
Increasing user engagement with Text to Speech – Case Study by Play.ht
We analyzed over 5000 articles with Text to Speech audio versions and studied their impact on user engagement.
If you look at the user behavior for consuming content over the past few years, audio consumption has grown exponentially. And for good reasons. Audio is easy to consume, effortless to grasp, and information consumed is retained for longer. Also, the convenience of listening over reading.
If audio is such a powerful medium, is there a way to apply some of it’s the power to written content?
Enter audio articles — the gap between text and audio
Simply put, audio articles are audio versions of written articles. They’re a way to transform written content to audio and make it listenable!
Why do we need them, you ask!?
Well, if you look at the current content channels, there is written content like blog posts and articles, there is audio content like podcasts, radio, audiobooks and there is video content. But there’s a gap — between written content and audio lies a gap which audio articles perfectly fill, where written content is transformed to audio by narrating (reading out loud) and creating an audio version of the content that it can be consumed by listening.
Why audio matters
Your users are not always in a position to read, perhaps they are commuting, exercising, or working. Therefore reading becomes inconvenient. People spend tens and hundreds of hours every week during these activities and offering them a more convenient option to consume information can make all the difference.
Besides, given today’s proliferation of screens, asking users for screen time is quite a demand. Therefore content needs to be as accessible as possible so it can be consumed as per the user’s convenience.
It’s not just Play.ht who is advocating audio articles, rather some of the biggest publications are offering audio articles too!

Financial time have a dedicated section of audio articles that they offer as a premium feature to their paid users.

Medium has started offering audio versions of their popular articles for their paid members.

Bloomberg on the other hand is offering Text to Speech versions of every article! They introduced it as an in-app feature but now they’ve added it to their website as well.
According to Julia Beizer, the global chief product officer, the adoption started off slow. Particularly on the mobile web, and shortly after launch, people were listening to two and a half stories on average per app session. Now, this has increased to six stories and has become the second-most popular media type on the app
“Audio is particularly interesting for our audience because of that multitasking utility, that is a real news use case,” said Beizer. “The delivery of journalism is changing to meet this moment; audio for a multitasking audience a huge tool in our toolkit.”
We believe it’s not just news and journalism that can benefit from audio but other industries as well. Around 5000 articles we analyzed, more than 90% were blogs and publications.
Creating Audio Articles with Text to Speech
We at Play.ht believe that audio articles are poised to become a big channel for content consumption. And among the various ways that can be used to create audio articles, we believe that Text to Speech will be a predominant one because it’s the only viable solution that can be used to generate audio on-demand and at scale.
But implementing Text to Speech on a blog or a website can be quite challenging as it requires technical knowledge to use the APIs, host, embed, and add analytics to the audio.
That’s where Play.ht comes in. Our main goal is to remove any technical constraints that come with implementing Text to Speech and make creating audio articles a seamless process for any non-technical person. Our products make it super easy to convert articles to audio using multiple Text to Speech voices that we have aggregated from different providers and made them available with easy to use plugins for WordPress, Medium and other websites.
Just select a voice for your article and convert it to audio. As simple as that.

Along with converting to audio, Play.ht also provides the necessary tools and widgets for making the audio accessible to your users without you having to worry about hosting, distributing, or tracking the listens of your audio articles. Play.ht takes care of all so you can focus on creating great content.
Studying user engagement from 5000 audio articles that were created with Play.ht
We analyzed over 5000 articles that used Play.ht to create audio versions; to find out the impact audio had on different metrics related to user engagement.

Metric 1 — Visitor to listener conversion
The first thing we measured is the user’s engagement with the audio player. From all the people who visited the audio articles; the number of people who would click on the ‘Play’ button in the audio player. And this is what we found.
On average 5% of users visiting an article were interested in listening to it and clicked the ‘Play’ button but on some articles a whopping 30% of users clicked on the ‘Play’ button to listen to the article!
Metric 2 — Measuring the listening time
The next thing we wanted to know is from the people who clicked on the ‘Play’ button. How many of them listened to the full article?

Almost 18% of the users who clicked on the Play button listened to the complete article!
Metric 3 — Average Session Duration

We then compared the average session duration of users who listened versus users who did not listen to an article for instance.
Users who listened to articles increased the Average Session Duration time by 645% as compared to users who did not listen!
Metric 4 — Bounce Rates
Lastly, we compared the bounce rates of users who listened versus users who did not listen to articles and here’s what we found.

