Affinity is SparkToro's 0-100 measure of how strongly an audience engages with a particular source: a website, podcast, social account, YouTube channel, subreddit, search keyword, and so on. The higher the number, the more of the audience uses or engages with that source. You'll see it throughout report sections and in every SparkToro API response.
A few tips for reading it well:
- Compare against the baseline, not zero. Big mainstream sites score high
with almost any audience, simply because everyone visits them. What matters is
how far your audience's affinity sits above (or below) the country-wide
average for that source. A niche blog with an affinity of 12 against a
baseline of 1 tells you far more than YouTube at 90 against a baseline of 88.
API responses include this baseline (
country_average) and the difference (affinity_lift) so you can sort by over-indexing directly. - Hidden gems are the sweet spot. Sources with high affinity for your audience but low overall popularity are flagged as hidden gems. These are usually the best outreach, sponsorship, and advertising targets, since they reach your audience without the cost and competition of mainstream channels.
- Affinity is relative to the audience you built. Change the audience definition and the scores change with it. If a score looks surprising, check why a report might contain unexpected results.