massive Increase in Monthly Downloads Included in Each Pricing Plan
As a tech company in an industry that gives people the chance to share their voices, we believe that itâs important that we do what we can to help you to grow your audience without being fearful of hitting any prohibitive limits.
Money is a worry for all creators right now so weâre doing something to try to help. Today, weâre vastly increasing the download limits with each of our plans.
Personal tier â downloads increase from 12,000 per month to 30,000 per month.
Professional tier â downloads increase from 60,000 to 150,000 per month.
Business tier â downloads increase from 150,000 to 300,000 per month.
Captivate podcasters will be automatically given these new limits as of today, no action is needed and your pricing will not change. And these increases are forever. đ
Itâs our way of helping you, the serious indie podcaster, create great content without worrying about your monthly download costs.
New Media Upload Process
Weâve made a slight tweak to the media upload process when creating a new episode.
Now when you click Publish Episode, youâll see four options to choose from:
the usual drag-and-drop upload box/browse files link
add media from the Last Upload (for the most recent file uploaded)
add media from your Content Library
Import from Descript
Itâs a small tweak to our upload process, but one that should save you time and help your workflow!
Support for the Goodpods Badge
Goodpods is a podcast app that looks to help indie podcasters connect with other podcasters and listeners to grow their show, and weâve just added support for the Goodpods badge to make this easy for you.
All you need is your Apple Podcasts link added to your Directory Links section, and weâll automatically connect your Goodpods link for you, since they pull from Appleâs API. This means that you can now add Goodpods as a listening option on your Single Promo Link, Captivate Site, and Captivate podcast player.
Weâve also added a couple of UI updates for you, too!
Episode numbers now tell you what number your previous episode was during the publishing process
Weâve made it easier to show which episode/audio file has been deleted in the Content Library
Enjoy the new updates!
3rd October 2022
A little upgrade to add support for the Gumball and OP3 RSS prefixes.
28th September 2022
We just published a quick update to our dashboard to make managing your podcast settings even easier. Now when you log in, underneath your Podcast Settings section youâll be able to control:
Podcast Settings: choose how your podcast is displayed on your RSS feed and public podcast apps
AMIE & Dax settings: set up to three default pre-roll and post-roll dynamic content slots
Research & Planning: choose whether to hide or display previously used research links, and whether your show notes display a custom header for any research links used in your show notes
Thanks to our users who offered feedback on this in the previous update!
21st September 2022
AMIE 2.0 is here! AMIE is Captivateâs flagship dynamic content management & insertion engine that brings professional-level podcasting tools to the serious independent creator.
Available in your Captivate dashboard right now, AMIE 2.0 brings:
Dynamic content slot management, making it easy to manage content slots with multiple pieces of content within them.
Select up to 3 dynamic content pieces to insert into each dynamic slot - available for pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, and within the baked-in ad painter.
Simple drag & drop functionality for your dynamic content placement.
Insert dynamic content even more granularly at specific timestamps thanks to the new timestamp placement option (thanks Ian Anderson-Gray!).
Set up to 3 default pre-roll and post-roll content pieces.
Add tags to your content for easy replacement & campaign management.
Weâve also added the following options:
A dedicated Captivate Settings section within the dashboard navigation where you can set your default pre-roll and post-roll content, as well as manage your Research & Planning settings. This area will expand as Captivate continues to add new features & upgrade current ones.
Initial background integration with Globalâs DAX advertising platform for production-ready testing on select shows
Weâve produced a lot of content about AMIE and dynamic content & ad insertion on the Captivate YouTube channel and have created a range of articles to help you with these new features.
If you need a hand with anything, let us know in support!
26th July 2022
This release affects guest booking and private podcasts whilst also fixing some edge case filename bugs and updating some bits behind the scenes, too.
Private subscriber emails have been rebuilt to be compatible with more email clients and to be easier to use for new listeners
Private subscriber settings are now below the subscriber table
Podcasters using Captivate's integrated guest booking & interview management can now enable/disable pronoun settings
Guest & interview booking e-mails to the host podcaster indicate pronoun details where relevant
Filenames that contain accented characters will now be converted to use non-accented characters and any "bad characters" (e.g. emojis) will be handled gracefully
Deleted Episodes will not be viewable in the player, fixing a sporadic bug that presented in certain circumstances
We made some tweaks to how the sign-up and billing processes work behind-the-scenes
June 27th 2022
We just published an update to our onboarding process to make recording local tax information even easier.
Weâve made our onboarding process even more robust to ensure that all Captivate podcasters are fully compliant with their local tax laws. Itâs a small but useful update that is super simple and takes a few seconds to complete - any podcasters who havenât submitted their location information whilst using Captivate will be asked to do so upon logging in and podcast as usual once the relevant information is entered.
June 14th 2022
Weâve got a really nice new feature integration with Descript to make your workflow smoother.
Edit published episodes on Captivate with Descriptâs new edit feature
If youâre a Descript user you can now edit an episode file and transcript at any time after itâs been published, all from within the Captivate dashboard, saving you time that you can then use to create more content!
Now, instead of having to make the edits externally then re-upload to your episode, itâs all done seamlessly between Captivate and Descript.
Best of all, it can be done with just a few clicks, and your changes are live on your RSS feed immediately, and public podcast apps within 24 hours!
Learn more with our full walkthrough.
May 26th 2022
Weâve got some super useful updates for you this time around, and weâve also squished some little bugs to make your workflow smoother:
Research & Planning Settings section
Weâve added a new Settings option to the Research & Planning section. Here, you can choose whether to hide or show Research Links that have already been added to your ideas or episodes by default.
You can also set a Custom Show Notes Header, so you can decide what text is shown before any Research Links are displayed in your show notes.
Conditional Shortcodes
Making your workflow even quicker, weâve added Conditional Shortcodes to our Dynamic Show Notes Builder. These allow you to set rules based on the type of episode youâre publishing, and whether that episode has a guest or not. Now, instead of having to add these on a per episode basis, you can set up a default template with these rules in place, and weâll do the rest. Check out our full guide for details!
Boomplay integration
Boomplay is a music and video streaming & download service with a vision to build the largest and most reliable digital music ecosystem for artistes and content creators in Africa. Add your podcast to Boomplay with just one click!
Bug fixes
Playlist player displays the correct download audio section when switching episodes
Default post-roll is added when saving draft episodes
May 9th 2022
As part of our continuous tweaks and improvements to Captivate, weâve got some updates for you. Weâve also squished some little bugs and improved some back end processes to make your workflow smoother:
AMIE waveform fix
When adding AMIE to your episode, weâve updated the behaviour of the waveform so that AMIE uses your default settings if the waveform hasnât loaded yet.
Collections
Removed the âCreate your first Collectionâ text if you already have an existing Collection. Updated the helper text for the Copy button.
Team member invites to Networks
In some instances, team member invites to Networks wouldnât process where there were special characters in the email address, weâve now added support for this.
Switching between shows
If you have multiple podcasts and you quickly switched between shows, sometimes your show data could take a bit of time to update. Weâve added a fix to remove this display issue.
6th April 2022
As part of our continuous tweaks and improvements to the accuracy and reliability of how we display your analytics, weâve got some updates for you there. Weâve also squished some little bugs and improved some back end processes to make your workflow smoother:
Month to Month analytics
The Rolling 12 Months chart name has changed to Month to Month. This now includes the last 12 months as well as the current month to date. This is perfect for tracking how your podcast is doing in the current month, as well as how your podcast has grown Year on Year when comparing the current month to the previous year.
The current month is highlighted in blue, with the downloads so far in blue text above the chart, making it super easy to identify and separate from the previous 12 months.
We also fixed a sporadic bug: because of how different locations can display different timezones during daylight savings changes, this led to some data showing for the previous day.
Weâve identified the issue and improved how timezone differences are managed. Now, the Month to Month chart will display data reliably based in the timezone set in your show/network settings. This is for both individual podcast analytics and Network analytics.
Timezone for first 24 hours analytics for episodes
The different timezones could also affect the data that was being pulled for the first 24 hours of publishing new episodes, where the time range difference could be as much as 4 hours. Weâve implemented a fix where the reporting will recognize DST differences to reflect a more accurate display for this period.
Research Links meta title
In some instances, the meta title of the page wouldnât be pulled over to the Research Link title box. We now pull more HTML from pages visited to find the title and add to the title box.
23rd March 2022
World-class podcasters know that research & planning is a vital part of creating the very best podcast possible - a podcast that listeners will gravitate to and share - but the work required for a busy independent podcaster like you to plan & research and produce outstanding episodes can feel insurmountable.
Research & planning is often left to the last minute or done poorly, leading to rushed episodes and subpar content.
Captivateâs free and built-in episode planning, research links and recording notes tools can be used on any device to make researching and planning your podcast episodes quick and simple.
The ability to convert your ideas to published episodes, means that you can even take advantage of Captivateâs automated dynamic show notes builder and add guests booked via Captivateâs free guest booking & interview management platform to save yourself hours every single time you produce a new episode!
Simply create your episode ideas within Captivate, add research links from around the web using the free Chrome extension or manual entry, add guests and your own notes and your podcasting workflow is cut down to a fraction of what it previously was, all whilst making sure that your episodes have high-quality, in-depth show notes that make use of shortcodes to automatically include your links and planning content in your podcastâs RSS feed and podcast listening apps.
Producing a growth-ready podcast has never been easier than with www.captivate.fm!
Download the free Chrome extension, now.
3rd February 2022
Writing high-quality show notes is a vital part of a successful podcast but is often overlooked because, honestly, itâs a pretty cumbersome task.
Captivateâs Dynamic Show Notes Builder does the heavy lifting for you by allowing you to build unlimited Show Notes Templates and set specific Templates as default for the podcast episodes that you publish.
Your show notes become dynamic when you use Captivateâs advanced âBlocksâ and âShortcodesâ to enhance your show notes by adding content that can be updated in one place and that, when changed, will then be updated in every single episode within which that content appears.
Blocks are reusable chunks of content that can be utilised in several Templates at a time and Shortcodes are single pieces of data that are either included from your Captivate dashboard, such as your single promotional link, information on the guests that have been interviewed on your podcast using Captivateâs guest booking & interview management system, tip or donation links and your measurable attribution links plus any custom Shortcodes that you may have added to your Captivate dashboard such as custom hiatus messages or privacy messages.
As Captivate continues to focus on helping the serious independent podcaster to grow and monetise their influence, more Shortcodes are frequently added.
AMIE, Captivateâs Audio Monetisation & Integration Engine, works in a very special, highly useful way with the dynamic podcast Show Notes Builder.
When uploading your own dynamic content for use in your episode pre-roll, post-roll or mid-roll, you can also include a text title, some free text and associate one of your Captivate attribution links to the piece of audio so that, when you dynamically insert the audio using AMIE, Captivate automatically includes the label, text and measurable attribution link in your show notes.
Captivate will do this for every piece of dynamically inserted audio and will measure the traffic and clicks via each associated attribution link.
If you remove (individually or in bulk) audio from your episodes using AMIE, the show notes will dynamically update for each episode affected.
Welcome to dynamic show notes, brought to you by Captivate.
Plus! Single promotional link design upgrade...
We've spent a little time upgrading the design of your Captivate single promotional link. It still works the same way and looks amazing on every device, but it's just been spruced up a little in keeping with 2022 design styles. Gaz loves it.
16th November 2021
The road to AMIE draws to an exciting conclusion!
Captivate has been pioneering technology, education & community that helps serious independent podcast creators to grow their audience since its launch.
Hot on the heels of the new guest booking, network and cross-promotional features comes the highly-anticipated release of AMIE (Audio Monetization & Integration Engine), Captivate's dynamic ad insertion and content platform that is set to bring professional, world-class dynamic podcasting tools to the serious everyday audio creator.
Today's release is the first of a three-module roll-out that brings dynamic ad partner integration and monetization options with module two and a diverse range of creator-first monetization opportunities with module three.
Module one, available in your Captivate dashboard right now, brings total dynamic content insertion to your podcasts with the following range of world-class features:
Pre-roll, post-roll and mid-roll (in-content) dynamic content insertion
Bulk content and ad insertion across your entire episode inventory
World-first "Ad Painter" technology: select your baked-in ad regions and replace them with dynamic content, in bulk or episode-by-episode!
Intuitive waveform ad manager
Simple dynamic content management
A new, unified content library
The system allows podcast creators to manage their own internal cross-promotion and self-sourced advertisements by integrating them dynamically into pre-roll, post-roll and mid-roll (âin-contentâ) slots and is free to all Captivate users.
We have produced a lot of content about AMIE and dynamic content & ad insertion on the Captivate YouTube channel and have created a range of articles to help you to get started.
14 October 2021
We have plenty of small, important tweaks to Captivate this week. Hereâs whatâs fixed, new or improved:
You can now order network team members on your network website to suit your preferences. Edit and customise your network team permissions via the dashboard.
