RouteNote are partnered with Spotify to offer our artists access to their new marketing tool – Discovery Mode.

Spotify initially announced Discover Mode back in November 2020, before sharing more details of the beta at Stream On back in 2021. Over the following two years, Spotify has expanded the feature to more labels, distributors and artists. At last week’s Stream On event, Spotify shared further details and next steps for the tool.

As Spotify recently revealed, a third of discoveries on Spotify happen via personalized recommendations in algorithmic context, driving 16 billion artist discoveries every month. That’s Spotify introducing an artist to a listener for the first time. Discovery Mode capitalises on these algorithmic sessions, by taking into account the tracks you want to drive attention to, thus driving more reach to grow your fanbase. Here’s how Spotify describes Discovery Mode:

With Discovery Mode, artists and labels identify songs that are a priority for them, and our system will add that signal to the algorithms that determine personalized listening sessions. This signal increases the likelihood of the selected songs being recommended, but does not guarantee it.

But it only works if fans love it too. We take note when a listener isn’t engaging with a song — including those in Discovery Mode — and factor this in when determining what to recommend next. It’s all about harmony.

Spotify
Image Credit: Spotify

Essentially, Discovery Mode will boost your tracks in Radio and Autoplay sessions of listeners who listen to similar music. Initial tests from Spotify have been promising. On average, artists see +50% in saves, +44% in user playlist adds, and +37% in follows during the first month of Discovery Mode.

Spotify are gradually rolling out Discovery Mode to select artists on Spotify for Artists, giving artists the control to decide which tracks to include in Discovery Mode. Detailed analytics of specific Discovery Mode listens are displayed in Spotify for Artists dashboards, showing stats such as listeners, streams, saves, playlist adds, intent rate and comparisons to data prior to Discovery Mode campaigns. Campaigns are monthly, starting on the first of the month. Statistics are available on Spotify for Artists from the 11th.

There are a few requirements to Discovery Mode, regardless of whether you or your rightsholder have access. Songs must have been on Spotify for at least 30 days and streamed on Radio or Autoplay within the last 7 days.

Along with the rolling out to Spotify for Artists, Spotify publicly announced commission details for the marketing tool. Discovery Mode has zero upfront costs, with Spotify taking a 30% commission from streams generated within Discovery Mode contexts – currently Radio and Autoplay. Streams in all other areas are commission-free. Unlike traditional marketing and advertising tools such as Marquee, this makes Discovery Mode accessibile to artists, regardless of budget.

RouteNote’s involvement in Spotify Discovery Mode

RouteNote was one of the first distributors to be offered access to Discovery Mode on Spotify. In the last few months of testing we’ve seen great results. To learn more about Discovery Mode on RouteNote, please get in contact with our Support team.

RouteNote provides industry-leading music distribution to stores including Spotify for free!