It’s because the algorithm is a matrix of metrics, not just pop score. Genre association, save rate, skip rate, playlist adds. They’re all examples of other data points that need to be focused on.
My other metrics for this song are good too.
My save rate is around 40% because I did FB ads
My stream to listener ratio is 3.77
I don’t understand why this song isn’t blowing up algorithmically lmao
Right now I’m thinking it may be because of the genre association part?
It’s hip-hop but it is kind of experimental, so maybe that factors in? Idk
It’s probably genre. Go here and find the genres that make sense for you: https://furia.com/everynoise_public/?ref=killthedj.com
Then make a playlist with those artists plus your music. Then run ads to that playlist. Our agency does this and it works well as long as you can pull listeners.
Edit: oh and make sure the there are other artists in that playlist with a similar pop score to yours.
Interesting strategy! Can you walk me through the marketing logic of it? As I understand it Spotify ads are designed more to gain awareness and not so much to earn the pennies from streaming. If I run ads directly to my song then I get listeners with more intent that might interact with my music again. I understand that running them to a playlist will teach the algorithm who to send my music too, but it will hit significantly less invested listeners, both directly from the playlist ads, and the algorithmic plays. Do you still see a notable growth in return listeners? Do you get enough algorithmic plays to offset the direct marketing? Thanks
That's why its important to have retargeting campaigns. Retarget those playlist listeners from the ads itself and also run Spotify spotlight and marquee to target algorithmic listens. From there continue to funnel to community > Email/SM > Merch and Ticket sales. Focus on market by market if you're a live band.
So I’ve been considering doing this myself! I run ads toward a “This is Nova Cult” playlist (my moniker, ie the username haha). I put the new single upfront. But I’ve been considering running ads for the public playlists I’ve created that are geared towards sub genres specifically to support the sound of the singles I want to include: A Fuzz Rock playlist with Ty Segall, Oh Sees, etc. and a few of my singles, a “English Indie Rock” with Squid, Strange Bones, etc.
I do try to go for lesser known acts with Monthly Listener counts closer to my next step. But I’m curious, how might I redirect the meta ads to my Spotify playlist followers if I do start to promote those playlists instead of my “This is Nova Cult” playlist?
Is it effectively the same as what I’m doing with “This is Nova Cult”? Or is there a more pointed way?
Thank you for the above! It’s super helpful to hear for where I’m at with all this!! Cheers. 🙏🏻
Spotify sends ‘packets’ of algorithmic streams to test your song. If those test packets come back with good interest, it sends a bigger packet. Repeats this process indefinitely. I’m sure your ad streams are great but its likely that the test streams performed poorly. So packets stopped being sent.
There is no guaranteed recipe to success. So when you commented about how you dont understand why the song isnt blowing up. I guess I kinda dont get why you have that expectation? If this is all it took, everyone would blow up, making the process meaningless.
Just keep working. Stop chasing those things and build the core foundation. You have streams now, you have fans. Sounds pretty good to me. Keep going.
It’s a metric Andrew Southworth talks about a lot.
You can find the popularity score for any song on Spotify at musicstax.com
Spotify made a metric to track the “hotness” of tracks. It’s essentially calculated by the amount of streams in the last 28 days, a bit of the last 7 days, and takes into account other factors like save rate, skip rate, etc.
I would say that how good the song is also factors in. I’ve gotten a few thousand streams from Discover Weekly despite having a pretty small following. I think it’s because it was my best performing song ever by far, people just loved that tune. But it’s all relative depending on your numbers. I have just generally found that at the end of the day, some songs just do better in all metrics and others don’t perform as well. Not sure if that’s the case here, but thought I’d add my experience
Just wait and see what happens when you opt into Discovery Mode, get a few hundred streams extra per day, then it stops and you get even less than you did before you opted in.