If you had already distributed your podcast to the podcast directories before joining Captivate, filling in your My Links section will automatically update the Distribute section to reflect this. Make sure you have submitted to all the podcast directories available to give your podcast maximum exposure!
Following our huge release of the Captivate v2 embeddable podcast player weâve squished some tiny bugs to improve performance and keep everything running smoothly. Check out all the great new features of the embeddable podcast plater here.
Remember, you can suggest new features by using the Feature Request button at the bottom of your Captivate dashboard. đ
30 September 2021 - Happy International Podcast Day!
We have a mammoth release for you today as a surprise from us to celebrate International Podcast Day.
Free guest booking and interview management software for ALL Captivate podcasters!
That's right, in our quest to save you time and money so that you have more of both to grow your audience, we built a fully featured and integrated guest booking and management platform for you to use right now.
It's our job to help you to grow and we do that by either releasing features that proactively help your audience growth & monetisation or by building things that will save podcasters like you time or money by reducing friction, integrating directly with your podcasting workflow and one-by-one removing the need for $10 here, $10 there on extra software.
If we hit all three of these marks with Captivate, you have the tools that you need to grow and profit plus extra time and extra money to invest in your podcast marketing.
That's the Captivate mission.
The system is a fully rounded system for booking & managing guests and interviews.
Fully customisable public booking page for your guests to choose their interview time and submit the information that you require
Guest booking process for you, the podcast host, to proactively book or re-book guests
Complete timezone support for you and your guests
Complete guest management
Built-in reschedule and cancellation processes for both you and your guests
Fully granular availability control
Date blocking for specifically unavailable dates
Podcast creator availability overrides
Custom interview duration and hourly start schedules
Control over how far out guests can book
Custom domain support for your booking page
Custom booking page information & instructions for your guests
Custom interview information for your guests
Set default interview locations that can be overridden on individual bookings
Automated guest calendar files and Google integration
SquadCast direct integration at launch for automated remote recording scheduling (with more to come!)
This is a huge release, it really is and you did read it correctly - it's completely free!
We've created all of the help articles that you need, plus this YouTube overview to help you to get started.
Happy International Podcast day đ
29th September 2021
The Captivate Embeddable/Shareable Podcast Player V2 is Here!
When we first launched Captivate we built the Captivate embeddable & shareable podcast player for podcasters like you to use on your website, social media and to integrate with WordPress using Captivate Sync⢠and itâs done a great job on thousands of websites across the world.
We loved it when we launched, but itâs looking a little old now. Design trends change and your own functionality requirements change, too, as the podcasting industry develops.
Thatâs why this week, weâre retiring the original Captivate version 1 player and introducing a beautiful and wonderfully useful version 2!
There's a complete rundown of all of the features right here (plus a lot of demo players), and the headlines are:
Enhanced look and feel for the serious podcaster
Improved oEmbed support
Two new standard design themes
Fully customisable design
Built-in calls to action & transcript support
Shareable custom timestamps
Improved multi-device support
Live player preview within your dashboard
Highly granular, customisable settings
Completely screenreader accessible
We'd really like to thank the Captivate community, especially Nicolas Curri, for help making this player the very best it can be for every single user out there.
Do I need to do anything with my previous embed codes?
No, we did it for you!
One of the biggest concerns and pain in the derrières when realising that your podcast hosting platform is rolling out a new player is that you have lots of existing episodes embedded in places all across the web: your website, social media, partner websites - you get the picture, it could be a nightmare to replace them and other hosts have struggled with this in the past.
Because we podcast every day, too, we approached this aspect of the Captivate podcast player v2 build with thoughtfulness.
The new player (and the embed codes that you'll copy from Captivate) have changed from being 170px in height to 200px in height. This gives the player more room to breathe and modernises the feel of the experience.
But, you do not have to do anything to your old embeds/episodes - yasssss!
We've designed and built an automatically responsive version of the new player that recognises that it's in an older embed code with 170px height and that makes itself look perfect inside that container so that all of your old episode embeds
Look out for a very special (and big!) feature release tomorrow to celebrate International Podcast Day, too!
19th August 2021
What a HUGE release we have for you today!
Weâve found that more and more independent podcast creators are looking for scalable ways to keep listeners within their content ecosystem across multiple podcasts and, until now, there was no easy way for every serious podcaster at any level to do that.
Create Your Own Independent Podcast Network with Captivate
Start your own network or, as a production company or agency, run your client network from one place of reporting and cross-promotion.
A network is a series of podcasts grouped together within Captivate and whose performance can be collectively analysed using Captivateâs IAB Tech Lab v2 certified analytics.
Each network can create a no-code network-level website using either an auto-generated Captivate URL or a custom domain name and the network website is powered by the same simple, yet highly customisable engine that creates your individual show websites.
As a growing network, you can add your entire team using Captivateâs granular network-permissions system and credit each team member with the role(s) that they perform on each show using the built-in Podcast Taxonomy integration.
Hereâs a video of the entire feature set:
Using Captivateâs podcast network features empowers the serious independent podcast creator with more connected data, more cross-promotional opportunities and the option of creating one connected brand that spans multiple properties and content outlets.
As podcasters like you embrace their influence, Captivate innovates to support your growth & monetisation needs.
Introducing Cross-Promotional Feed Drops
Captivate has introduced a brand new, innovative feed drop feature that allows for simple yet powerful cross-promotion of podcasts within your network.
Available to all Captivate podcasters, feed drops allow you to publish episodes of one podcast to the feeds of other podcasts in your network, complete with custom title overrides, custom publish dates and optional episode expiration dates.
How or why would I use podcast network feed drops?
As a serious independent creator, itâs important to market your podcast(s) with as much strategy and measurable activity as possible.
As a creator with multiple podcasts, it has been hard, until today, to promote any number of your podcasts to the listeners of your other podcasts.
Some of the worldâs biggest podcast networks, including Wondery, âdropâ trailers or episodes of their new shows or shows that they think will appeal to listeners of other shows into the feeds of those shows.
As Captivate begins to rollout multiple, diverse monetisation options for the serious independent creator itâs important that you not only have the ability to monetise feed drops across the wider Captivate network (coming soon) but that you can benefit from them within your own network right away.
Feed drops are perfect for new podcast launches where you may want to share a trailer across every podcast within your network, for publishing snippets of audio from one show to the feed of another (maybe you have a kickass interview you want people listening to your other shows to know about) and for periodically making people aware that your other shows exist for listeners to enjoy when theyâre looking for a new podcast.
Publishing a feed drop using Captivate is easy:
Begin the episode publishing process as normal.
Under âFeed Dropsâ, choose which shows youâd like to drop this episode into by switching each show on or choosing â_Publish to all_â.
For advanced options for each show receiving the drop, click the three-dot ellipses and set an optional publish date (otherwise the drop happens at the same time that your episode is published), an optional expiration date and an optional episode title override.
Publish or schedule your episode as usual.
When your episode is published, it will drop into the feed of the other podcasts that you have chosen using the parameters that you have set.
If you have chosen an expiration date, the episode will be removed from the feed that you applied that expiration date to when that date arrives, otherwise, it will be there forever.
Do I get analytics on podcast cross-promotional feed drops?
Yes! Weâre tracking that data from launch and will be releasing the analytics interface for it over the next month, once we have gathered enough meaningful data for you to analyse.
Youâll be able to see which feed drops are listened to within which shows and how they perform over time, allowing you to refine your marketing and continually optimise what you do within your network.
All of these new features are free to all Captivate podcasters.
Today we also renamed "Short Links" to "Attribution Links" and rolled out the analytics graphs for those attribution links, plus squashed a few bugs that have been annoying us!
28th June 2021
Do you feel like you don't know what to do or when to do it when it comes to growing your podcast audience and generating revenue from your show?
You're not alone -after all, you didn't become a podcaster to learn about marketing, promotion and monetization!
That's why today, we're launching Captivate Growth Labs.
Captivate Growth Labs is a safe place to learn all of the skills that no one told you that you needed to become a successful podcaster and is completely free to all Captivate users!
With an actionable and continually expanding library of courses and workshops diving deep into all facets of podcast marketing, audience growth and monetization, you'll never feel stuck, you'll never feel lost and you'll never feel alone as you watch your audience and your downloads grow.
But Captivate's Podcast Growth Lab isn't just about the best education & guidance from the world's leading growth experts, it's also about giving you a safe community to remain accountable, share feedback and join other podcasters like you during live masterminds, clinics & podcast maker days and to take part in regular growth challenges that will help you to achieve clear, specific goals for your podcast.
Captivate helps you to grow & monetize your podcast with a range of tools to suit your specific needs and with Captivate Growth Labs, you can be even more confident that your podcast is growing beyond your expectations.
Captivate Growth Labs is free to all Captivate podcasters, forever.
9 June 2021
Introducing Captivate 2.0 đ
Over the past few months, we've been hard at work on something truly game-changing for you, the busy podcaster, the industry, and of course, Captivate.
When we started Captivate over a year ago, we did it with the goal of making the real potential of podcasting more accessible to you. Why should advanced tech be reserved for big businesses and networks? Why shouldn't you be able to get industry-leading marketing tools under the same roof as your hosting?
So, we're proud to share Captivate 2.0 with you. Live now, this massive new update features a completely overhauled dashboard, simplified workflows, new promotional tools, enhanced customizations and the promise of even more exciting things to come.
Check out the full list of additions and improvements below, or watch CEO Mark Asquith give a full, no-holds-barred tour. Either way, grab a coffee and buckle up, because it's a big one, folks...
â NEW: Completely Upgraded User Interface
We've revisited every single part of the Captivate platform to make the entire experience even faster, easier and useful for busy podcasters who need to keep their workflow simple and powerful.
We've made the whole platform more intuitive and removed every unnecessary click, putting the tools you need within one click of the dashboard.
We've also decided to revamp the navigation and where your account management lives so that the platform feels even more intuitive to you. Things that are related to each other, live near each other.
The colour palette has been strengthened to aid readability and the icon set has been upgraded to make Captivate feel even more obvious to you, the busy podcaster.
This 2.0 upgrade also sets Captivate up for the range of massive releases coming to Captivate podcasters throughout the rest of 2021.
â NEW: Trackable Short Links for Marketing - With Attribution!
Having trouble analysing the performance of your sponsor links, product promotion links or social media calls to action? Not anymore!
Introducing custom, trackable short links from Captivate - available for free to every single Captivate podcaster!
Simply paste or type in a destination URL, add a label and a category and then create a custom short link that is built around either your Captivate or custom domain name instantly!
Enable and disable the link at your leisure and analyse the analytics for each link individually. We're tracking link clicks right now for you and will be pushing out the analytics for them over the next week or so once you have some data.
â NEW: Captivate Omni-Search
Hitting CMD+K (CTRL+K for PC) on your keyboard from anywhere within Captivate will take you to Captivate's super-mega-powerful Omni-Search. From here, search for anything and take action right away.
Whether you want to quickly jump to a tab within your show's analytics, publish a new episode, grab your API key or manage your team, you can hop right over there instantly.
Omni-Search also includes all of Captivate's help articles, tutorials or blog posts, plus team members and quick switching between shows - all cleverly prioritised to make sure that you get to where you need, quickly.
â NEW: Notifications Centre
Making your life easier as a podcaster is what we live for. That's why we built a brand new notifications centre that will let you know, well, everything as it happens!
â NEW: View Selector
Captivate gives you ultimate flexibility by allowing you to host multiple podcasts under one account and add as many team members as you need without any silly extra costs. Sometimes managing a lot of things can be a pain in the eyes so we've added a multi-view selector anytime that you see a list of things that might be tough on the peepers.
â NEW: Episode Filtering
Managing your podcast needn't be hard but if you have a large archive of content, it can be a tad cumbersome. We've added some custom filtering options on the episode management listings to give you an easier way to find historical episodes in addition to the search function.
â NEW: Redesigned Publishing Flow
We've redesigned the episode publishing process from the ground up to give you the quickest, easiest way to publish a podcast episode. Making use of Captivate's advanced options such as default publishing times, feed exclusion, episode expiration dates and Descript import is now even easier, too.
â NEW: Ready, Set, Grow & The First Podcast Maker Day
We're adding more and more to our community & programmes to help podcasters feel like they have a safe place to share, grow and express themselves.
In addition to our new podcaster spotlights, monthly deep-dive podcast marketing sessions and new podcast growth challenges, we're also excited to announce our annual Ready, Set, Grow! online summit which features some of the leading podcasting and growth experts teaching you their podcast growth techniques completely free of charge.
This year's event takes place on August 18th and will be followed on August 19th by our first ever Podcast Maker Day, an opportunity for you to dedicate 8 hours to building, revamping and creating the ONE thing that you never quite get to. With support from the Captivate team; short, focused group masterminds and drop-in expert sessions throughout the day, this is your chance to finally achieve that one thing you've been unable to finish!
â IMPROVED: Complete Mobile Redesign
Every part of Captivate has been redesigned from the ground up with mobile working in mind. Access your publishing, analytics and promotional workflows from anywhere, at any time.
