If you are an artist releasing music, chances are you are releasing music on Spotify and using Spotify for Artists. Spotify for Artists is a great way to track how many streams and likes your tracks are getting and where in the world your listeners are.

Outside of this, however, is a hidden metric that the Spotify algorithm uses when it comes to choosing how much Spotify wants to recommend your tracks in their algorithmic playlists and placements. This is the Spotify Popularity Index, which you can check through https://metrics.musicstax.com. But let's learn more about it.

The Spotify Popularity Index

Each track on Spotify has this rating against each track. 0 being the lowest to 100 being the highest. Each track is rated from 0 to 100 relative to all other songs on Spotify. It isn't a straight ranking of songs. Many songs will be 0% for example, and a couple can exist around the 99% to 100% mark at any given time.

The rating comes from a few things but is primarily based on the number of plays a song has and how recently those plays were.

An example is a track released in 2010, which was extremely popular and received a million streams back then but is no longer streamed. It will have a low popularity score. A track released a month ago with a million streams will have a high popularity score - because those streams were recent.

The popularity is calculated by algorithm and is based, in the most part, on the total number of plays the track has had and how recent those plays are. - Spotify Documentation

You want your song to continue getting streams, as previous streams lose value over time. This is an important fact to remember, as it means you must continue promotional efforts across times to keep your songs' Spotify Popularity scores high.

It is also thought that Spotify considers how many playlist adds, the length people listen, number of repeat listeners and lack of skips in calculating the popularity score - meaning the quality of your streams is also extremely important.

What the number actually means

Obviously, the exact workings of the Spotify Popularity score are proprietary to Spotify, and only their algorithms will fully know how it works. But we can make some educated guesses based on how we can see the score affecting people getting onto playlists.

There are two important numbers for aspiring producers:

20%

A popularity score of 20% is often thought to be where you will start to get pushed onto Release Radar for people who are not following you. As you will most likely know, if you submit your song in Spotify for Artists, you will get on your followers Release Radar, but you have a window shortly after the track where if your current followers/new listeners who come across your track through promotional efforts listen to your song and raise its popularity score, Spotify will push it to new listeners.

Release Radar updates on a Friday for all users of Spotify, meaning if you have just released a track and can see it is beginning to get close to 20% and it's getting close to Friday, putting some extra promotional effort could help get you over the 20% mark and have a chance of getting on Release Radar.

30%

A popularity score of 30% is thought to be the score where you will start to get pushed onto the Discovery Weekly playlist by Spotify. This playlist updates on a Monday, so as similar to above, putting more promotional effort as you go into the weekend could help push you onto this playlist.

Genre, however, plays an important part in this whole process. If you are a Hip Hop artist, for example, you may have a harder chance of getting onto these playlists due to the genre being so over-saturated. Although it might be harder to be popular if you release more unpopular genres, you may find it easier to get pushed into these people's editorial playlists due to less competition.

How to increase your Spotify Popularity score

Ultimately, promotional efforts are the only way to increase your Spotify popularity score if you currently have zero/low number of followers/listeners. You need to be careful though. If you blast your song out wide to people who are not interested in it, your popularity score can tank/not increase, even though you are getting streams, due to people not enjoying the song and skipping it/not saving it.

Some promotional avenues:

Paid

• Social media advertisements. By using these, you can target a certain audience and push them to your song. If you have a budget, it is quite a proven and somewhat easy way to increase your streams/popularity score, given you target people who will actually be interested in your song. Around a $10,000 USD budget for example, can get you upwards of 3 million streams based on the campaigns I have seen, but you need to make sure you are targeting people who will actually like your song.

• Spotify Showcase. Spotify does have an inbuilt way to advertise your song directly on the platform, which ultimately if you are after Spotify streams, is the best avenue to go down as people are already on the platform. You can find details about Spotify Showcase here.

Free

• TikTok/Instagram reels. One of the most common ways to get popular in the music industry is by creating pre-release TikTok/Reels teasing your track. This will (hopefully) generate enough interest that when you do go to release it, you will have a whole bunch of people searching up and listening to your track. A good example recently is Daniel Allan and his release, I Just Need. He pushed the track a lot before release (to the point that people were almost getting over it not being released) but helped translate this into over 4 million streams and a 63% popularity score.

What not to do

• Purchasing fake streams/playlist placements. As we've learned above, having non-legitimate/low engagement can hurt your song, given Spotify is looking at the quality of streams, not just the number. By paying to be on a playlist, you will likely end up on a generic playlist where your song is mixed in with other genres of songs. If you, a dance producer, end up on a heavy metal playlist, for example, you will likely see people skip your song as it isn't what they expected to listen to. This, in turn, will tank your Spotify popularity score, hurting you in the Spotify algorithm. Paying for fake streams will also tank your Spotify popularity score. While it may increase it in the short term, those fake stream accounts won't return to listen over time, as a real user would naturally, so Spotify will see your user engagement low and assume that your song isn't very popular with your listeners. These two things can cause irreversible harm to your song on Spotify if it tanks your Spotify popularity score.

How you can find the Spotify Popularity Score

While you can find the Spotify Popularity score through the Spotify API, there is a much easier way to find it and also a way to track your historical Spotify Popularity Score over time.

Musicstax Metrics is a free tool allowing you to see the historical popularity score of tens of millions of songs over time - with more added daily.

As you can see above, the track Would You (go to Bed with Me) by Campbell has a current popularity score of 78% - but back in late December, it was hovering around the 74% mark.

We can use Musicstax Metrics to go back in time to the release date and see the track growing over time. It went from an initial launch of 0% to the current popularity score we see now.

You can also click on an artist and get taken to their artist page, allowing you to see all of their tracks on one page. This will allow you to see trends. Does releasing a new song make the Spotify algorithm/your listeners listen to your other tracks? Do you get seasonal streams?

Your Spotify popularity score on your song is a great way to know what Spotify thinks of your songs. While you may get a lot of streams, if you have quite a low relative popularity score, it is likely Spotify thinks something is wrong with your song.

If you are an aspiring artist, using Musicstax's range of tools can help you achieve your goals on Spotify.

Further resources

Below are two great videos explaining a little bit about the Spotify Popularity index and how you can use it. Both have great videos on the rest of their channel to help you promote your own songs, too.