Spotify’s new promotional tool allows artists to note tracks that are currently important to them and push these tracks to new listeners.

Spotify and streaming have introduced an entirely new way to discover new tracks from new artists personalized to your exact taste, however you may be unaware of exactly how many factors go into Spotify’s choosing of the perfect song for the perfect moment. Every time you play or search for a track on Spotify, they’re taking note on how you react to each song, whether you listen to, skip, repeat, like or share a track, this all adds to Spotify’s deep listening data it has on you.

Spotify claim they drive 16 billion artist discoveries every month, meaning 16 billion times a month, listeners play an artists they have never heard before on Spotify. Spotify are continually refining their algorithms that enable millions of listeners to discover new artists. Spotify’s complex and dynamic system considers a wide variety of inputs – referred to as signals, that produce an output – the perfect personalized song for the moment. These signals can be based on anything such as songs you have on repeat, the listening habits of people who have similar taste, similarity to other artists you listen to, song length, genres you listen to, tempo, time of day you listen and many more.

Spotify Signals

Artists tell us they want more opportunities to connect with new listeners, and we believe our recommendations should also be informed by artists—their priorities and what they have to say about their music. And soon, we will roll out a test of a service that gives artists a say in how their music is discovered.

Spotify

Artists and labels will be able to identify music that’s a priority for them. Spotify’s system add that signal to the algorithm. The algorithm will account for what’s import to the artist when choosing what song to play to potential new listeners. Be it a new song the artist is excited about, an album anniversary, a viral cultural moment, or other factors.

The new service will undoubtedly ensure more streams, so predictably it’s not free. However, thankfully for smaller artists there will be no upfront cost. Instead it seems Spotify will take a bigger cut for promotional songs. “Labels or rights holders agree to be paid a promotional recording royalty rate for streams in personalized listening sessions where we provided this service.” Spotify will determine how the song resonates with listeners and will keep trying them in similar sessions. If tracks don’t perform well, the track will be pulled back to ensure listener satisfaction. Spotify stress they will still only recommend music they think listeners will want to hear.

The testing of this new feature will ensure it’s a good addition for both listeners and artists. The service will start by being applied to Radio and Autoplay formats. This is where listeners are actively looking to discover new music. As they learn, it’ll be expanded to other personalized areas of Spotify, presumably on the home page, Made For You playlists and recommended songs for you playlists.

Click here to see Spotify’s latest Q3 2020 results.