â IMPROVED: Quicker Uploads
Uploading images, audio and other assets to your podcast via Captivate is now quicker and easier to visually understand thanks to a completely overhauled upload process.
â IMPROVED: Redesigned Analytics Experience
Analytics is a vital part of your podcasting process and Captivate's IAB Certified data gives you everything that you need to understand how your show is performing.
We've redesigned the entire podcast analytics experience to give you the data that you need, when you need it.
A precursor to some huge upgrades for 2021, the analytics experience is now broken down into specific areas to give you complete clarity on what you're working with and when.
We also made the famous Captivate single promotional link even more useful by including impression & click-through data.
â IMPROVED: See All Your Promotional Tools At a Glance
Rather than burying Captivate's podcast promotional tools deep within a "_Marketing_" page, we've greatly simplified the toolkit by creating a brand new "_Promotion_" section and making sure that every promotional tool is available to you with just one click.
This also sets up some other major releases throughout 2021.
â IMPROVED: Faster One-Click Distribution to Podcast Directories
The easiest podcast distribution experience just got even easier as we prepare for some brand new integrations over the coming weeks and months.
External and one-click directory submissions are clear and we've added a "_Submit to All_" button for those directories that accept one-click show submissions such as Spotify, Amazon and JioSaavn.
â IMPROVED: Add/Remove Directory Buttons with Custom External Links
You asked, we delivered! We've introduced a new "_My Links_" area for you to keep track of your podcast directory links (you can now add custom ones, too!) and social links.
We also added a "_Monetization Links"_ area for your donation and Captivate affiliate links and greatly upgraded the famous Captivate "_Single Promotional Link"_ functionality to give you greater control and analysis of its performance and appearance.
â IMPROVED: Enhanced Podcast Player Customizations
In preparation for a brand new Captivate embeddable player, we have revamped the player design page to give you even more control over the self-designing Captivate embeddable player. We have also moved the static embed codes for the latest episode and playlist players to a fresh tab within your player design area.
â IMPROVED: Simpler, Swifter Captivate Podcast Websites
The no-code podcast website creation experience with Captivate has been simplified and the Captivate Sync⢠WordPress plugin has been moved to its own area within the platform. We also rebuilt how the website caching system works so that any changes to the site refresh much more quickly.
â IMPROVED: Episode Notes Snippets
We rebuilt how the episode notes snippets works behind-the-scenes in readiness for some very big, very useful upgrades to this that are being released shortly!
â IMPROVED: Private Podcasting
We've made some changes to the speed of the subscriber import process in preparation for a great big upgrade to private podcasting coming shortly after platform 2.0 is released.
â IMPROVED: Quicker, Smarter Migrations
When importing a podcast, Captivate now parses your old feed much more quickly and runs through the import significantly faster so that you can get to the good stuff.
We're also reporting any errors (missing audio files from old hosts, for example) or recommendations (crazy sized artwork, for example) within your notifications centre.
You can now add your existing directory links immediately after your import begins, too, which link directly to the "_My Links_" and "_Distribute_" sections.
Captivate 2.0 is now live and rolled out for all our podcasters - log in to see it for yourself! All help articles have been updated, and we're here to help if you have any questions at all - just send us a message on chat!
Coming soon..
One of the biggest reasons that we released Captivate 2.0 is in readiness for our Audio Mastering & Integration Engine (AMIE).
This suite of dynamic content tools will be released in a three-phase roll-out and will bring a range of powerful tools that are often reserved for "big" podcasters to independent creators, too.
The stage is set, final testing is underway and AMIE is coming shortly...
15 April 2021
Single Subscription Link Analytics!
This week, we're introducing a new, non-podcast related metric to our Analytics dashboard: single subscription link analytics!
You can now get an insight into how listeners use your single subscription link. This new tool displays listen page analytics and listen link tracking, making it possible to see how many listeners have landed on your single subscription page and what directory they clicked on.
The new analytics will show you:
Impressions (how many repeat/return visits from the same person)
Unique Impressions (how many individual listeners landed on your page)
Unique clicks as a percentage of all clicks (of all your page clicks, how many were individuals)
As with all our analytics, you can filter by various time frames to measure performance over select periods and set goals and targets.
Why is this so handy for promoting your podcast?
Visibility - Get precise insights into how your single subscription link is performing, and where people are choosing to listen. On top of that, get another angle on the size and engagement levels of your audience.
Attribution - Determine which channels and messages had the greatest impact on the decision to listen into your podcast, so you can do more of what works (backed by actual data!)
You can find this new metric inside the Analytics dashboard under 'Website Analytics'. Log in to your Captivate account now to see it for yourself.
As always, all relevant help articles and blogs have been updated:
Promote Your Podcast with the Captivate Single Subscription Link
Podcast Analytics And Stats Complete Tutorial: How to Understand and Measure Your Podcastâs Success
8 April 2021
A small improvement to Deezer distribution
Distribution is crucial to growing any podcast. It's our job to give you the best options so you can maximise your reach and be wherever your listeners are, on demand.
Deezer this week improved their API in order to better ingest data. Now, whenever you publish a new episode, Deezer will receive your updates the moment you make them. This will ensure your feed is completely accurate, up-to-date and gives your listeners a better experience!
You can one-click submit your podcast to Deezer using Captivate's Distribution centre. Here's how.
Donate to Meals on Wheels by leaving reviews on Podchaser!
We've partnered with Podchaser on their second #Reviews4Good campaign.
For every review written in April, Podchaser is donating $0.25 to Meals on Wheels America's Go Further Fund. Replies to reviews will DOUBLE the donation, and we'll be matching all donations on Captivate-hosted podcasts up to $1,000!
From now until the end of April, you can support elderly folks affected by COVID simply by podcasting! All you need to do is claim your podcast on Podchaser, ask for reviews, get replying and raise a ton of money for good.
Head to Distribution in the dashboard and follow the steps to claim your profile in seconds!
Read more about the campaign and how to get involved.
31 March 2021
Routine Bug Smashing!
Plenty of small, important tweaks to Captivate this week. Here's what's fixed, new or improved:
We've added a tag to your RSS feed that will actively tell Google Podcasts to remove your show if you choose to delete it.
We've improved episode scheduling and updating to fix rare error cases.
Your dashboard will now look a lot cleaner when you have no show or episode artwork.
We've sped up loading times for Captivate Sites⢠for greater stability.
Directory buttons and social media icons on your Captivate Site now have improved accessibility and responsiveness. Buttons are more appropriately sized for non-desktop users, and now have labels for screen readers.
The team ordering editor has been simplified and now works with larger teams. Edit your team and customize permissions via the dashboard!
Remember you can flag any bugs in the system or suggest new features by using the Feature Request button at the bottom of your Captivate dashboard. Your feedback makes Captivate the badass platform it is
Until next time!
25 March 2021
NEW How to Start A Podcast... Podcast!
Something a little different this week: we've launched a new podcast!
How to Start A Podcast... the podcast is now live and all episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts.
Why this podcast?
We see new podcasters every day give up on their shows before they've even started. More often than not, it's because of four things: time, tech worries, fear of failure and not knowing what to talk about. We want to fix that, because we think podcasting should be accessible, easy and fun to do.
What's it about?
The new audio crash course sits alongside our comprehensive How to Start a Podcast guide (which has also had an overhaul).
Here's what you can expect:
Over 8, 15-minute episodes, join Rachel and special guest Mark as we share the strategies, mindsets and steps to help you design, build, produce and run a successful, sustainable podcast with zero jargon or guesswork.
Every episode breaks down the launch process into clear, bitesized pieces, and has a set podcast launch milestone that we work towards together. Weâll be using the framework provided in our Podcast Launch Accelerator course to cover everything from choosing your podcast name and identifying your ideal listener to recording, editing and distributing your podcast, as well as giving you extra insights you wonât find anywhere else.
Until next time!
Thursday 18 March 2021
More Cool Tools for Captivate Syncâ˘!
This week, we've added three new features to Captivate Syncâ˘, our WordPress plugin for podcasters.
The new upgrades bring even more Captivate functionality into WordPress for quicker, smoother workflows:
Save time writing show notes with custom Snippets
Last year, we released the ability to create and insert custom Snippets into show notes. This feature makes it easy to drop pre-written, pre-formatted text, links or calls-to-action into your episode show notes. Now, if you publish and edit within WordPress, you can now enjoy the same time-saving magic! Learn more about using Snippets.
Add transcriptions to each episode
You can now upload or manually type transcriptions for your episodes right within WordPress. Your transcript will appear in your RSS feed and in your episode description.
Learn more about why podcast transcriptions are so important for accessibility.
Weâve added an autosave feature to Captivate Syncâ˘!
Ever accidentally closed a tab in Captivate Sync and lost your full episode, show notes and all? No more! We've added an autosave feature, so when you're publishing an episode you can recover progress if your browser crashes (or other related disasters).
Install the latest update of Captivate Sync⢠through the Captivate dashboard or via your WordPress dashboard.
Need more help and guidance?
Read our Captivate Sync⢠FAQs
Learn how to publish and edit an episode using Captivate Syncâ˘
Watch a full tour of Captivate Sync⢠in our video demo
Thursday 11 March 2021
Introducing private podcast subscriber stats
If you run a private podcast for training, memberships or premium content, you'll know it's important to get accurate, in-depth reporting on the performance of your feed and content.
You've always been able to get analytics for your private podcast, including download overviews, averages and the ability to track changes with our Rolling 12 Months report.
Now, you can see total downloads by subscribers for each episode! This helps you to visualise:
Which subscribers have listened to your private podcast episodes
How many times they've listened
Who hasn't listened at all
Extremely handy for keeping training and communications on track or re-engaging inactive subscribers!
How do I see this new metric for my private podcast episodes?
Head to the episode library for your private podcast to access episode-level analytics. Your Downloads by Subscribers report will be there.
Tracking for this report began on February 11th, so if you run a private podcast, you'll be able to see 4 weeks worth of data on your dashboard right now.
Want more information about Captivate private podcasts?
Starting your own private feed for internal company comms, training, bonus content or memberships is completely free to all Captivate podcasters.
Learn more about Captivate private podcasts
Private Podcast FAQs
Individual Episode Analytics Overview
Captivate podcast DEM TIMES nominated for two Ambies!
We'd like to say a huge congratulations to Our Day Media, whose podcast, DEM TIMES, has been nominated for two Ambies. DEM TIMES is a young adult comedy-drama following the re-education of British-born troublemaker, Samuel Adjei, in a Ghanaian boarding school.
The podcast is nominated for Best Fiction Podcast and its writers Rhys Reed-Johnson and Jacob Roberts-Mensah is up for Best Fiction Scriptwriting.
Listen to all episodes on Our Day Media's website.
Until next time!
Thursday 4 March 2021
NEW Support for Transcriptions and Podcasting 2.0 Transcript Tag!
A big upgrade to Captivate this week! We've introduced the ability to add transcriptions to your podcast episodes, as well as support for the Podcasting 2.0 Transcript tag.
Add a transcript to your Captivate podcast episodes
You can now import, add, edit and publish transcriptions within Captivate, making it easier than ever to transcribe your podcast for accessibility, repurposing and SEO benefit!
We've introduced three ways to add a transcript to your episodes:
Upload: Upload SRT (transcript) files from external services like Otter.ai, Rev or Temi.
Import: Import a transcript directly from Descript using our fast and handy integration. Read our guide to uploading and importing transcriptions.
Write your own: If you don't have an SRT file, write your own transcriptions manually (just make sure they're in the right format). Captivate will convert your transcription to a HTML file to include on your RSS feed.
Your transcript will appear in your RSS feed as well as look absolutely cracking on your Captivate Site under the relevant episode.
Log into your Captivate dashboard now to start adding transcriptions to your podcast episodes.
Got questions about our new transcriptions feature? Read our Transcription FAQ for more information on uploading, importing and creating your own transcripts, or hit us up in support.
Captivate now includes podcast transcripts in your RSS feed
We're also proud to be working with the team at Podcast Index by adopting our very first Podcasting 2.0 tag integration: `podcast:transcript`!
Along with the team and the rest of the podcast industry, we're excited to be on board and supporting the Podcasting 2.0 namespace in order to put greater creative control and freedoms in the hands of you, the podcaster.
Adding the transcript tag within the RSS feed allows apps and directories to recognise that a transcript is available for your podcast episode. If a listening app supports it, your listeners will be able to see your transcript directly within the app. If it doesn't, listeners will still be able to access your transcript by clicking a link. Simple.
Catch us live with Descript on Tuesday March 9!
To celebrate Captivate's recent integration with recording and transcription tool Descript, Mark will be live with Descript's Jay Le Boeuf for a webinar on Podcast Growth 101: Building With a Team of One on March 9, 2021, at 5:00 pm GMT (12pm Eastern, 9am Pacific).