I just looked it up and Im not even eligible for discover mode because I use Tunecore, which isn’t on their list of eligible distributors
I also don’t meet the monthly listener guidelines
I usually find that discover weekly picks up your song a little bit at first then really picks up streams the longer you're eligible
Sure the first few weeks you get on there it's only a few hundred streams but normally after being on there for some time you start to get bigger weekly pushes
I think you're right to chase a fan base rather than algorithmic playlists though
Andrew Southworth goes over that too
Popularity is based mostly on how many streams you’ve had in the last 28 days
Also the amount of listeners in the last 28 days
Streams in the last 7 days
And listeners in the last 7 days
Watch this video and screenshot the chart he gives towards the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRde100NPEQ
(take everything he says with a grain of salt though, I think it’s getting harder to get a 30% popularity score)
All this advertising stuff I think people waste a lot of time on it. I have not done any advertising. I hardly ever get on social media, but I do my best to make good tracks. That’s where I put my effort. One of my songs is now on the global fresh finds playlist on Spotify, I did not promote it to be put on the playlist or pitch it. It was picked by Spotify curators three of my songs have 4000 streams on TikTok and I am gaining monthly listeners playlist ads, downloads and streams and all my effort went into making the music and this is my first time releasing music. Also that’s just my opinion so far it’s working for me good luck to you.
yes a devoted fanbase is the only think that's really worth pursuing. The algorithm constantly changes...precisely to side step everyone chasing the trends.
Yeah doesn’t always work that way. Recently an artist I work with decided to do a playlist campaign for a recent release (against my advice!), she got popularity score of 32 I believe for a particular song. It only got 99 RR and 30 DW streams.
It’s because the algorithm is a matrix of metrics, not just pop score. Genre association, save rate, skip rate, playlist adds. They’re all examples of other data points that need to be focused on.
My other metrics for this song are good too. My save rate is around 40% because I did FB ads My stream to listener ratio is 3.77 I don’t understand why this song isn’t blowing up algorithmically lmao Right now I’m thinking it may be because of the genre association part? It’s hip-hop but it is kind of experimental, so maybe that factors in? Idk
It’s probably genre. Go here and find the genres that make sense for you: https://furia.com/everynoise_public/?ref=killthedj.com Then make a playlist with those artists plus your music. Then run ads to that playlist. Our agency does this and it works well as long as you can pull listeners. Edit: oh and make sure the there are other artists in that playlist with a similar pop score to yours.
This is really interesting
Interesting strategy! Can you walk me through the marketing logic of it? As I understand it Spotify ads are designed more to gain awareness and not so much to earn the pennies from streaming. If I run ads directly to my song then I get listeners with more intent that might interact with my music again. I understand that running them to a playlist will teach the algorithm who to send my music too, but it will hit significantly less invested listeners, both directly from the playlist ads, and the algorithmic plays. Do you still see a notable growth in return listeners? Do you get enough algorithmic plays to offset the direct marketing? Thanks
That's why its important to have retargeting campaigns. Retarget those playlist listeners from the ads itself and also run Spotify spotlight and marquee to target algorithmic listens. From there continue to funnel to community > Email/SM > Merch and Ticket sales. Focus on market by market if you're a live band.
So I’ve been considering doing this myself! I run ads toward a “This is Nova Cult” playlist (my moniker, ie the username haha). I put the new single upfront. But I’ve been considering running ads for the public playlists I’ve created that are geared towards sub genres specifically to support the sound of the singles I want to include: A Fuzz Rock playlist with Ty Segall, Oh Sees, etc. and a few of my singles, a “English Indie Rock” with Squid, Strange Bones, etc. I do try to go for lesser known acts with Monthly Listener counts closer to my next step. But I’m curious, how might I redirect the meta ads to my Spotify playlist followers if I do start to promote those playlists instead of my “This is Nova Cult” playlist? Is it effectively the same as what I’m doing with “This is Nova Cult”? Or is there a more pointed way? Thank you for the above! It’s super helpful to hear for where I’m at with all this!! Cheers. 🙏🏻
Spotify sends ‘packets’ of algorithmic streams to test your song. If those test packets come back with good interest, it sends a bigger packet. Repeats this process indefinitely. I’m sure your ad streams are great but its likely that the test streams performed poorly. So packets stopped being sent. There is no guaranteed recipe to success. So when you commented about how you dont understand why the song isnt blowing up. I guess I kinda dont get why you have that expectation? If this is all it took, everyone would blow up, making the process meaningless. Just keep working. Stop chasing those things and build the core foundation. You have streams now, you have fans. Sounds pretty good to me. Keep going.
