We surveyed 250 podcasters about how they use video to grow. The ones who add captions tend to win out. Learn how captions help video performance and how you can get started captioning video.
Captions have always been the gold standard for accessibility. That part isn’t new. What’s newer, and a lot more interesting if you’re trying to grow a podcast, is the idea that captions can help your content perform better.
Yes. Captions. You read that right.
Headliner surveyed 250 podcasters about how they use video, YouTube, and captions to grow their shows. Some baseline stats to get us started: 83% of podcasters are uploading to YouTube. The primary reasons? Podcast growth and discovery:
But anyways…This whole survey and blog inspo started with a one-line note in Podnews:
We’ve known for a while that transcripts help YouTube rank your videos, because search engines can’t crawl video itself, only the text, also called metadata, wrapped with it (fun fact for your next dinner party). But that Podnews note got us wondering: how much visibility do captions really add?
So we went straight to the source. Here’s what we found.
The YouTube podcast era is already here
If YouTube still feels like a “someday” project, today may just be the someday you’ve been waiting for. In our survey, we found that 83% of podcasters do upload to YouTube.
And of that 83% of podcasters who do upload to YouTube, 58% upload true, full-length video recordings. This is followed closely by video clips (50%) and full-length audiograms (50%).
(Also, for those curious, here are those uploads broken down into YouTube video ‘types’:)
Podcasters who upload to YouTube are pretty consistent, too. 83% reported uploading video to YouTube every time:
The TL;DR of it all? Podcasters are uploading to YouTube to grow their podcast(s) and aid podcast discovery.
The caption gap leaving podcast growth and discovery on the table
So, are podcasters uploading to YouTube? Yes. But, are podcasters captioning YouTube uploads? Yes and no.
Only about 24% of podcasters add captions consistently.
Whether podcasters skip captioning entirely or do it now and then, by not captioning videos, podcasters are leaving growth, discovery, and engagement on the table.
The most likely culprits for not captioning YouTube uploads? Workflow and time.
As podcasters already know, it takes a lot of time to make a podcast. Publishing an episode already means exporting, formatting, writing descriptions, scheduling, and promoting. Now, when you add video to the mix, that is a whole extra can of podcasting worms.
The bigger the to-do list, the more reasonable it feels to drop a task, especially one whose impact is kind of a mystery.
Captions often are a task that quietly slides to next week, and the next week, and the next week…That’s a fixable problem (and we’ll get to the fix), but first, the question we should all be asking: are captions worth the added work? And, by not captioning YouTube uploads, are podcasters really leaving podcast growth and discovery up for grabs?
What happens when you caption YouTube videos
Captions have long been the standard for accessibility. But now, they are quickly becoming a standard for ‘best practices’ as captions make content more consumable, accessible, and global.
According to our survey, captions really do make a difference when it comes to the numbers:
Across the board, numbers went up:
- 63% of podcasters reported higher view counts
- 55% of podcasters reported more impressions
- 46% of podcasters reported higher watch time
- 41% of podcasters reported more engagement
However, we do want to provide a quick caveat to the above data. While podcasters are adding captions, not enough are checking to see if they actually do anything:
Of the 107 reported caption-users we asked, 59% admitted they’ve never checked whether captions changed anything. That means six in ten podcasters are doing the work and never looking at the impact.
What does this mean exactly for podcasters? The data is promising. By adding captions, you are more likely to see higher view counts, impressions, watch time, and engagement, but you need to check your video analytics to see how and where captions help your YouTube uploads.
Why you should add captions
Again, captions are becoming more of a gold standard in the world of content creation. Captions ensure everyone can understand and consume your content for more reasons than you may think.
Let’s start with how people actually watch. Research shows 85% of people watch video on mute, AMZG calling them ‘silent scrollers.’ And 80% said they’re more likely to finish a video when captions are available.
Plus, more often than not, YouTube videos are competing for your audience’s full attention. Videos may appear on a muted feed, on a commute, in a quiet office, at 11 PM next to a sleeping dog… any number of places that make it difficult to hear and understand video content. Captions are what make a video digestible at the point of discovery, regardless of circumstance and environment.
And, depending on how you add captions, captions also hand YouTube clean text to index, which feeds search and impressions (hence higher numbers in YouTube Studio). Captions don’t just make your content more accessible; they make it more discoverable (aka, captions pull double duty).
Accessibility matters on its own, but for creators looking to grow, uncaptioned content quietly loses out.
Your audience isn’t just listening anymore
For podcasters who upload to YouTube, we asked what their top goal for the platform is. 71% named “growing my audience.” No surprise there.
But why YouTube? Podcasts are historically audio-first; YouTube requires video.
To start, YouTube is the second-largest search engine on earth. YouTube is also the top podcast discovery platform. New research from Sounds Profitable and JAR Podcast Solutions found that 40% of listeners discovered their favorite podcast on YouTube, more than double any other single source.
How? Why? Well, YouTube offers viewers of all kinds an easy entry point to podcast listenership by bringing podcasts to people in new and different ways. This means people don’t have to go to a podcast app and search for the specific show their buddy mentioned. Now, people who are searching and browsing get served podcast recommendations at a single point of consumption.