In the webinar, Mark and Jay will cover tools and strategies that you can use to help grow your podcast and build your audience, even if youâre a team of one.
It's completely free, and essential viewing for any independent podcaster, so save your seat now. If you can't make it, you'll also be able to catch a replay at any time on the Descript YouTube channel.
Thursday 26 February 2021
Introducing Captivate Sync⢠v2.0 - Shortcodes, Enhanced Customization and More Team Settings!
This week, we're excited to bring you a massive new upgrade to our WordPress plugin for podcasters, Captivate Syncâ˘.
After years of working with fellow WordPress podcasters, networks and businesses, we've gathered enough amazing feedback to sink a small ship. As a result, we've been able to put together a package of genuinely useful and time-saving features that easily makes Captivate Sync⢠one of the most powerful plugins for podcasters available.
Included in the new update:
Choose exactly how and where you want your podcast episodes to display down to the smallest detail with the Shortcode Builder. Use our easy shortcode generator to build in seconds or add your own custom CSS. Learn how to use them here.
Improved custom team settings gives you greater flexibility and freedom over publishing permissions, authors and access, making collaboration safe, secure and customizable!
Full compatibility with Astra, DIVI, Beaver Builder and other popular builders. We've also worked extra hard to ensure that Captivate Sync⢠will fully respect your existing widgets, custom code and theme.
Use custom page mapping to create bespoke website content and site structures that reflect your podcast or network brand. Learn how to use it here.
Greater customization: choose whether to hide or display custom links, set bespoke calls to action, plus edit/hide your comments sections on desired posts.
You can watch a full tour of all the new features and how to use them in our video:
The new version of Captivate Sync⢠is available now through the Captivate dashboard, or you can update/install via your WordPress dashboard.
Need more help and guidance? No problemo! Get instant A's to your Q's with our Captivate Sync⢠FAQs
Thursday 18th February 2021
NEW Descript integration!
That's right, we're pleased to work with Descript on a new set of integrations to speed up your podcasting workflow.
We wrote up a complete guide to Descript over on the blog and of course a video overview, too. Plus, a short help article on how to publish from Descript to Captivate.
Thanks to Jay and the Descript team.
We also release a few bug patches, too:
An issue when creating a Zapier integration with Auphonic.
Typo in show description on the show settings page.
When bulk importing private subscribers, you could have an issue with some CSVs not being parsed well enough.
Month-by-month rolling chart updated to take into account timezones more effectively.
Thursday 11th February 2021
This week we spent some time on planned upgrades to the IAB Certified podcast analytics module within Captivate.
The upgrades were largely speed-related, making sure that the ingestion speeds from our IAB algorithm to your dashboard remain fast as we scale the platform to new podcasters across the world.
We also added some analytics routes for private podcasts, too, which means that in a few weeks time we'll be releasing an upgrade that allows you to see which subscribers downloaded which episodes and of course, the associated data that you'd expect with that.
This week isn't a sexy upgrade but it's one that we need to do from time-to-time.
Next week, we have two beauties for you - one integration and BIG Captivate Sync⢠upgrade.
Thursday 4th February 2021
A brand-spankin' new analytics view!
This week, we're stoked to bring you a new addition to your analytics dashboard.
Chart your podcast's growth with the Rolling 12 Months view
It's easy (and really fun) to obsess over details when looking at your podcast stats. But what about zooming out to see the bigger picture? Wouldn't it be so good to look back and see the results of your hard podcasting month by month?
You can now see how much your podcast has developed over the past year with the new Rolling 12 Months view!
What is it?
This feature shows your podcast's total downloads for all episodes month by month, allowing you to see a top-level view of your listeners' behaviour over the past year.
How do I use it?
If you've ever looked at your podcast's stats and not known where to even begin, this view is for you. With this chart, you can easily identify spikes, troughs and trends and use them to kickstart deeper insights into your listeners' behaviour, top-performing episodes and marketing activity. Winner!
Where can I find it?
Find the Rolling 12 Months chart in the Analytics dashboard of Captivate.
All relevant help articles have been updated.
For advice on how to measure, interpret and understand your podcast analytics, you can check out our updated Podcast Analytics And Stats Complete Tutorial!
Thursday 28th January 2021
Some small bug fixes
Weekly update time!
This week, our dev team has been smashing some routine bugs in the platform:
Our artwork upload process has been refactored for stability, reliability and to make room for cool features that will arrive later this year.
We've fixed a small bug when uploading incorrectly formatted CSV files. Thanks Ryan Gray for this one!
We've switched a few modules around on the Captivate dashboard and improved its overall responsiveness when viewed on tablets/phones.
Until next week!
Think you've spotted a bug or a way to improve Captivate? Use the feature request link in the dashboard to get in touch!
Thursday 21st January 2021
Our new, free Podcast Launch Accelerator course is now live!
Today, weâve opened the doors on our brand new, free and totally badass podcast launch course, the Podcast Launch Accelerator!
The course is designed to help you start podcasting, keep podcasting and have fun doing it. It's made up of clear, jargon-free and bite-sized video tutorials broken into four manageable podcast launch phases:
Designing your podcast
Understanding the tech
Building your podcast
Launching your podcast
Plus a bonus "What to do after launching" mini-course
If youâre a new podcaster hoping to finally launch that podcast this year, weâre really excited for you to start your podcast with free tools, tutorials, coaching and support from us.
Heck, if youâve been a podcaster for years, thereâll be something for you to learn about podcast launch marketing strategy, audience growth and listener engagement from this course!
Check it out and sign up (it's free!) now.
Come along to today's Podcast Launch Accelerator live webinar!
It's not too late to save your seat for today's webinar! Join Mark for a tour of the brand new course, learn how to overcome podcast imposter syndrome, lack of time, fear of failure and more, PLUS take part in a live Q&A.
Today's webinar takes place on our YouTube from 4pm UTC/11am Eastern/8am Pacific.
Reserve your place now!
Thursday 14th January 2021
Some routine bug fixes
This week the talented, funny and vigilant dev team has been ironing out a few small bugs in some of our features.
Here's what's been fixed:
Bugs in our Alitu, AWeber and Mailchimp direct integrations have been smashed for greater reliability and stability.
Analytics were displaying incorrectly in some rare conditions; we have reformatted now so you can be confident that your stats are accurate.
There was an annoying bug that meant if you reached 5/5 snippets, you couldn't edit them. Now you can! Learn more about snippets.
You can now search for multiple words and phrases in your Captivate Site search bar.
We spotted that deleted private podcasts were stopping you from creating a new one. Now, you can always create a private show if you have room for one! (ICYMI: all Captivate plans include one private feed as standard, except Podcast Brands, who have 3)
Other tiny (but important!) fixes include: enhanced stability for Captivate Sites and whilst formatting show notes; updated links and dates in the dashboard.
As always, thank you to the beady eyes of Captivate podcasters for identifying some of these bugs! đ
Think you've spotted a bug or a way to improve Captivate? Use the feature request link in the dashboard to get in touch!
7th January 2021
Happy new year from team Captivate!
We're back, well rested and already working hard on new projects and updates to help YOU market and grow your podcast.
Here are this week's dispatches:
Ongoing platform optimizations
We're laying the groundwork for some of 2021's new feature releases. To support this, weâve updated a key component of Captivate's back-end to improve the platform's speed.
A new addition to the support team
Our podcaster support team has expanded again! Welcome to Tiffany Mostert, who joins us as Podcast Support Expert. Having Tiffany here means we can bring you an even stronger all-round support experience. Yay!
17 December 2020
Well, we couldn't let the end of the year roll around without one final epic release to help you, the ever-present podcaster, to save time and give you more opportunity to GROW your podcast with the time you save.
Today, we launched version one of our "Show Notes Snippets" feature, allowing you to create reusable show notes snippets to save time on every single episode that you publish.
And of course, it's free to you as a Captivate podcaster!
Take a look...
Hey, we also put together an in-depth tutorial on how to create show notes that work for your podcast, too.
5 Time-Saving Steps for Creating Quality Podcast Show Notes
And that's 2020 wrapped! We've released over 160 new upgrades to Captivate this year and we do it all to help you to grow your podcast so thank you for choosing Captivate and for always being so very supportive.
2020 has been a wild year, please stay safe and look after each other and we'll see you in 2021.
Happy Holidays
11 December 2020
Private Podcast Feeds Now Integrate with Zapier!
Another week, another update!
First things first, a big thank you for your support and feedback on private feeds so far. This week, we've added more functionality to make running a private podcast easier.
You can now setup a âZapâ to create or remove your private podcast subscribers in Captivate from Google Sheets, AWeber, Mailchimp, Patreon, Memberpress and more (thanks to Mike Morrison for your feedback on this!)
Get the guide: Manage your membership in minutes
When a new subscriber is added, we send them an email invitation. The reply-to address will now default to your email so that any replies go straight to you!
Captivate Sites has had an API upgrade to improve site speed and safeguard against Gremlins in future.
Speaking of Gremlins, we smashed a few relating to feeds, save settings and back-end integrations (weâve ensured not to feed them after midnight).
Let us shout about your show!
We want to make it easier for us and our distribution partners to share your new podcasts and success stories.
If you've just launched or have a big win to shout about, fill in our new Podcast PR Request form and we'll take it from there.
P.S. This isn't a guarantee of promotion but it'll definitely help us!
Reminder: Christmas support times
A reminder for podcasters publishing over the holidays!
We'll be taking a break over the Christmas period. From 22 December - 4 January, support will still be available, but responses may take a little longer than usual.
Over n out!
26 November 2020
Introducing Captivate Private Feeds!!
Private podcasting for everyone, on any plan, at no extra cost.
Every podcaster should have the tools to grow their show and build an audio brand - not just those who can afford it.
Usually, private feeds are reserved for networks, enterprise or 'pro' podcasters. For the day-to-day podcaster, it normally involves upgrading to a higher paid plan. It's a BIG step up for what is a very useful growth tool. Why would we gatekeep it?!
Today, we're announcing private podcasts but with one HUGE difference.
Any podcaster can now start a private feed for free with no need to upgrade or pay extra. Every podcaster on our $19 plan now has access to one private feed and 150 invites. Audio Influencers have one private feed and 500 invites; Podcast Brands have 3 private feeds and 1000 invites.
This means anyone, regardless of size or following, can now:
Offer premium or bonus content to listeners and subscribers
Run a paid membership or subscription
Start a corporate or internal podcast for business
Create a private feed just for friends, family, teams or groups
This is a HUGE deal for independent podcasters or small businesses looking to monetize or add value to their show. We hope you love using it as much as we do.
Learn all about Captivate private feeds and how to start your own!
Thanks to Jason Caffrey, Owen Walton, Jeremy and Charlie for waiting ever so patiently while we worked on this new feature! All the best with your new private podcast adventures!
As always, all relevant help articles have been updated:
Private Feeds FAQs
How to Create a Private Feed for a New Podcast
How to Invite Subscribers to Your Private Podcast
Additional Updates
Create A Podcast gets a new look
Creating a podcast on Captivate is now easier than ever! Now you can expect a fully guided process to make sure your podcast is ready for launch right from the get-go (and in just a few minutes - yes we timed it)
Learn how easy it is to create a show with Captivate
Christmas support times
A reminder for podcasters publishing over the holidays.
We'll be taking a break over the Christmas period. From the 22 December - 5 January, support will still be available, but responses may take a little longer than usual. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of reminders between now and then!
A happy and safe Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today!
19 November 2020
Zapier Upgrades and More Bug Smashing
It's weekly release time podcasters!
Zapier Improvements
We've refined a few elements of our Zapier integration.
When using our 'Create Draft Episode' action, you now have the option of setting an episode title (the same will be used as your file name, to keep things organised.)
Zapier will also use your default publishing time (if set), making the whole drafting and publishing process smoother and well, more automated!
We've updated the Zapier FAQ to reflect this.
Whilst you're here, check out our 10 handy Zap templates to speed up your podcast workflow!
Pocket Casts Integration
Pocket Casts recently made some changes to their ingestion process and no longer use Apple's API to distribute your podcast. We've created a new section within Marketing that allows you to enter your new Pocket Casts link for use on your Captivate Site⢠and Single Subscription page.
Thereâs also a convenient link in the Distribution area to Pocket Casts submission page! Happy distributing!
Bug Fixes
Another round of very-important-but-not-so-glamorous fixes to bugs, including:
Improvements to feeds for greater compatibility with various feed-readers.
Your latest episode player will now correctly show your most recently published episode, even if your feed is set to display oldest to newest.
Loads of misc back-end improvements to increase behind-the-scenes performance and stability ahead of new feature releases.
Over n out!
12 November 2020
This week we've been squishing bugs left, right and centre!
Here are the details:
We fixed an issue where daily analytics were invisible under some conditions. Rest assured, fully visible now.
Episode comparison graphs have improved stability.
Captivate now supports international characters in Apple URLs.
The Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics tracking code are now on your 'listen' page! Take a look at our guide to Facebook marketing for inspiration.
