Business Context

Meta is evaluating a new podcast experience inside Facebook Watch and Instagram, with discovery through Feed recommendations, creator pages, and notifications. Leadership wants one North Star metric that reflects whether the product is creating durable user and creator value rather than just generating trial plays.

Metric Scenario

In the pilot market, the product reached 12M monthly exposed users. Of those, 3.6M started at least one podcast episode, 1.9M listened for 10+ minutes, and 1.1M returned in the next 7 days to listen again. Average weekly podcast listening time among listeners is 46 minutes, median is 18 minutes, and 62% of starts come from Feed recommendations. On the supply side, 85K creators published at least one episode, but only 28K had 100+ unique listeners per month. Ads are not fully launched yet, so short-term revenue is not the primary success criterion.

The VP of Product asks you to recommend the single best North Star metric for the first 12-18 months, define it precisely, and explain why it is better than alternatives such as total listening hours, monthly active listeners, or number of podcast starts.

Requirements

1. Propose one North Star metric and define exactly what counts in the numerator and denominator.
2. Explain why this metric best captures long-term product value for Meta.
3. Compare it against at least three plausible alternative metrics and explain their weaknesses.
4. Identify leading indicators and guardrails you would track alongside the North Star.
5. Describe how you would segment and decompose the metric to diagnose movement after launch.

Data Available

• podcast_play_events
• podcast_session_summary
• content_impressions
• creator_episode_publish
• user_retention_cohorts
• notifications_log