Spotify Popularity — A unique insight into the Spotify algorithm and how to influence it
By: Oskar Eichler
Tags: Spotify, Spotify Popularity, Pre Saves, Playlists, Charts

Spotify Popularity is an extremely important value that Spotify uses internally to rank all artists and tracks on a scale from 0 to 100. You might have seen a visual representation of track popularity before, in the form of the little bar that sits right next to each track on Spotify. Sometimes it’s empty, sometimes it’s full, and it essentially displays how popular a song currently is in the Spotify ecosystem.

Unfortunately it is difficult to get an accurate popularity reading directly from the Spotify app. Also it’s not available at the artist level, just for individual tracks. So why is Spotify popularity important, and how can you measure it more precisely and influence it to ultimately increase your streams?

Why is Spotify Popularity important?

Spotify Popularity gives you a valuable insight into how the Spotify algorithm currently evaluates you and your music. The higher your popularity index, the more likely the algorithm is to recommend you to new listeners, and place you in algorithmic playlists like Release Radar and Discover Weekly.

So many songs are released on Spotify every day, and the Spotify algorithm plays a huge role in deciding which tracks are being surfaced to more listeners and which just fly under the radar. Once it detects that your new release resonates well with a certain audience, it immediately increases its popularity and starts recommending it to more fans. This recommendation engine is vital for Spotify’s success, as it helps their users discover new tracks and keeps them engaged.

How can Spotify popularity be influenced?

Spotify Popularity can be most influenced right after a track has been released. The more early data points the algorithm is able to collect, the higher its initial popularity will be, and the release will suddenly start accelerating by itself. Any effort invested into the early stages of a release results in a much broader reach of listeners and ultimately more streams throughout an extended period of time. The first week of a release is critical for its success, and here are the most effective methods to help it have the highest impact:

Editorial Playlists

Always submit your new release for playlist consideration through Spotify for Artists! Editorial playlists are one of the most effective ways of getting your music in front of listeners at the beginning of the release cycle. Spotify’s editorial team is always looking to feature new talent, and being persistent with submitting your music will help them recognize your name and promote you in more prominent positions.

In contrast to pure editorial playlists, which are entirely curated by Spotify’s team of tastemakers, algorithmic and personalized playlists are run almost exclusively by the algorithm and are highly optimized for listening time. Editorial playlists are nice to get a kick start, but usually change within one or two weeks to feature other new tracks, so the impact is fairly short lived. Algorithmic playlists, however, can keep promoting your track for months.

Submitting your songs also provides the algorithm with more information about your track. Language, instruments, ethnicity and mood are all extremely important factors to place your song in front of the right people at the right time.

Pre-Save Campaigns

Pre-Save Campaigns are the single most underrated marketing method you can use to promote your upcoming release. Not only do they allow you to start creating hype ahead of a release and use the weeks leading up to it more efficiently, but they also have a huge impact on how the Spotify algorithm evaluates your track. While they won’t have any impact on editorial playlists, they are pretty much like legal doping for the algorithm, and here is why:

Pre-Save campaigns allow fans to authorize you to save your new track to their collection of Liked Songs the moment it gets released. Collecting a high volume of saves directly on day 1 positively affects your release right away and artificially pushes the algorithm to rank you higher.

Even more importantly, it helps the algorithm to profile your fans, and analyze their listening behavior to target a similar audience when recommending your song to more listeners. This is critical as you and your fans essentially train the algorithm to understand which audience is most likely to like your song and listen to it repeatedly. To get started with your first pre-save campaign, check out our friends over at Presave.io!

DJ & Radio Promo

Promoting your music to DJs and radio shows are great ways to further create momentum and open up a huge new group of listeners outside of Spotify. This might at first glance be counter intuitive, but your song being heard and recognized by tastemakers and channels trusted by listeners, is often the most impactful way to reach new fans.

Tools like Shazam and 1001Tracklists allow fans to draw connections back to their preferred streaming service, and let them immediately capture the song they just heard on their favorite radio show. Teasing tracks ahead of a release, creating hype around them — especially together with a pre-save campaign — and arranging a premiere on a big YouTube channel or a viral video by a growing TikTok influencer are all extremely impactful ways to fire up your release. We recommend Inflyte to power your promo delivery and get your tracks played in new mixes and livestreams by the world’s biggest DJs.

Where can I find Spotify Popularity?

Now that you know how to influence your popularity, the question that remains is how to measure the effects that it has on your songs. Interestingly enough, Spotify doesn’t really show accurate numbers themselves on their apps, but allows developers to retrieve and display this data in their own analytics. Songstats is a great tool to visualize the effect that your marketing efforts have on your release, and how your growing popularity has an even bigger impact on your streams, monthly listeners, and ultimately your entire career. Check it out here: https://songstats.com

If you have questions or thoughts regarding Spotify Popularity, we want to hear them all! So as always, shoot us an email at lab@songstats.com or leave a comment below.

— The Songstats Team