Chartable Has Shut Down: The Best Replacement for Podcast Ad Attribution in 2026

Chartable was acquired by Spotify in February 2022. In December 2023, Spotify shut down all Chartable products with minimal notice. SmartLinks stopped working. SmartPromos stopped tracking. The dashboard went dark.

If you were using Chartable for podcast ad attribution, this left a specific gap: you have campaigns running, hosts reading out tracking URLs and promo codes, and no way to measure what is working. This guide covers what you actually need to replace and which platforms do it best.

What Chartable Actually Did for Podcast Advertisers

Chartable had two products that mattered to podcast advertisers (as opposed to its publisher-facing analytics tools):

SmartLinks were unique tracking URLs per campaign. When someone clicked your SmartLink, Chartable logged the click and attributed any downstream conversion. The mechanism was simple but effective for the fraction of listeners who actually clicked.

SmartPromos tracked promo code usage. When a listener used the code at checkout, the sale was attributed to the campaign that owned that code. This was the higher-confidence signal because it captured buyers who heard the ad but never clicked anything.

Together, these two signals gave podcast advertisers a reasonable attribution system. Not a complete one, but functional. Losing both simultaneously is a real problem.

What Chartable Did Not Do (And What You Should Replace It With)

The gap Chartable always had, and one that accelerated its irrelevance before the shutdown, was the absence of two important attribution signals:

Vanity path detection. When a podcast host says "go to yourbrand.com/tim" and a listener types that URL directly into their browser, Chartable had no way to capture that visit unless the listener was redirected through a SmartLink. First-party vanity path detection, which identifies visitors arriving directly on a specific URL without any redirect, captures a significant portion of the audience Chartable missed.

Post-purchase survey attribution. "How did you hear about us?" on the order confirmation page. This captures buyers who heard the ad, went directly to Google, searched the brand name, and purchased without ever interacting with a tracking link or using a promo code. Chartable could not see these buyers at all.

The result was that Chartable-based attribution typically captured 30 to 40 percent of podcast-driven conversions. The rest were attributed to direct, organic search, or nowhere.

The Best Chartable Replacements in 2026

Castlytics

The most direct replacement and the platform built specifically to address the gaps Chartable always had.

What it replaces:

• SmartLinks: unique tracking links per campaign, auto-generated
• SmartPromos: promo code attribution with Shopify and WooCommerce integration

What it adds that Chartable never had:

• First-party vanity path detection (captures visitors who type your vanity URL directly, with no redirect required)
• Post-purchase survey attribution (captures dark funnel buyers invisible to click and code tracking)
• Real-time ROAS dashboard per campaign
• Attribution window configuration from 7 to 60 days

Pricing: Free tier with 3 campaigns. Paid plans from $29/month.

Setup time: Under 30 minutes to full four-signal tracking.

The core difference from Chartable is the four-signal approach. Where Chartable gave you clicks and promo codes, Castlytics gives you clicks, vanity paths, promo codes, and surveys — and deduplicates across all four so conversions are never double-counted.

Podscribe

Podscribe is a podcast analytics platform focused on publisher-side metrics and download attribution. It offers some advertiser-facing features but its primary focus is on listener reach and IP-based attribution rather than conversion tracking.

Best for: Podcast publishers wanting audience analytics. Less suited for: DTC brands wanting per-campaign revenue attribution.

Spotify for Podcasters

Spotify's own analytics platform shows listener data, play counts, and audience demographics. It does not offer tracking links, promo code attribution, or conversion tracking.

Best for: Understanding your audience as a podcast creator. Not suitable for: Podcast advertisers measuring ROI.

How to Migrate from Chartable to Castlytics

Step 1: Export what you can. If you kept any historical Chartable data locally before the shutdown, extract your campaign names, promo codes, and any conversion data. This becomes your historical baseline.

Step 2: Create a Castlytics account. The free tier covers up to three campaigns. If you are running more, choose the plan that matches your campaign volume.

Step 3: Recreate your campaigns. For each active podcast placement, create a campaign in Castlytics. Add the campaign cost, attribution window, vanity path, and promo code. Generate your new tracking link.

Step 4: Update your hosts. Brief your podcast hosts or ad network on the new tracking URLs and codes. In most cases the promo code stays the same; the tracking URL is new.

Step 5: Install the tracking script. Add the Castlytics tracking script to your website's <head> tag. If you are on Shopify, connect your store under Settings for automatic order import.

Step 6: Run a test. Click your own tracking link, visit your vanity path, and complete a test purchase with your promo code. Confirm all three events appear in your dashboard.

The entire migration should take under two hours for a brand with five to ten active campaigns.

What Good Attribution Looks Like After the Migration

Once your Castlytics campaigns are live and you have a full 30-day attribution window of data, you should expect to see significantly more attributed conversions than Chartable ever showed you.

A typical brand migrating from Chartable to four-signal attribution sees 2 to 3 times more attributed conversions for the same campaigns. This is not because the campaigns suddenly got better. It is because Chartable was only capturing the fraction of buyers who clicked a link or used a promo code. Vanity path visitors and dark funnel buyers are now visible for the first time.

This has a direct impact on the ROAS you can report and the budget cases you can make. Campaigns that looked marginal at 1.5x ROAS in Chartable often show 3 to 5x ROAS when measured with all four signals.

The Chartable shutdown is an opportunity to upgrade your attribution, not just replace it. Start with Castlytics free and have your first four-signal report within 30 days of your next campaign going live.

Related reading: The Podcast Attribution Checklist | Why Google Analytics Misattributes Podcast Conversions | Podcast Ad Attribution From Scratch: First 30 Days