Spotify's Little Secret

The metric that Spotify editors don’t want you to know

@BRANDONVHIXON

Feb 19, 2023

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Spotify’s Little Secrert

Profile search.

It’s the secret metric that artist and marketing teams at Spotify (formerly called editors) rarely discuss in the public domain.

You won’t find anything about it online.

It’s such a closely guarded secret, that few marketing teams at record labels, independent distributors, or managers even know it exists.

In this post, I’ll explain what it is and why it’s a secret.

By profile search, we mean how many users are searching for an artist’s name on the desktop client or mobile app over a 28 day period.

I’ve included an example of profile search below:

Internally, profile search has become a crucial metric that artist and marketing teams are leaning on to determine what to support across wider editorial playlists like “Soft + Slow” and “Big On The Internet”.

Think of profile search like clickthrough rate.

(Traditionally, clickthrough rate [CTR] an be used to gauge how well your keywords and ads are performing.)

The thinking on this is clear:

Streams are easy to manufacture when you’re Sony, Warner, or UMG. Real user engagement is much harder to come by. Profile search is the great equalizer because it allows Spotify to gauge legitimate user intent.

It’s also next to impossible to game.

(You might be tempted to run ads to the artist profile, but that won’t solve your problem. You have to be genuinely popular and create a real fan base to optimize for this metric. Hence, the genius of profile search!)

Profile search.

An underrated metric that few know exist.

Understandably, Spotify would like to keep that way.

INR