Users who listened to articles decreased the bounce rate by 280% compared to the users who did not listen!
These numbers clearly show that audio can have a positive impact on your website’s user engagement metrics. We will continue to study the application of audio to written content and share our learnings.
Conclusion
- The audio articles complement and add value to written content, making it more accessible and consumable.
- Audio articles are poised to be big consumption channels for your content.
- The audio articles can be offered as an added value to your paid subscribers.
- Some of the biggest websites have started offering audio articles including Medium, Financial Times and Bloomberg.
- Recent technological breakthroughs make Text to Speech an ideal solution for creating audio articles.
- Adding audio articles to your blog or website can increase user engagement between 5% — 30%.
- Not all users will find audio articles useful but the ones who do, will increase the Average Session Duration by up to 645% and reduce Bounce Rates by -280%


28 Comments
camera hd
This is my first time go to see at here and i am truly
impressed to read all at one place.
betting exchange saoftware cricket
Hi there, all is going well here and ofcourse
every one is sharing facts, that’s in fact good, keep up writing.
Activ8 Fitness Tracker Reviews
My family members always say that I am killing my time here at web, however
I know I am getting experience daily by reading thes nice
content.
104.131.120.194
It’s nearly impossible to find well-informed people about this subject, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about!
Thanks
Www.dailymotion.com
Thank you for another great article. Where else may just
anybody get that kind of information in such a perfect way of writing?
I have a presentation subsequent week, and I am on the look for such info.
Andre
Awesome post.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dia-chi-phong-kham-phu-khoa-uy-tin-o-ha-noi-tot-nhat-giang-nguyen/
These are in fact wonderful ideas in on the topic
of blogging. You have touched some good factors here.
Any way keep up wrinting.
news
I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.
The sketch is tasteful, your authored subject matter stylish.
nonetheless, you command get bought an impatience over that you wish be delivering the
following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the same nearly very often inside case you
shield this increase.
carpet
I do not even know how I stopped up here, but I assumed this post used to be great.
I don’t recognise who you are but definitely you are going to a well-known blogger if you happen to aren’t
already. Cheers!
Escorts romania
Your style is very unique in comparison to other people I have read
stuff from. I appreciate you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess
I’ll just bookmark this blog.
https://jasagol188.site/
Hi, after reading this remarkable article i am also happy to share my experience here with colleagues.
situs domino online terbaik
Hello to all, how is the whole thing, I think every one is getting more from this website, and your views are pleasant
in favor of new people.
제이링크쥬스
I will right away seize your rss as I can’t find your e-mail subscription hyperlink or e-newsletter
service. Do you have any? Kindly let me recognise so that I could
subscribe. Thanks.
https://tonosdellamada.net/
Wеll I sincerely liked гeading it. This information provided by yoᥙ
is very effeϲtіve foг good planning.
Big Daddy's Sports BaR
Hey I am so thrilled I found your site, I really
found you by mistake, while I was researching on Bing for something else, Regardless I am here now and
would just like to say many thanks for a incredible post and a all round thrilling blog (I also love the theme/design),
I don’t have time to go through it all at the moment but I have book-marked it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read
more, Please do keep up the fantastic b.
광주출장안마
You are so cool! I do not suppose I have read anything like this before.
So good to find another person with some genuine thoughts on this
issue. Really.. thanks for starting this up. This web
site is something that is needed on the web,
someone with a little originality!
광주출장안마
Appreciate this post. Will try it out.
온라인 카지노 추천
Hello, constantly i used to check weblog posts here early
in the daylight, since i like to learn more and more.
look at these guys
Hey there! I’ve been following your blog for a long time now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and
give you a shout out from Humble Tx! Just wanted to tell you
keep up the fantastic job!
gắn bi hết bao nhiêu tiền
Thanks on your marvelous posting! I definitely enjoyed reading it, you can be a great author.
I will ensure that I bookmark your blog and will often come back at some
point. I want to encourage continue your great job, have a nice holiday weekend!
click this site
Hello to every body, it’s my first pay a quick visit
of this webpage; this blog consists of amazing and actually good data designed for readers.
agen Aduq
Hello, yup this article is truly pleasant and I have learned lot of things from it about
blogging. thanks.
navigate to this web-site
Heya i am for the primary time here. I came across this board and I find It truly helpful & it helped me out a lot.
I am hoping to offer one thing again and help others such as
you aided me.
pregnancy belly oil
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you
penning this post plus the rest of the site is also very good.
http://forum.benchmark.pl/topic/180410-dns-probe-finished-nxdomain
I am sure this article has touched all the internet
users, its really really pleasant piece of writing on building
up new website.
wordpress website developers near me
I’ll immediately clutch your rss feed as I can’t to find your email subscription link or newsletter service.
Do you’ve any? Please let me understand in order that
I may just subscribe. Thanks.
Anti Aging Cream
My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different web page
and thought I might check things out. I like what
I see so now i’m following you. Look forward to going over your web page repeatedly.
Zubair
We’re glad you’ve liked our content! We do post regularly, so we hope you like our upcoming posts as well!:)