Track Your Performance on Spotify Playlists in 4 Simple Steps

Urska Jaksa

Mar 15, 2021

Even though emerging artists can't count on streaming as a reliable source of income, being featured on playlists can increase your reach, help you get on the radar, and grow your streaming performance. Viberate displays your in-depth Spotify analytics, including all the important playlist metrics. We'll tell you how to use them to your benefit.

❓ WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS GUIDE:

How to analyze your Spotify playlist performance and detect opportunities to increase your reach, get more streams and followers, and collaborate with artists your potential fans listen to.

➡️ We'll take you through with the example of British Indie Pop singer Arlo Parks. Follow the steps and apply them to your own case.

✅ Open your Spotify analytics.

Type your name in the search box in the navigation bar and find your name in the results, then click on the SPOTIFY tab.

✅ Assess your overall Spotify performance.

In Career Health on Spotify, you can check your overall Spotify Performance (the speedometer on the left), your rank overall and within the subgenre, as well as see similar artists who rank close to you.

Of course, you’re aiming to have the performance indicator in the green and your rank improving.

👉 We can see that Arlo Parks performs amazingly compared to other Indie Pop artists who rank close to her, and that her rank overall and within Indie Pop is rising. In the previous tutorial on music channels, we also found out that compared to other music channels, Spotify stands out.

✅ Check your performance on Spotify playlists.

Click on the PLAYLISTS tab above. This takes you to Spotify Playlists Overview. Here, you’ll see how your tracks perform on Spotify playlists – their reach, the number of featured tracks, their position on the playlist, and performance through time.

Your goal is to increase the reach and the number of tracks on playlists whenever you release a single, EP or album.

👉 Below, we can see that 70 of Arlo Parks’ tracks are featured on 1,200 active playlists (half of them on popular playlists), which reach 38.5M individuals. This includes collabs and remixes. A good sign is that most of her tracks are featured on popular playlists (55 of 70) which generate the highest reach (38.3M of 38.5M).

Below these stats, we see how they’ve changed through time:

• On the left, there’s a comparison of features on active playlists vs. the reach that these playlists generated. This is a great way to keep track of which features worked best for you (as we can see more playlists don’t necessarily lead to bigger reach). 
• On the right, we see how the number of featured tracks changed.

👉 With Arlo Parks, there’s a notable spike after 29 January, when she released her debut album. The number of featured tracks on the right spiked massively, decreasing a bit by now, but still high. On the left, we see the same happened with the reach and all placements on active playlists – however, more features on playlists don’t mean that the reach grows in parallel. This is because some playlists have a lower reach – you can see this in parts where the lighter green line is below the darker one. As said above – half of Arlo’s playlist placements generate almost all of the reach.

The lesson: When pitching to playlist curators, focus on the playlists that have the potential to increase your reach and put you on the radar. (We’ll tell you how to find those in a sec.)

✅ Check the subgenres of the playlists that feature you.

The next section, Spotify Playlists by Subgenre, tells you which subgenres are the most represented in the playlists that feature you and gives you a list of artists who are most frequently featured alongside you.

If you’re thinking about possible collabs or tours, use the insights from this section. If listeners already vibe with you and another artist on the same playlist, chances are they’d love to see you work together as well.

👉 The majority of playlists with Arlo Parks’ tracks feature Indie Pop artists, which is her main subgenre. She also appears on playlists with Mainstream Pop and Contemporary R&B artists. The takeaway: her versatile sound is suitable alongside artists of different subgenres.

On the right, we see that she’s on 195 playlists with Billie Eilish, on 187 with Tame Impala, 182 with James Blake, 178 with Lana Del Rey, etc.

✅ Check your top Spotify playlists.

We’ll round up our research with the next section, Top Spotify Playlists in the Past 3 Months, where you’ll find the playlists featuring your tracks with the highest reach.

First, you see six playlists with the highest reach in the past three months. Below, there’s a more detailed overview of active Spotify playlists. You can filter them by reach, the average position of your track on the playlist, days on the playlist, and the date when your track was added. You can also type in the name of a specific track and see which playlist it appears on.

Knowing which playlists feature your tracks helps you reach out to playlist curators when you drop new music. If you want to get featured on more playlists, you can look up similar artists who outperform you on Spotify, check which playlists with sufficient reach feature their music, and pitch your tracks to them.

👉 Arlo Parks’ top playlists are Spotify’s own – from New Music Friday to Acoustic Covers, Ultimate Indie, etc. In the list of active playlists below (sorted by Playlist Reach), Ultimate Indie stands out – not surprising as it’s her subgenre. In the example below, we checked which active playlists feature her track Caroline.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Assess your performance in Career Health on Spotify to set your starting point and see how well you’re performing compared to other similar artists in the same subgenre.
• In Spotify Playlist Overview, check how many playlists feature your tracks and their reach, as well as how many of your tracks made the cut, and track these metrics through time to see how your music releases translate into playlist features.
• In Spotify Playlist by Subgenre, see which subgenres are the most represented in playlists that feature you, and discover collab opportunities among the artists that are often featured alongside you.
• Finally, in the Top Spotify Playlist in the Past 3 Months, find your top playlists, measure how well your promotional campaign translated into featured tracks, determine who's spotted you, and get informed about who you can pitch your new releases to.

➡️ It's your time to give it a go.

Search for your Artist Page and learn about your performance on Spotify playlists to get on the streaming map.