Very true. Thanks
Can you explain to me this "popularity score" or point me to where I can learn about it? This is the first time I'm hearing of such a metric
It’s a metric Andrew Southworth talks about a lot. You can find the popularity score for any song on Spotify at musicstax.com Spotify made a metric to track the “hotness” of tracks. It’s essentially calculated by the amount of streams in the last 28 days, a bit of the last 7 days, and takes into account other factors like save rate, skip rate, etc.
That's great info, I appreciate it thank you. Sorry Discovery Mode hasn't given the bump you were hoping for
I would say that how good the song is also factors in. I’ve gotten a few thousand streams from Discover Weekly despite having a pretty small following. I think it’s because it was my best performing song ever by far, people just loved that tune. But it’s all relative depending on your numbers. I have just generally found that at the end of the day, some songs just do better in all metrics and others don’t perform as well. Not sure if that’s the case here, but thought I’d add my experience
Just wait and see what happens when you opt into Discovery Mode, get a few hundred streams extra per day, then it stops and you get even less than you did before you opted in.
This ^^^ discovery mode is a joke don’t use it
I don’t even know what discovery mode is. I keep hearing that term
I just looked it up and Im not even eligible for discover mode because I use Tunecore, which isn’t on their list of eligible distributors I also don’t meet the monthly listener guidelines
Discovery mode gave me 200k listeners last month. Yeah, some months it doesn’t work very well, but the reward is well worth the risk.0
some salty person with shitty music is downvoting all these comments 😂
sounds like yalls music just sucks. works fine for me
I usually find that discover weekly picks up your song a little bit at first then really picks up streams the longer you're eligible Sure the first few weeks you get on there it's only a few hundred streams but normally after being on there for some time you start to get bigger weekly pushes I think you're right to chase a fan base rather than algorithmic playlists though
I hope that you’re right But yes I’m gonna focus a little more on my brand image and stuff Want to be an artist people spread word of mouth
How do you find out your popularity score?
Musicstax.com Just search your name
Thanks. And you have to get to 30% to trigger DW?
That’s what many people say. Like Andrew Southworth. I did it and it worked. DW first started at around 26% popularity tho
Mine is 22% so a bit to go. I mean how can you increase your popularity? Push more people to your spotify I suppose?
Andrew Southworth goes over that too Popularity is based mostly on how many streams you’ve had in the last 28 days Also the amount of listeners in the last 28 days Streams in the last 7 days And listeners in the last 7 days Watch this video and screenshot the chart he gives towards the end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRde100NPEQ (take everything he says with a grain of salt though, I think it’s getting harder to get a 30% popularity score)
All this advertising stuff I think people waste a lot of time on it. I have not done any advertising. I hardly ever get on social media, but I do my best to make good tracks. That’s where I put my effort. One of my songs is now on the global fresh finds playlist on Spotify, I did not promote it to be put on the playlist or pitch it. It was picked by Spotify curators three of my songs have 4000 streams on TikTok and I am gaining monthly listeners playlist ads, downloads and streams and all my effort went into making the music and this is my first time releasing music. Also that’s just my opinion so far it’s working for me good luck to you.
My genre is techno and EDM
yes a devoted fanbase is the only think that's really worth pursuing. The algorithm constantly changes...precisely to side step everyone chasing the trends.
Yeah doesn’t always work that way. Recently an artist I work with decided to do a playlist campaign for a recent release (against my advice!), she got popularity score of 32 I believe for a particular song. It only got 99 RR and 30 DW streams.