How to Find Out Who Is Actually Listening
Published · updated · by Loopin
Most artists are marketing to the audience they imagined and ignoring the one the data is describing. The gap is usually visible in about four minutes.
Open the three sources and compare them
Spotify for Artists gives you cities, age and gender for people who streamed. Your short-form analytics give you the same for people who watched. Your follower demographics give you who stayed. Write down the top three cities from each.
When those three lists disagree, the streaming one is the truth about who likes the music and the video one is the truth about who your posting reaches. The gap between them is your entire marketing problem, stated precisely.
Sort cities by growth, not by size
Your biggest city is usually where you live and tells you nothing. The interesting one is whichever moved most this month, because that movement has a cause — a playlist, a share, a scene picking it up.
Find the cause before the trail cools. Search the track title on each platform, check playlist adds in Spotify for Artists, and look at who shared. You have roughly two weeks to do something with a spike.
Check the age band against your assumptions
The most common surprise is that the audience is older than expected. If your listeners are 28–40 and you are posting exclusively short-form, you are advertising in the wrong place — that group is on YouTube and in playlists more than in a vertical feed.
Match the channel to the age, not to what is fashionable. An audience that skews older converts better on email and YouTube; an audience that skews under 24 converts on short-form and nowhere else.
Find out what else they listen to
Spotify for Artists shows the other artists your listeners play. That list is your ad targeting, your playlist submission list, your feature shortlist, and your reference-track list, all at once — and it is more accurate than any assumption you have about your genre.
Pick the three names on it with two to five times your audience. Those are the people to ask for a feature and the fans to target with a first ad, in that order.
Then actually change something
One post referencing the city that moved. One ad targeting the artists your listeners actually play, not the ones you sound like. One posting-time change to the timezone that dominates.
Do these one at a time and give each two weeks. Audience data is only worth the four minutes it takes to read if it changes what you do next — otherwise it is a dashboard you visit for reassurance.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out who listens to my music?
Compare three sources: Spotify for Artists for who streamed, short-form analytics for who watched, and follower demographics for who stayed. Where they disagree, streaming tells you who likes the music and video tells you who your posting reaches.
Which city in my analytics matters most?
The one that grew most this month, not the biggest. Growth has a cause — a playlist, a share, a scene — and you have about two weeks to find it while the trail is warm.
What should I do with the "fans also like" list?
Use it as your ad targeting, playlist submission list and feature shortlist. Pick names with two to five times your audience; those are the realistic collaborations.