Linking Clusters to a Campaign

After creating a campaign and planning episodes, the next step is to link episode clusters to track actual performance against your goals.

What Are Episode Clusters?

An episode cluster is a group of content nodes — episodes, clips, and social posts — all related to a single podcast episode. Clusters aggregate metrics across platforms (YouTube views, audio downloads, social impressions) into a unified reach number.

How to Link a Cluster

• 1Open a campaign by clicking its row in the campaign list
• 2In the Campaign Detail View, find the planned episodes section
• 3Each planned episode has a "Link Cluster" button
• 4Click it to open the cluster selection panel
• 5Browse or search available clusters from the shows in your campaign
• 6Select a cluster to link it to that planned episode

Once linked, the cluster's actual metrics are pulled into the campaign automatically.

What Happens When You Link

• The planned episode's linkedClusterId is set to the selected cluster
• The campaign's clusterIds array is updated for backward compatibility
• Campaign metrics are recalculated immediately from all linked clusters
• The campaign detail view updates to show real reach data

Unlinking a Cluster

To unlink a cluster from a planned episode, click the link button again and deselect the cluster. The system confirms "Cluster unlinked" and recalculates metrics.

Campaign Metrics Calculation

When clusters are linked, the system aggregates metrics across all linked clusters:

• Total Reach — sum of all node views/plays/impressions
• YouTube Reach — views from YouTube and YouTube Shorts nodes
• Audio Reach — plays/downloads from Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Transistor, Simplecast, Megaphone, Art19, Captivate, Podbean, Buzzsprout
• Social Reach — impressions from Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn
• Clips — total number of clip nodes
• Posts — total number of post nodes

These metrics feed into the campaign's goal progress bar and CPM calculations.

CPM Tracking

Two CPM values are calculated per campaign:

• Expected CPM = (Total Budget ÷ Total Expected Impressions) × 1,000
• Delivered CPM = (Total Budget ÷ Total Actual Reach) × 1,000

The delivered CPM is color-coded: green if it's lower than expected (you're over-delivering), amber if it's higher (under-delivering).