We improved the UI around missing or incorrect user settings when submitting episodes.
Stitcher had a makeover earlier this week, which caused existing links to break. We have fixed those links so you won't encounter any disruption going forward.
TLDR; We've fixed bugs in our dashboard and analytics. We've made general performance improvements to internal systems to make your Captivate experience smoother, easier to use and more reliable.
Podcast Q&A Session replay available!
We held our monthly deep-dive podcaster Q&A session yesterday and wow, the questions were great! Whether you missed it or want to review the answers to the podcasting questions that came up, we've just made the replay available in the Rebel Base Media Podcaster Support & Experience group.
See you next week!
5 November 2020
Smarter, More Reliable Import Processes and Podcast Websites
It's weekly update time!
We're always listening to what you'd love to see in Captivate, so this week we've made improvements to two important facets of the platform:
Our import process is now quicker, smarter and more secure.
You can now expect even higher levels of reliability from our podcast websites.
A big thank you to Captivate podcasters Issen Alibris, Rob Gorski, Nurit Ben for the feedback that led to these improvements!
Smarter Podcast Imports
Weâve updated our import process to upgrade the speed and function when importing to Captivate from another podcast host.
This is linked to our strong anti-piracy stance and means that we can now show you where items from your old feed may be problematic for your podcast in the future, just in case you move to Captivate from a podcast host thatâs a little more cavalier with their feeds.
If things are missing or awry in your old podcast hostâs feed, Captivate will highlight those missing pieces and give you a set of sensible suggestions and quick review process so that you can keep your show in tip top shape!
More Reliable Podcast Websites
We've revamped the way that Captivateâs podcast websites save their data when you make changes. This is to maintain high levels of reliability and stability as we release even more new podcast website features moving forward.
As usual, all relevant help articles have been updated:
Importing Your Podcast to Captivate: A Complete Guide
28 October 2020
Captivate Zapier and Mailchimp Integrations Are Go!
It's a busy week for integrations here at Captivate HQ!
We're always on the hunt for new ways to make your life easier as a podcaster, whether that's giving you new ways to promote your episodes, grow your audience or cut down on your boring admin jobs.
Well, this week we're bringing you TWO new integrations to help you do all those things!
1. Connect Captivate to 2000+ apps on Zapier
Our Zapier integration is now available to use! We'll be building our template library over the coming weeks, but for now, get started with a few of our 10 automated podcast workflows in our dedicated Zapier guide.
Zapier Podcast Integration: 10 Zap Templates to Automate Your Podcast Workflow
2. Use Mailchimp with your Captivate Site
You can now use Mailchimp with our Email Opt-In Captivate Sites feature! Start building your lists and create a high value lead magnet without leaving the Captivate dashboard.
As usual, all relevant help articles have been updated:
Zapier FAQ
How To Set Up Zapier Video Tutorial
How to Connect Mailchimp to Your Captivate Site
22 October 2020
A New Distribution Partnership with Deezer!
Great news! You can now submit directly to music streaming service Deezer through Captivate's distribution dashboard using a simple, one-click submission process - no fussy form filling here, sir!
Once listed, you'll be able to tap into Deezerâs 16 million monthly active listeners across 180+ countries. That's another brilliant opportunity to expand your reach and open your podcast up to a huge potential audience of listeners.
Submitting to Deezer is super easy and takes just two clicks:
Head to the Distribution tab from the Captivate dashboard
Navigate to Deezer
Hit 'Submit Podcast' and follow the prompt
You're done! Your podcast will now be ingested by Deezer đ
As usual, all relevant help articles have been updated:
Distribution FAQs
Podcast Distribution Overview - How to Submit Your Show via Captivate
15th October 2020
Captivate Analytics V3: Even More Powerful Insights to Help Grow Your Podcast!
Today, weâre proud to announce a huge upgrade to our podcast analytics, bringing you _the most comprehensive analytics suite of any podcast host._
We want to give you as much detailed data and information as we can about your podcast performance, no matter what plan youâre on.
This new update - now live for all Captivate podcasters - provides new, deeper and more powerful insights on your podcast, your episode content and your listeners.
We've also made the analytics more accessible, more visual and easier to understand, meaning youâll now be able to get - and understand - the information you need quickly.
You can read the full breakdown of Analytics V3, what's new and how you can use the new features on our blog, but here's a summary:
Access in-depth analytics for individual podcast episodes
You can now get full, detailed episode-level download overviews
Identify download milestones, spikes and troughs with cumulative view
View an episodeâs downloads from its release date
See today's trending episodes
Make strong content decisions with timeline comparison
Get deeper listener insights with detailed web player analytics
As always, all help articles have been updated to reflect this release.
We've been working hard on this release for months. A BIG thank you goes out to our lovely dev team and our podcasters, especially Christopher Bandura, Walker Neer and Steven Weber, for their suggestions, feedback and support - we couldn't do it without you!
Over 'n out!
8th October 2020
Weâre Taking A Stand Against Podcast Piracy
This week, weâve introduced new verification measures upon import to tackle podcast piracy. Plus, an exciting announcement about our podcast, Captivate Insider!
Our Podcast Import Process is Now Safer - We've added an extra level of security to our existing podcast import process to further safeguard against podcast piracy and preserve the integrity of your audio. You can read about our decision and the new process on the blog!
A Big Change to Captivate Insider! - We're changing the format of our podcast, Captivate Insider, to make it more useful and engaging. It'll still be home to our weekly releases, but from now on, we'll be inviting Captivate podcasters on to talk about their podcasting journeys, as well as featuring community Q&As. Captivate Insider will relaunch on Thursday 5th November. If you have a podcasting story to share or want to put a question to us, let us know either in the Facebook group or via support.
As always, all relevant help articles have been updated.
Over n out!
2nd October 2020
A New Player FM Integration and a Login Screen Makeover!
It's weekly update time! This time, there's a brand new integration in the Distribution dashboard! Plus, we've improved our login screen to improve your experience and help you to find useful information a whole lot quicker!
Player FM Integration - You can now submit your podcast to Player FM straight from the Captivate Distribution page. Head to the blog to find out more about our new partner, its millions of active users and how to get listed on the platform.
New Login Screen Makeover - She's here and she's gorgeous! We've given our login screen a polish for better user experience. You'll now be able to find useful and essential information a whole lot easier. Head to the login screen to check it out for yourself!
As always, all relevant help articles have been updated.
That's it for this week!
24th September 2020
Introducing... Captivate Sites⢠2.0: The Most Powerful Podcast Websites From ANY Hosting Platform
Today weâre proud to announce a raft of exciting new upgrades (EIGHT to be exact!) to Captivate Sitesâ˘, making them the most powerful podcast websites from any hosting platform, included for free on every Captivate hosting plan.
Every single Captivate podcast website now has even greater build features, flexibility, functionality and marketing potential so that you can grow your show on your own terms.
Here's everything today's huuuugee feature includes:
Two new additional site layouts, totalling three fully responsive website templates.
Customizable episode order settings - display most recent or oldest episodes first.
Pin an episode to the top of the page - perfect for trailers!
Customize team biographies at show level - extremely useful for teams managing multiple podcasts.
Email opt-in forms - capture emails for newsletters straight from your podcast website! Choose from direct integration with AWeber or insert an HTML snippet from another provider. Customize the copy of every single element to suit your podcast's messaging. BONUS: if you choose to upload an image alongside your email opt-in, Captivate will make your opt-in layout look great automatically, too!
Lead magnets - incentivise sign ups by adding an image to your opt-in and creating a lead magnet! Captivate's Library now supports image and PDF uploads, allowing you to host all of your marketing assets centrally, making workflow that much smoother.
Website search functions - we've added a search bar to the site's top navigation. Listeners will now be able to satisfy their own search quickly without having to crawl through the entire feed.
Captivate Sites⢠now uses the API to display episodes, instead of the RSS feed - podcast feeds will now auto-paginate and will populate as many episodes as it needs to fill the page, improving site speed.
We've put together 6 detailed, step-by-step guides showing you exactly how to set up your podcast website and apply these new features the right way! Check 'em out:
Part 1 - Basic Podcast Website Settings
Part 2 - Setting Up Your Header
Part 3 - Setting Up Your Team
Part 4 - Email Opt-Ins
Part 5 - SEO & Social Sharing
Part 6 - Advanced Settings
18th September 2020
A New Integration with PodcastIndex!
Weâre delighted to welcome our latest distribution partner, PodcastIndex, a decentralised podcast directory built by 'Podfather' Adam Curry and developer Dave Jones to preserve podcasting as a platform for free speech.
Find PodcastIndex on the Distribution within the Captivate dashboard and submit your podcast now:
You can read the full writeup on Captivate's blog here.
P.S. There's no Captivate Insider this week - we're taking a well earned break. Rest assured, we'll be back again next week with something very big and exciting!
3rd September 2020
Well well well, we're back with more updates!
This week has been largely a bug fixing week but we did do two things that might interest you, too...
We integrated AdBarker prefix support directly into Captivate - thanks, Ryan Gray!
We welcomed our brand new podcaster support expert to the support team. Welcome, Danny Brown! Danny has been a long-time Captivate user so if you're in our private Facebook community, I have no doubt that you'll know Danny already. Danny joins the team lead by Sam to continue to give our podcasters the very best podcasting experience, bar none!
Hey also, we're thrilled to announce that we've been working with the Gerry Anderson network (creators of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlett and so much more) on their stunning new show First Action Bureau which is an original, in-universe creation from Jamie Anderson and Nicholas Briggs and features an insane voice cast including Sacha Dawan, Nicola Walker and Patterson Joseph.
Check out the trailer for First Action Bureau, here.
Last up, we're announcing the first keynote speaker for our private Ready, Set, Grow! podcast marketing event tomorrow, too!
This exclusive to Rebel Base Media podcasters using Captivate, Podcast Websites and Podcast Success Academy (growth-tier).
27th August 2020
Jiosaavn Distribution is Here!
Hot on the heels of our Amazon Music & Gaana distribution partnerships, we're delighted to announce that from today all Captivate podcasters can submit their podcast to another of India's biggest streaming platforms, Jiosaavn!
We also updated our Amazon Music/Audible integration with some more behind-the-scenes tweaks to make ingestion even easier for the Amazon team.
FUN, EXCLUSIVE STUFF ALERT:
_Captivate is 1-year old on August 29th! We have something special happening!_
We debated whether to do a big public party or not but decided, for our first year, to instead honour those who have helped us the most through the first year: our podcasters like you.
So, tomorrow (August 28th) we're going to be announcing something very special for our Captivate podcasters and you can join Mark at 12pm Eastern in the exclusive Facebook group for the announcement.
20th August 2020
Role Management Overhaul & Some Analytics Preparation!
Today we released a HUGE redesign of how Captivate's role management works, making it even easier to grant the right levels of access and create a custom setup that works perfectly for you and your team. You can now set very specific permissions for each show in your account, and for each person on your team.
Plus, we released some background analytics tracking ready for a feature release in around a month - this is so that when we release the new analytics feature, you have some data in there already!
As always, Sam and the podcaster experience team have updated all of the relevant help articles and tutorials, too!
14th August 2020
Today we're delighted to welcome two brand new Captivate partners:
Gaana, India's #1 audio platform (found in Distribution*), and
Podcorn, the podcast sponsorship marketplace (found in the new Resources* section)
We've been working hard with both the Gaana and the Podcorn teams to make life easier for podcasters so, to both teams, thank you!
We also released our brand new podcaster resources section that includes our recommended design, outsourcing, music (intro, outro, etc) and editing tools - all from partners that we know, trust and use ourselves.
Oh, we also updated the marketing section to allow you to use Google Podcast's new URL structure, too. Faaaancy.
Here's Gaana...
And Podcorn in the new Resources section
6th August 2020
It's a PRIME new podcast distribution integration release today as we welcome Amazon Music and Audible to Captivate!
We've been working with the Amazon team behind-the-scenes for a few months now on their new podcast offering. You can now pre-submit your show ready for when Amazon Music's and Audible's podcast offerings launch shortly!
Head to "Distribution" right now to submit your podcast to Amazon Music and Audible!
30th July 2020
Embeddable player multi-language support & YOU get a timestamp, YOU get a timestamp and YOU get a timestamp!
Imagine if there was an embeddable podcast player that translated its interface into your listener's language.
Well, now there is with Captivate's embeddable player! Plus, we make it easy to add clickable audio timestamps to any website and smash a bug like a Starship Trooper.
Here's what we released today cats and kittens...
Multi-language embeddable player support: Now the interface on your embeddable Captivate podcast player auto-translates itself to Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Polish, Italian and French depending on your listener's browser language setting. How fancy is that?!
Clickable timestamps for you, and you, and you! We released clickable timestamps to WordPress via Captivate Sync⢠and Captivate Sites users a couple of weeks ago and today we've made it so that anyone* can have them on their sites using a little bit of code in their site's header. How? Check out the help article here.
