Honestly I’m surprised more people aren’t asking this question. In fact, this may be one of the least understood metrics that Spotify exposes.
Let’s take a look at the popularity index, see what Spotify tells us about it, and figure out if/how we can manipulate to our advantage
QUICK SYNOPISIS
The Spotify Popularity index is a ranking from 0-100. A good score increases a track’s discoverability across the platform, and is especially critical in the first days and weeks after a song’s release.
The good stuff seems to begin with a score around 20, but the higher the score, the better your chances of massive algorithmic exposure.
Spotify Popularity Index Defined
The popularity index is a semi-hidden metric. It’s not shown in many versions of the Spotify app, and it’s not shown in Spotify For Artists. But it is available through the Spotify Developer API, and there are some cryptic explanations of what it is… but not really how it is used.
The popularity index is a 0-100 ‘score’ used internally by Spotify to compare and rank a track relative to ALL tracks on the platform. The index appears to influence almost all aspects of Spotify’s discovery, recommendation, and algorithmic playlist generation.
We don’t know the exact formula to calculate the index, but the higher the score, the better. It factors in the age of a track, in addition to the number of streams, saves, listeners, and probably more. And it’s always changing based on how users interact with your song on Spotify.
So it’s possible to have a brand new track from an emerging artist have a higher popularity score than an older song with many more streams from a more more established act.
Why Is The Spotify Popularity Index Important?
The index is important because it seems to influence your track’s discoverability and reach throughout the entire lifetime of the song. And evidence seems to indicate that it is especially important in the first days and weeks after you release a track.
This is where opportunity lies. If we can affect our song’s popularity index shortly after release, we have the ability to gain exposure through two hugely important algorithmic playlists.
Two Very Important Playlists
Release Radar
Release Radar is the first algorithmic playlist that EVERY song gets a shot to be on. When you release a new track, it will appear on most or all of your followers’ Release Radar playlist. It’s updated every Friday
Not all users listen to their Release Radar. So don’t expect a massive bump on that first Friday unless you have a LOT of followers already. But here’s the cool part. There seems to be a Popularity Index threshold that will trigger Spotify to put your song on people’s Release Radar who ARE NOT YOUR FOLLOWERS YET.
Discover Weekly
Discover weekly is a big deal. It’s a personalized, algorithmic playlist that Spotify updates every monday. Every user gets their own Discover Weekly. Spotify uses this playlist to expose songs to fans who may not have heard it yet, but are likely to enjoy it
HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SPOTIFY POPULARITY INDEX
Unfortunately, Spotify does not currently give us enough information to calculate our popularity index. In fact, I’m sure that formula is constantly being tweaked.
Spotify measures EVERYTHING a listener does. How many times do they listen to a track? Do they listen to completion? Are they hitting the skip button when your track comes up in a playlist? Do they add it to their own personal playlists?
Evidence seems to indicate that the Spotify Popularity score is a kind of aggregate metric. Most likely all of the following (in no particular order), and probably others.
1. TOTAL STREAMS
2. AGE OF SONG
3. LISTENER/SAVE RATIO
4. STREAMS/LISTENER RATIO
All of that being said, your Popularity Score isn’t something that is highly visible to listeners, unlike stream counts. So it’s not a vanity metric that just looks good on your profile.
In my opinion, the key importance of the popularity index is for artists and marketers to be able to FIND it. Then use it to make informed decisions on when and how to potentially take steps to influence it.
What's My Spotify Popularity Score?
The easiest way to find your track’s popularity score is a website called Musicstax.
You can search for an Artists or Song, and view lots of helpful stats, including your song’s current popularity score.
I’m currently working on a slightly different tool to show artists their popularity index, and some other important metrics and calculations.
Sign up for our Newsletter if you want to be notified when that becomes available
How To Increase Your Spotify Popularity Score
The short answer is to take action. If your popularity score is hovering right below that Release Radar threshold a few days after release, put the hammer down on whatever promotion method is working for you. But remember, you want QUALITY engagement on your tracks… not just a high stream count.
According to those who have experimented with this, if you can reach a popularity score of 20 by the first Friday after you release (1 week if you release on a Friday) you have a very good chance of having your song placed on Release Radar for thousands of people who DON’T EVEN FOLLOW YOU on Spotify.
The popularity number for Discover Weekly is definitely higher, but we don’t know what it is… there are probably other factors at play, but it seems like you’ve got a shot if your score is over 30 within the first few weeks of release.
NON-SCIENTIFIC ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: My own latest release(at the time of this writing) hit a popularity score of 18 by the end of the first week. My promotional budget ran out at that time, and I wish I would have put a bit more into it, but even below 20, I still got a couple of decent Release Radar bumps over the next few weeks, as well as some Spotify Radio algorithmic juice. And I doubled my followers on Spotify.
Moral of the story… the better your song does out of the gate, the more likely Spotify is to push it to people who haven’t heard you yet.
Items 3 and 4 in the above list aren’t exactly public metrics, but you can calculate them from your Spotify For Artists page. In fact, there is now an ‘Engagement’ tab that provides some cool new insights about these and other metrics
Spotify Music Promotion Tactics To Avoid
A Note On Playlist Promotion
Playlist promotion gets a bad rap, but there is a time and place for it. It COULD help you get get a quick bump in streams, but be SUPER VIGILANT about the quality and authenticity of the playlists you pitch to. You can easily land back in bot-stream territory, and that doesn’t help you at all.
WHAT ARE MY SOURCES?
I’ve learned a lot about Spotify music promotion from YouTubers like Andrew Southworth and Tom DuPree III.
If you are interested in music marketing (specifically regarding facebook ads for Spotify), I HIGHLY recommend checking out those two channels.
They have both done a tremendous amount of experimentation and rigorous data collection. They both place a lot of emphasis on the important of your the listener/save and streams/listener ratios, especially in the early days of a release, when Spotify is trying to figure out what to do with your track.
They both have some insights into how the Spotify Popularity score works. I recommend you watch both of these videos for some pretty interesting information.
There are also a few interesting articles you might want to check out…
CONCLUSION
I hope this article was helpful for you. I happen to think that the Spotify Popularity index is an important and relatively easy metric to monitor.
It can have a big impact on how your song performs on Spotify in the first days and weeks after release.
I am working on a tool to make this, and other important metrics easier for you to access and track for your own promotional efforts.
You might consider signing up for our newsletter to see future updates…. just sayin….