This is exactly where captions earn their keep. They bridge the gap uploads alone leave open: captions give YouTube accurate text to index, so your episode can actually surface in those searches and recommendations, and they make the content watchable for anyone scrolling on mute. As a result, more and more, we are seeing casual internet searchers and passive scrollers transition into podcast listeners.
So if you’re on YouTube to grow, consider adding captions. Captions, particularly closed captions, are one of the most informative tools you’ve got, spelling out every guest name, every topic, and every keyword a potential new listener might type into the search bar.
How to actually add captions (without adding hours to your workflow)
The rift between captions and action is rarely intention. It’s process.
There are three common routes/methods podcasters use to caption video uploads on YouTube (according to the survey):
- Open captions (burned in): 55% of caption-users go this way. Text is baked directly into the video, always visible no matter the viewer’s settings. While open captions are great for any upload type, they are most commonly seen on clips and Shorts.
- Closed captions via transcript upload: 25% upload a transcript file viewers can toggle on or off. Again, great for any upload, but particularly ideal for full episodes, where you want the search-indexing benefit and the accessibility win without text permanently parked over the picture.
- YouTube auto-captions: 38% of podcasters lean on these. Auto-captions are better than nothing, but YouTube’s speech recognition trips over proper nouns, jargon, accents, and fast talkers. If your show has guest names and niche terms, and most do, auto-captions leave accuracy in question and search visibility on the table.
The great news is, adding captions really is easy, and they won’t add a ton of extra work.
Adding captions is easy, especially with the right tools
The good news: no version of this requires you to type out every word your guest said. Technology can handle transcription! Your job is to review, correct, and publish.
Headliner is built for exactly this, across every route above.
If you’re cutting clips and audiograms for social, and 55% of you are, Headliner burns accurate, styled open captions right into the clip in the same workflow, where silent autoplay needs them most. For your full-length episodes, Headliner also captions long-form video and generates closed caption files you can upload to YouTube, so the search and accessibility benefits aren’t limited to your short clips.
Open captions for the clip, closed captions for the full episode, one tool for both. No separate captioning step, no second subscription, no export-import shuffle. That’s the difference between a habit you keep and a task you abandon.
If you want a zero-cost starting point and only need bare-bones captions on a single full episode, YouTube Studio’s caption editor has improved and is workable, especially if your audio is clean and your vocabulary is predictable. It’s a fine place to dip a toe. But the moment you’re publishing clips and full episodes on any kind of schedule, and you should be, doing your clipping and captioning in one place is what makes the habit stick.
Where to start if you’re starting from zero
If you do not add captions to YouTube uploads, here’s the lowest-friction path forward:
- Pick your next episode: Don’t try to retrofit your entire back catalog. Start with what you’re publishing this week.
- Pick your workflow: Open or closed captions, clip or full episode, a tool like Headliner handles all of it. Upload your video to clip and caption, or simply transcribe, in one seamless workflow.
- Take a pulse check: Note your channel’s baseline metrics first. If you want to see what captions do, it helps to know where you started.
- Get the captions on before you hit publish: Burned into the clip or uploaded as a transcript file for the full episode, just get them on those videos.
- Measure over time: This is the step almost everyone skips. Watch time, impressions, and views are sitting right there in YouTube Analytics. Give it a few episodes to find your rhythm, then stay consistent and check back on performance.
Adding captions to YouTube videos really is an easy step many overlook, but, captions can have a big impact when it comes to podcast growth.
Caption videos, upload to YouTube, and grow podcasts
Long story short, add captions to your podcast and YouTube uploads. Captions are a powerful, underrated tool that really do grow podcasts.
Captions earn their spot for two simple reasons:
- People watch video, particularly short video, with the sound off, on a commute, in a quiet office, at 11 PM next to a sleeping dog, and captions are what let your content land.
- Accurate captions hand YouTube clean text to index, which is how your show turns up in search and recommendations instead of staying buried. Watchable and findable, from one small step. That same indexing benefit works in other languages too. A tool like Lara Translate can translate your captions accurately, so YouTube can index your show for searches beyond English and put it in front of a global audience.
Creating consumable, indexable video content that is ready for end-to-end consumption at any point, that’s why the podcasters who tracked it saw the numbers move.
And adding captions is easier than it’s ever been. Your video tech stack can handle that for you. Your job is just to review, correct, and publish.
For clips and Shorts, burn open captions right into the video so they show no matter the viewer’s settings. For full episodes, upload a closed caption file so viewers can toggle it on and YouTube can read it. Tools like Headliner do both in one workflow, whether you’re clipping and captioning or transcribing the full show, so captioning stops being the task that slides to next week. It’s baked into a workflow you’re already in.
So pick your next episode and caption video. Keep an eye on your views, impressions, and watch time, because the only way to know what captions do for your show is to look.
Your show deserves to be found. Give it the captions to get there, then go check the scoreboard. We think you’ll like what’s on it.
* Survey data collected from 250 podcast creators. Not every respondent answered every question, and sample sizes are noted throughout. Percentages reflect valid responses within each question’s response pool.
This blog was written by a human at Headliner and was edited with the help of AI.