Unique listener bug: We had a few sporadic reports of the dashboard "unique listener" figure for 90-days being higher than the all-time number. That was weird. But we found an issue with one of our database queries and fixed it. Weirdness, be gone!
Until next time...
23rd July 2020
*NEW* cheaper annual pricing plans, multi-currency options and fresh onboarding!
Today we released annual pricing for all podcasters using Captivate
That means that Captivate now starts at $17 per month (paid annually) and that all plans have an annual plan available that saves you money on your podcast hosting.
We also launched multi-currency options so that Captivate will detect USD, GBP or EUR pricing based on your location, meaning that if you're in the UK, for example, you won't pay extra if your bank charges for international payments (how is that still a thing in 2020?!).
All of the new plans are available to new podcasters and to you as a podcaster already using Captivate, just head to your account to switch to an annual plan.
Oh, we've also tweaked the onboarding a little for new users so that we capture information that we need for VAT (to make your invoices more useful) and to help you decide how you want to be walked through your first minutes within Captivate.
Saweeeeeet!
16th July 2020
It's weekly update time!! This week we've introduced a few tweaks to keep giving you that gold-standard podcasting experience. Here's what's got better:
mp4/m4a to mp3 auto-conversion: Although we all like to upload podcasts in mp3 format, sometimes podcasters upload an mp4 or m4a file to Captivate and Apple Podcasts, etc aren't so keen on it. So, we've made it so that Captivate now automatically converts mp4 and m4a files both on upload and on import from other podcast hosting platforms, to save you some hassle! It's nice to be nice.
Upgrades to some admin reports: We love reports. Honestly. We love nothing more than a really nice spreadsheet. So, we've upgraded two of our internal reports that help us to help you - pretty boring, but really useful for us. Remember the clickable timestamps last week? That was more fun, wasn't it.
Over and out!
9th July 2020
Introducing Clickable Timestamps!
As a podcaster, one of the biggest goals that you have is to drive people through to your website. That's why today we're introducing automatic clickable timestamps to make it easier for your listeners to navigate your audio in just one click!
All you need to do to add a clickable timestamp to your podcast show notes is to type a timestamp in the following format:
03:41
04:26
10:31
etc...
Once you publish your episode, Captivate Sites or Captivate Sync⢠will automatically turn those timestamps into clickable links that will take the listener to that point in your embedded Captivate podcast player. Magic!
Don't worry, if you type an invalid timestamp in (that doesn't exist, for example), Captivate is smart enough to know that it's not a valid one and won't turn it into a link.
3rd July 2020
Captivate Sync⢠Updates!
This week it's all about showing love to Captivate Sync⢠and our wonderful WordPress users - we have feature additions, bug fixes and code changes to lighten the load even more.
Episode-specific artwork upload now uses the WordPress media library for processing, providing better error handling of erroneous dimensions, etc.
Fixed a minor bug that popped up now and then when an episode status is different between Captivate and Captivate Syncâ˘.
Weâll now alert you if there is something wrong with your MP3 file when uploading via Captivate Syncâ˘.
On new installations of Captivate Syncâ˘, sync will now run every 10 minutes make sure all episodes are swept up nicely.
Fixed an intermittent issue with episode date and timezones.
You can now add a custom WordPress excerpt per episode in Captivate Syncâ˘. Shiny shiny.
Weâve also done a full code sweep and refactored lots of code to make things even faster. Love a good clear out!
Sweet, right? Right? Right!
See you next week!
26th June 2020
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Updated playlist player for seasonal podcasts: For you beautiful seasonal podcasters, we've made the Captivate embeddable playlist podcast player most recent seasons and episodes first and made it even easier to navigate for listeners. It's pretty nifty, actually!
Expanded the use of automatic Apple banners on Captivate powered podcast websites: You know those fancy little banners that you see at the top of websites that send you to the app store or Apple Podcasts? Yeah? Well, Captivate sites automagically includes them on your Captivate powered podcast website so that visitors have one-click access to your show in Apple Podcasts from their device. Also pretty nifty!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
18th June 2020
Introducing Collections, Curated Podcast Playlists that Your Listeners Love, Expertly Crafted By You!
We just released a unique feature that lets you curate playlists with custom embeddable players and their own RSS feeds that you can use to educate, entertain and expand your podcast audience.
The "Collections" feature can be found on the right side menu of your Captivate account. It is the perfect way to make your back catalogue more accessible and to increase listenership of your podcast through curation and collection of related episodes.
We also put together three creative and really powerful ways to use the "Collections" feature, here.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
11th June 2020
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Switch show cover art on and off: As part of your advanced player customization options you can now decide whether you want to display your podcast cover art on your player. Just another way to make your player look and feel how you want it to. Head to your player settings for a closer look.
Append podcast name to SEO title on singe episode web pages: A small tweak means that your podcast's title will be appended to the meta title (SEO title) of each episode web page when using Captivate Sites.
Set an episode expiration date & time: There are often times when you need to say something that is time sensitive, whether that is a holiday message, an announcement or something important that you need to tell your audience but that isnât always something that needs to stay in your podcast RSS feed forever. Itâs something Iâve needed, thatâs for sure â so, we built it! From today, all Captivate podcasters can set an episode to âexpireâ from their RSS feed and thus, the podcast directories on a specific date and time. The time settings respect your Captivate timezone settings and each episode with this setting applied is clearly visible within your Captivate episode listing.
Exclude podcast episodes from your feed and directories: We also noticed that there are often times when a podcaster wants to publish an episode but exclude it from their RSS feed and the directories. This isnât a private RSS feed, itâs a way to make sure that your episode is only available via a direct share or a web embed using the Captivate embeddable podcast player and so, today we also launched the ability to exclude podcast episodes from your RSS feed at your leisure â nice!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
29th May 2020
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Advanced player customization options: We're seeing podcasters all over the world using the Captivate player within their marketing stack. Often, that means that the player is integrated into a current website using Captivate Sync⢠or via a direct embed. We've made it easy to control every single aspect of the interaction ability of a listener using the embeddable player by giving you the option to decide what you'd like your player to show to a listener. Head to your player settings for a look see. Thanks to Daniel J. Lewis!
Captivate Sites social updates: We now show all social links entered in your personal Captivate profile within the bio section of your Captivate powered podcast website. We've also shifted from two additional external links and now will display one link, but with a custom label for the link. We force the update to your website whenever you save your profile. Magic! Not really... CODE!
Added IAB Verified logo to sponsor kits: Following last week's announcement that Captivate is now IAB Certified (awww yeah!) we've added the IAB verified seal logo to your sponsor kit so that potential sponsors can see that your podcast analytics are verified accurate. Shazam!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
22nd May 2020
As the podcast industry continues to develop and evolve, the one thing that we are dedicated to as a podcast hosting platform is of course, the accuracy of your podcast analytics.
We are passionate about getting closer to the people listening, not just the number of file downloads that your podcast receives and thatâs why, Captivate is delighted to continue its user-focused push to become the world's best podcast hosting platform by announcing today that the platform is now IAB Tech Lab Certified! Awesome!
Check out the full details over on the Captivate blog.
14th May 2020
It's weekly update time, this week is a doozy, too!
We're always working hard to help you to grow your podcast. But, as podcasters we're a little addicted to measuring downloads when really, we'd love to be able to measure people who listen to our show.
So, we've just introduced "Unique Listener Tracking" to your Captivate analytics as a free upgrade to all Captivate podcasters!
Right now, in your Captivate analytics area you'll see a new section called Audience Overview. Within this section you'll now be able to see the following unique listener data points:
Unique listeners today
Unique listeners yesterday
Unique listeners over the last 7 days
Unique listeners over the last 28 days
Unique listeners over the last 90 days
All-time unique listeners
This data is aggregated as:
A unique listener is defined as a listener from the same IP address and the same device within the presented timeframe. This is a way of estimating the number of people downloading your show. This is based on the IAB v2 guidelines.
This is part one of an analytics upgrade aiming to make it easier to estimate your true audience size and we're hosting a live webinar on this within our private, Rebel Base Media podcaster group over on Facebook next week to dig even deeper into this.
We've also added "_Last updated"_ information to the top right of your analytics screen and your main Captivate dashboard so that you can see the last time we updated your data for you.
Pretty sweet, right?!
As always, help articles have been updated and we can't wait to see you on the live product upgrade webinar next week AND our usual deep-dive- podcaster Q&A!
7th May 2020
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Public Podcasting Group Launch: In addition to our exclusive, highly-personal Rebel Base Media Support & Experience Group, which features two-way live Q&A sessions and a personal service for all podcasters using our platforms, we just relaunched our public group to help all podcasters regardless of their skill level or status. Join the thousands of other podcasters over there.
Update to Google Podcasts Manager in Distribution: Google Podcasts has just released Google Podcasts Manager* which is a very simple way to submit your podcast to Google Podcasts and, in a similar way to Apple Podcasts Connect & Spotify for Podcasters, view Google-specific podcast analytics. We've added this to the Captivate "Distribution" area and created some help articles & tutorials on how to work with Google Podcasts Manager.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
1st May 2020
It's weekly update time!!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Better parsing of link text in show descriptions for Captivate Sites: When using Captivate Sites, if you add a website address in your show settings it needed to become a link automagically. It will now automatically turn http://google.com into a link that is target=blank, for example.
Internal show transfer process updates: We've made it easier for our team to be able to transfer shows between owners for when, for example, someone leaves a network or production company to build out on their own. It's still a highly personal and vetted process.
Regex update to Google Podcasts URLS: Fix for the regex for adding the Google URL when copying from Google Podcasts, users can now include %/&/= in the Marketing section.
No copy and paste madness in show notes: When copying from a Word or Google document the formatting that comes over for colors and background colors on spans and other tags can be problematic. We've expanded the "blacklist" for pasted in code and still maintain the "whitelist" to make sure things like lists, etc, are formatted nicely on paste.
21st April 2020
With a new episode deep-dive view, publish date overlays and city/region breakdowns across your entire show or on an episode-by-episode basis, your Captivate podcast analytics just got a serious power boost!
Pierre, one of our resident Captivate engineers, an all-round nice guy and owner of the biggest hair in lockdown has been working exceptionally hard with the engineering team on crafting some sweet podcast analytics upgrades for Captivate podcasters that weâve released today!
Hereâs a quick rundown of what the team has done:
Deep-dive episode view: You can now dive-deep into the trends for each podcast episode that you release by filtering your entire analytics data on an episode-by-episode basis. Ooooof!
Overlay download data with release days: What happens when you release an episode? BOOM! Downloads! Right? Well, usually yeah but sometimes peaks and troughs occur where you absolutely would not expect them. So, click the new shiny little box to overlay your podcast release dates on to your podcast download data to start to learn about some of the trends that your show experiences. Pro tip: try âsinge dayâ view with this turned on and choose a date when you published something.
Break your download data down into state, region, city/town level: Available at show or individual episode level, you can now view the states/regions and city/town that your show gets downloaded in. Cool, right?
Add percentages to all the data youâd like to see as a percentage: Data geek? Just like the shape of a percentage sign? Weâve added percentages to every reasonable piece of data that youâd want to see a percentage next to. Youâll see percentages in grey next to the core data where available. If you do just like the shape of a percentage sign, hereâs a little something for you: %%%%%%%%%%.
Of course, all of these updates are free to every single Captivate podcaster đ
Some charity work
Hey also, weâve been HUGE fans of what Podchaser has been doing to help Meals on Wheels Americaâs COVID-19 charity efforts by donating 25c to the charity for each review left on the platform.
Weâve decided to contribute by matching every single review left over on Podchaser for a Captivate hosted podcast and will match the donations up to $750 in total.
You gotta do your bit, right?
YouTube channel launch!
Podcast advice is usually complicated, full of jargon or given by people who have been podcasting for about an hour.
So, we decided to do something about that by launching our straight-talking, no BS YouTube channel to help you cut through the podcast education noise.
Hereâs my head on the trailer and you can subscribe to the channel here:
7th April 2020
It's weekly update time!!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
XSLT stylesheets: RSS feeds are dull as dishwater. But, they power podcasting and sometimes, you pop your RSS feed into the browser and see the feed is all its gargantuan glory - code and all. That's ok, it's how it's supposed to be, but we wanted to make it easier for anyone stumbling across your feed in a browser window to know exactly what to do with it and to be able to listen to your show directly from the feed. So we sexy styled it up. Look: https://feeds.captivate.fm/podcastaccelerator
Behind the scenes service tech: We spent a day or two building a new backend area for us to link your Captivate account to Intercom via a secure Intercom widget. Sounds boring, and it is a little bit, but it means that we can support you even faster by seeing right there in the support chat with you which show you're working on and quickly launch that show in Captivate's dashboard for us to take a look at. Sam loves it.
_31st March 2020_
It's weekly update time!!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Speed up cache flushing on the embeddable player after editing an episode, show or player style: When you edit an episode title or content, Captivate will now clear the cache for that specific episode on the web player. Also, when you update your player style it will clear all cached episodes from the player too, so that you can see the changes much quicker.
Quick view episode web pages from the episode sharing screen: We added a nice little "View" button next to the "Copy" button within the episode sharing screen that will open the episode web page URL in a shiny new tab for you to quickly take a peek.
URL preview on publishing an episode: When using Captivate Sync⢠or Captivate Sites for your podcast website, you will now see a preview of the full URL that will be created for any given episode within the episode publishing or editing screen. Lovely job.
Anchor import issue: When importing an RSS feed from Anchor and when the podcaster has the dynamic ad system setup on Anchor, Anchor splits files and rejoins them, making them an M4A with a mime-type of MP4 instead of MP3. This causes import problems. Well, it did. Not anymore :)
Live Q&A over in the Facebook Group: Come and join us, on Wednesday 1st April, 5pm UK, 12pm Eastern, 9am Pacific, over in our exclusive Rebel Base Media Podcaster Support & Experience Facebook group, where Mark and the team will be answering all of your podcasting questions. Sweet!
_25th March 2020_
It's weekly update time!!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Your podcast analytics, in your timezone!
Today we're pushing out a release that will display your podcast download analytics in your own timezone, as set in your show settings.
This means that you can view data in a time local to you rather than the standard UTC timezone, plus the timezone will also carry through to CSV exports and the one-click sponsor kit generation.
Set within your show settings, the timezone already controls the default publishing time and is always set at show level, not user level.
Reminder: We love working with you and our community. We wanted a way to bring all of our Rebel Base Media paying podcasters together into a safe community to discuss anything that you need at all. So, separate from our public-facing community, we just created the private Rebel Base Media Podcaster Support & Experience Facebook group - make sure you're a part of it!
Stay safe.
_17th March 2020_
It's weekly update time!!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Error checking upgrades: There are so many times where we need to give you a pointer or a heads-up about something you're doing on Captivate so this week we've gone through many of our error messages around podcast artwork, player settings and more to make those errors even more descriptive and useful to you. Boring, we know but important, too!
Admin tools for our team: We have a lot of background admin tools that our team uses to help you out via support. This week we added a couple more around imagery and social sharing that you won't see, but that you'll experience thanks to our support being even faster!
New private Facebook group: We love working with you and our community. We wanted a way to bring all of our Rebel Base Media paying podcasters together into a safe community to discuss anything that you need at all. So, separate from our public-facing community, we just created the private Rebel Base Media Podcaster Support & Experience Facebook group - make sure you're a part of it!
_13th March 2020_
It's weekly update time!!
One-click sponsor kits now available for free to all Captivate podcasters!
This feature is something we've been wanting to do for a long time!
Being growth focussed means that our goal is to make it easier for you to achieve your own version of success as a podcaster. Knowing exactly how to work with sponsors is something that so many indie podcasters are concerned about and one of the vital, early-stage conversations with potential sponsors is around whether you're both a fit for each other.
Today, we've made it easier than ever to start that conversation by introducing the initial version of our one-click sponsor kits! Inside the marketing section of your Captivate dashboard, you'll now see a "Sponsor Kit" tab and space to enter your listener avatar.
Once done, hit the generation button and a beautiful PDF will download itself ready to send to sponsors, not bad, right?! Hey also, this is only the first version of this tool - lookout for more and more as we develop it.
Hey, we also just launched a private Rebel Base Media support & experience group on Facebook - don't miss out on the podcasting conversation over there - come join us!
_7th March 2020_
It's weekly update time, again!!
Sure, it's a little later than usual thanks to Podfest and Social Media Marketing World, but we always have your back
So, what's new...
Export analytics to CSV for Excel or Google Sheets!
This is something that the Captivate power users have asked for and today we're very pleased to announce that you'll see a lovely little download icon next to the information icon on each section in your analytics area - hit that for a download of the data within each section so that you can use it wherever you like!
Don't see the new export icons in your Analytics page? Hit a hard refresh on your screen
If you're in Orlando for Podfest, swing by and say hi to some of the team - oh, and grab a t-shirt!
_27th February 2020_
It's weekly update time!!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and we've just added one of the most requested features by podcasters using Captivate sites to generate their stunning podcast website - single episode pages đ
We had to take our time with this so that we could make sure to get Captivate Sync⢠(our WordPress plugin) perfectly set, first. But, now that is all done we've been able to bring you the single episode pages that you've been asking for, plus customisable SEO titles, descriptions & URLs and auto-generated social images. Whoop!!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_19th February 2020_
Introducing the podcast playlist player and latest episode players!
We just released the outstanding embeddable playlist players and the simple, powerful latest episode embeddable player to all Captivate podcasters!
As of today, you can embed a beautiful player that showcases all episodes of your podcast into any website or, you can embed a player that always shows and plays the most recent episode of your show.
Of course, we couldn't leave the main player out of the action so we've also released a new build that makes it even easier for listeners to access your calls to action, your subscribe options and show notes, plus a big upgrade to how listeners can share your podcast player.
All fully responsive on all devices too, of course!
Check it out LIVE on MarkAsquith.com/podcasts right now and head to your Distribution area in Captivate to use the brand new players for your own shows!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_11th February 2020_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Drag & drop team member ordering on your Captivate podcast website: This is a nice one - you can now drag and drop your team members into your desired order for display on your Captivate podcast website. This makes it even easier to customize the display of your team online.
Single subscription link custom domain bug: In certain circumstances, the single subscription link wasn't respecting your use of a custom domain name. It is now :)
Advanced WordPress options for Captivate Syncâ˘: Users can now use a captivate.php file in their theme for a custom layout for the episode list page (for example, you can base this on the index.php page that comes with WordPress and then you can customize sections of it so it's a different layout to the blog.) You can also, if you want to, edit single.php for single episodes by uploading a single_captivate_podcast.php page which you can edit. This is for advanced WordPress users only.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_4th February 2020_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Request a Captivate feature!: We love working with you and we love making things that work for* you. So, we've added a "request a feature" link to the Captivate dashboard footer so that all Captivate podcasters can let us know the features that they'd like to see released. This links directly to our project management platform and we'll be able to let you know when your feature has been greenlit for build!
Even simpler cancellation process: Even though we hate to see you go, we understand that, for various reasons, you may want to cancel your Captivate account. It's our job to make sure that you never need to, but that if you do, that the process should be clear and easy. So, we've redesigned the cancellation process from the ground up to make it even simpler! That's nice, isn't it!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_28th January 2020_
It's weekly update time again, whoop!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Full transparency mode: The podcast industry is growing and with it, the technology in the space and the value of advertising dollars is also growing. Attribution of those ad dollars is pushing the industry to track more and more as the brands look to define their ROI. As such, several third-party tracking, sponsorship and advertising tools are popping up such as Chartable & Podcorn. The challenge for creators is maintaining ethical practices when it comes to your listeners, even if a creator isn't aware that listener data may be being passed elsewhere - after all, it's you that they're trusting when they listen to your show and in turn, you trust Captivate as your host to do the best by you. There's a lot being discussed about listener privacy right now in the podcasting space and in addition to our listener privacy policy, we are happy to announce that Captivate is the first podcast hosting platform in the world to provide a "Full Transparency Mode" for all podcasts and creators. Enabling this will append a short, nicely formatted statement to the end of each of your episode show notes that will disclose to the listener which third-party analysis tools are being used within your show, along with a link to each service's privacy policy so that the listener can dig deeper into those services, should they have any questions. We believe in transparency and urge all podcast hosting companies to consider implementing Full Transparency Mode within their platforms, too.
Remove the Captivate branding from your podcast website: We know you love Captivate, and we love you, too. But from time to time, we also understand that you might want to remove the Captivate logo from the bottom of your auto-generated Captivate podcast website. So, from today you can! Thanks, McKane!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_21st January 2020_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Podcast website "hero" section options: Some fine folks wanted the ability to be able to turn off the "hero" section at the top of their Captivate podcast website. Now you can, so that's good :)
WOW! Single subscribe pages for all podcasts: Asking people to subscribe to your podcast can be a real pain - where do you send them? To what link?! We have your back... now, all podcasts hosted on Captivate include a very special "/listen" link for their Captivate podcast that works on any device and includes one-click subscribe links to all major podcast listening apps, at no extra cost. Promoting your podcast just got way, way easier and there's more to come! Check out this Spark of Rebellion example or Mark's Podcast Accelerator example
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_17th January 2020_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Episode URL added to publishing screen: We've popped in a lovely little field within the episode publishing screen for you to add the URL for your episode if you aren't using Captivate Sync⢠or Captivate Sites. Useful for people using Wix, Squarespace or some other web platform. Remember GeoCities? Awww. Also, thanks Evo!
Quashed a minor team member bug: In some really specific edge cases, owners of shows were able to remove themselves from their own show. It took some jiggery-pokery to actually do it, but one or two peeps had the issue so we took a lightsaber to it and got it sorted.
External prefix interface changes: In preparation for next week's release, which is a powerful one, we've made it easier to chain together podcast prefixes like those from Chartable, Podtrac and Podcorn. Captivate's interface now lets you choose the prefix provider and we'll do some checking to make sure your prefix looks a-ok for you.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_12th December 2019_
It's weekly update time!!
This week it's all been about SEO, whoop!
As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Episode page SEO: Whether you're a Podcast Websites user or you're using Captivate Sync⢠on your own WordPress website, you're going to love the addition of episode page SEO tools. You can now set a custom SEO meta title and meta description, as well as customize the permalink/slug of your episode for your WordPress website. This feature is available in the WordPress Captivate Sync⢠interface and in the episode editor within Captivate proper, if you're using Sync.
Edit your show notes with the WordPress editor!: One of the biggest pieces of feedback we've received about Captivate Sync⢠has been the desire to edit show notes using the WordPress editor when publishing or managing episodes from WordPress. Well, now you can! We've added a fancy little toggle switch to the Captivate Sync⢠episode screen which means you can switch between the Captivate editor or the WordPress editor for adding videos, HTML etc. And, we do all the relevant work on the backend to make sure your tags are right in your podcast's RSS feed, how cool!
Internal coupon stuff: Our goal is to be a platform that can be as agile and responsive as possible. There are some podcast hosts that still do things like affiliate programmes using paper (I know!) and from day one, we didn't want to be that* company. So, we spent some time this week working on a custom interface to extend the way that we can add coupon behaviours to our pricing system. This means that for events, quick spin-up online summits and so on, we can respond quickly with custom plans/trial extensions for them - it's great for organizers to get answers quickly. Boring for you, super useful for us!
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
Heads up, too - it's holiday season so there'll be no feature releases during the weeks commencing 23rd December and 30th December.
_Holiday support hours._
During the holidays, we'll be around as usual with exceptions on these days:
24th December, Christmas Eve - reduced support hours, but still around.
25th December, Christmas Day - closed.
26th December, Boxing Day (UK) - reduced support hours, but still around.
31st December, New Years Eve - reduced support hours, but still around.
1st January 2020 - closed.
2nd January 2020 - normal service.
Happy holidays!
_4th December 2019_
Well, today is another good day for Captivate podcasters.
We've built every product and business we have here at Rebel Base Media on one simple ethos: helping people.
Sure, we have to pay the mortgage but it's not all about money, it's about what we can do to be the very best for the podcasters that we serve.
Recently, we made some upgrades to our CDN (content delivery network) and reduced our costs as a business for that CDN usage.
Rather than keep the money to ourselves, perhaps in a Scrooge McDuck style vault in a tower on the top of a hill, we decided to pass some of the savings on to podcasters using Captivate and so, from Monday 9th December ALL of our plans will receive big increases in the number of downloads included per month with that plan.
Those plans with 10,000 downloads now receive 12,000; those plans with 50,000 downloads now receive 60,000 and those plans with 120,000 downloads now enjoy 150,000 included each and every month.
Remember, Captivate doesn't force you to upgrade to access "advanced" analytics (they're included on every plan) nor do we force you to pay more to add extra team members or upload more hours of audio, for example.
We'll keep doing our very best for you as a podcaster and also, we released a few other tweaks to the platform as well today including an easier way to check image specifications for your podcast's website on Captivate and changing the time that our platform notifications stick around for, from two seconds to four seconds.
What a lovely day to podcast!
_26th November 2019_
It's weekly update time again, whoop!
This one is a bit of a boring one, sorry - it's "bug smashing" as much less cool companies would write.
So, during our Captivate Sync⢠rollout we did what all good tech peeps do and "shut up to listen". We spoke to a lot of users of the plugin and many of the users of our managed WordPress platform, Podcast Websites to learn what they wanted tweaking.
We've pushed out some updates to permalink settings, diagnosed a weird little bug that would duplicate certain episodes only in WordPress and added some functionality to the Podcast Websites interface  that we removed during the initial rollout to allow players to be embedded in certain Builder modules.
It's one of those "boring to talk about but important to get out" updates, argh.
_19th November 2019_
It's weekly update time!!
This week we finished rolling out some major upgrades to your account area, making it super easy to switch plans, view your download allowances on a super sweet looking "progress" style bar and of course, viewing and downloading your invoices.
The biggest update is actually behind the scenes this week.
We've updated and tweaked our geo-location API for the statistics. At times over the last few weeks, our download stats have been a little slower to update in your dashboard that we'd like.
There's nothing wrong with this, as such, it was just due to the simple scaling safeguards we'd added. But, we weren't happy with that experience for you so we updated our geo-location API Â to allow for much faster processing of data and thus, quicker throughput to your dashboard.
On the surface, you'll just see your download analytics performing much more in "real-time" which is of course, awesome!
_12th November 2019_
It's weekly update time!! This week it's been a week or account updates, making sure that your billing and download quota is easy to view, manage and understand.
The biggest changes this week will actually be rolled out periodically over the next few days so that we can make sure each element is bulletproof.
Changes include:
A clear, concise download quota graphing system in your account.
Easy ability to view and download your Captivate invoices from your account section.
A clearer layout to show you which plan you're currently subscribed to.
An easier interface for updating your payment details.
We're also pushing out various small tweaks and features to Captivate Syncâ˘, too but nothing overly interesting, it's all behind the scenes to keep the sync process nice and continually quick.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_5th November 2019_
It's weekly update time and this week is a BIG one!!
Captivate Syncâ˘, our WordPress podcasting plugin, is here!!
We've been building WordPress _stuff_ for a long, long time. In fact, my (Mark) background is over ten years running a design, brand and digital agency that specialised in WordPress development.
So, when we moved into podcasting in 2014 with our first product, Podcast Websites, naturally that progressed to become the world's #1 hosted & managed WordPress service for podcasters - completely hassle-free, growth-focussed WordPress for you as an audio influencer.
When we began building Captivate, we knew that we wanted to fully support WordPress and continue what we had started with Podcast Websites.
And so today, we're delighted to release Captivate Syncâ˘, the easiest way to podcast using WordPress, featuring:
Automatic sync between your Captivate podcast hosting account and your WordPress site.
Simple, multi-show management direct from WordPress.
Publishing & managing of episodes right there in WordPress.
Full, automated use of the stunning Captivate podcast player including calls to action, simple subscribe links and full device compatibility.
Powerful sharing options that help drive traffic to your podcast's website.
Integration with self-hosted WordPress and the Podcast Websites hosted & managed WordPress platform.
Captivate Sync⢠works beautifully with WordPress, giving you a quick, solid way to podcast via a well thought out custom post type structure and full control over episode links and more.
And hey, this is only version 1 of the plugin, you just know there's more to come
Control and own your podcasting brand.
Related: How to get started with Captivate Syncâ˘
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_29th October 2019_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release which is ALL about Alitu!
_Your Podcast Editing & Hosting Workflow Just Became Easy with Captivate & Alitu_
Weâve always had a vision of making podcasting as simple as it can possibly be but we see two things happening every single day getting in the way of that: 1. some podcast hosting companies making podcasting more complex than it needs to be in 2019, making podcasters feel bad about not being an âexpertâ and 2. new tech companies entering the space because they spot the potential to make money.
The thing is, to succeed in podcasting you have to love it because itâs hard and doesnât have the instant âstickinessâ that other hobbies, professions or commitments do â if you donât see your downloads jump quickly, youâre perhaps going to podfade.
The same goes for tech companies in the space â sure you can generate a bit of buzz early on, but can you maintain a quality product when the industry is still finding its commercial feet?
When we built Podcast Websites back in 2015 we brought with it a human touch that is still missing from most podcast hosting companies and when we decided to shake up the podcast hosting industry by creating Captivate, we put that human touch front and center â itâs why podcasters love Captivate and our Rebel Base Media team: we treat you like a person and never talk down to you.
But more than that, we rebuilt podcast hosting from the ground up with a core focus of simplicity, usability and the growth focus of giving podcasters what they need without out-dated pricing structures and imposed limits on creativity â in short, we think about what podcasters need today and tomorrow, and then we build it.
And we have done our time â we spent a long time getting to know the industry without diving in and professing to have all of the answers â but we did that without sacrificing the ability to quietly innovate and pleasantly surprise our podcasters.
And so, whilst building Captivate out, weâve been stealthily working on something to make podcastersâ lives that much easier.
Today, as the first part of a wider project to deliver a platform that allows podcasters a simpler way to develop their podcast, weâre delighted to announce a deep integration with Alitu, the worldâs #1 online podcast editing and creation platform.
Iâve been friends with Colin Gray, the founder of Alitu, for years now and no one loves the podcasting space more than he does. But more than that, no one more exemplifies the way that we approach podcast creation than Colin and his team.
From today, Alitu users can connect their Captivate account and publish/edit their shows using the two tightly integrated systems, making your podcasting workflow exceptionally easy.
Weâre not finished yet, either.
Thereâs more to come on this front, tying together proven technology and industry denizens to bring together a simple podcasting platform with the stability of the trusted names behind them.
Thank you to Colin and his team for being simply amazing to work with and as a podcaster, start simplifying your podcasting workflow with Alitu & Captivate.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_22nd October 2019_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Simpler website pagination - this week's update is a website focussed update with the first upgrade being to the pagination system on your Captivate generated podcast website. We've made it so that each page featured five episodes and now loads even quicker, whoop!
Simple 302 redirects - boring alert - we've made it easy for you to redirect your podcast website to WordPress or similar when you change from using a Captivate website to something else. This means that all the links to your Captivate site will redirect to the new website for if you decide to use WordPress and Captivate Syncâ˘, for example.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_15th October 2019_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Podcast import assistant just got smarter! - sometimes your old host will have it set that your show must only display, for example, 150 episodes in your feed. We have made sure that Captivate checks your episode numbers and that if we detect that your show has published more episodes than are in your feed, we let you know to change that setting in your old host before importing. It's the little things, right?
Intermittent Safari dropdown bug - in certain circumstances, specific dropdowns wouldn't behave properly due to a small bug in Safari. This is now fixed. Cheers Cody!
Episode level cover art updates - every now and then, if you don't have a podcast cover art set in your show settings as you ramp up to launch, you'd have a problem uploading episode level cover art. That's all sorted, now.
Smarter CMYK checks on cover art - uploading the wrong type of podcast cover art can result in your show being rejected by Apple et al. No one wants that, so we've made our cover art sanity checker even more useful by making sure that if you upload your file in the CMYK colorspace, we'll let you know.
Embeddable player animation tweaks - the player animation is now a little more intelligent when it comes to the status of your audio (playing or non-playing) and will perform as you'd expect when you pause the player.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_8th October 2019_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Brand new "system status" area - we'd planned this for Q4 2019 but accelerated its development in light of the StackPath challenge below. We now have a complete and comprehensive system status area for Captivate's entire infrastructure. This has its own page right here and system status will also show within the live chat support section at the bottom-right of Captivate's dashboard. Whoop!
Extra layer of object storage added - our CDN provider, StackPath, had an issue with its object storage node on the US East Coast. The object storage nodes are used to store your audio files before they get to the CDN when requested by a podcast player, plus they store other items such as podcast cover art - this issue with StackPath meant that uploads were sporadically failing and that audio sometimes couldn't be quickly played back because the CDN couldn't grab the audio file every time from the object storage system. StackPath is mega-reliable but just like any tech company, they do have some issues now and then - luckily, this is very very rare. We added an extra object storage redundancy layer which means that if StackPath ever has issues again, uploads will instantly switch to our secondary storage option seamlessly and automatically with no impact on upload or download speed. Bottom line: the issues that you may have experienced this week won't happen again. Thanks for bearing with us :)
Apple Podcasts URL format change in Captivate's marketing section - in some instances, we were spotting that some Apple URLs weren't validating correctly within the marketing section of your Captivate dashboard. As it happens... Apple has a couple of different URL formats so we added extra validation for them. Awww yeah.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_1st October 2019_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
New player branding options! - a big thanks to many of the networks and agencies who use Captivate for their podcasts, we've made it super-easy to decide how much Captivate love you show on your embedded player - you can choose from our full branding, subtle branding that just shows the Captivate icon or no Captivate branding at all. The first two options let you link to your affiliate account, remember!
Responsive player preview update - you can now preview the podcast player in your Captivate dashboard on device sizes down to iPad portrait. Thanks, Olivier!
Artwork speed updates - importing podcast cover art for each episode is now even quicker on import for podcasters who use episode-level artwork.
Bio text alignment on Captivate Sites - left-aligned your host bio on your Captivate powered website. Much prettier :)
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
_Surprise upgrade! Spotify passthrough data and big analytics upgrade!_
_27th September 2019_
We're delighted to share that all Captivate podcasters can now enjoy complete passthrough data from Spotifyâs analytics system â âSpotifyâ will now show within your analytics dashboard as a place within which people listen â pretty sweet, huh?!
But not only that, weâve released a huge upgrade to the listening platform data that we give you as a podcaster. You can now see the listening platform, device and the operating system that listeners use to consume your podcast.
Data includes:
Listening App: Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, etc
Operating System: iOS, Android, Other, macOS, watchOS etc,
Listening Device: Mobile App, Desktop App, Mobile Browser, Desktop Browser, Smart Home, Smart Watch etc
Also, we now track plays through your embeddable podcast player on your own website, your Captivate hosted website and specifically plays through Twitter, too.
And for the geeks amongst us, like me, we donât track the Spotify bot crawling episodes to download to the Spotify cache so there are no skewed downloads here!
This is a free upgrade that has been rolled out to Captivate podcasters today.
_24th September 2019_
It's weekly update time!! As always, we've worked hard to listen to what you'd love to see in Captivate and have put together the latest release as follows...
Third-party podcast tracking codes - added support for custom tracking codes provided by our friends at Chartable, Podtrac et al.
Custom copyright statement on a show-by-show basis - thanks to Cody Boyce for the idea, you can now override the default copyright statement on each podcast that you run.
Podchaser rating update - we've made it easier to showcase your podcast's Podchaser rating on your in-built Captivate website, whoop!
Add team members to new shows directly from their profile - it's now even easier to add team members to new podcasts that they don't already have access to.
Skip cover-art upload on setting up your podcast - thanks to Amy Woods, you can now create a podcast without the requirement of adding a podcast cover at that time - Captivate will keep tabs on this for you and not let you submit to any directories without uploading a cover later, all distribution options will be disabled to save any embarrassing moments!
Intelligent cover-art upload - Captivate now intelligently checks that your cover art is the optimum file size and colorspace so that Apple et al don't reject it. That's cute isn't it.
Added m4a audio file support - you can now upload m4a files to your podcast episodes and we won't convert them, you're welcome James Cridland.
No heroes... - you now have the option to remove all hero text from your Captivate podcast website.
Apple is more obvious - Captivate will now show you that you have submitted and been accepted in Apple Podcasts as long as you pop your Apple Podcasts URL into the marketing section of your dashboard.
Updated Google Play notes - we've made it clear in the Distribution section that Google Play is a little different to Google Podcasts (erm, a lot different).
Hansel & Gretel - started adding breadcrumb trails throughout the platform because it's nice to know where you came from. My Mum always reminds me of this. Hey, Mum.
All relevant help articles have been updated to reflect these changes.
UPDATE: Public beta!
_29th August 2019_
We're now in public beta - which is pretty much our version 1, but with a 'beta' sticker on it just in case any weird bugs pop up
Thank you to everyone who supported us and signed up on launch - now we enter our product cycle, releasing new features and updates every Tuesday for you - keep an eye on this post for updates and new features, and of course we'll let you know via email, too.
UPDATE: Apple Podcasts category changes 2019
_26th July 2019_
Apple Podcasts recently rolled out an updated list of podcast categories that Captivate completely supports.
These categories have been implemented within Captivate, here's our guide on how to change your Apple Podcasts categories quickly and easily.
VERSION: Beta programme
_28th June 2019_
Captivate has always been a part of the Podcast Websites platform. This release sees the launch of Captivate's podcast hosting, analytics and distribution tools to the wider podcasting industry without the need for a Podcast Websites account - from here, you can host your podcast with Captivate at a rate similar to that of other podcast hosting companies such as Libsyn, Simplecast, PodBean, Blubrry et al - albeit with more ease of use.
The beta launch brings with it everything that you would expect from a world-class podcast host and sets the stage for innovative new growth-oriented features in future versions.
Beta features include but aren't exclusive to:
Easy import from other podcast hosts, for free
Multiple podcast shows and RSS feeds under one account
Easy, quick podcast publishing
Simple syndication to podcast directories including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more
IAB compliant (soon to be IAB certified) podcast analytics
Podchaser integration
Stunning, easy to configure podcast websites
A powerful yet simple embeddable podcast player for your website and social media
The first range of marketing tools, including podcast links & embeddable player calls to action
Captivate Sync⢠WordPress plugin
Podcast teams and personnel
Bulk media uploads
...and more
Updated on: 08/01/2025
Thank you!