Spotify Adds Personalization To Curated Playlists and That’s Great News For Artists, Labels

Some official Spotify playlists will now be personalized based on a listener's taste. For those playlists, no two will be the same. So while not the same as a permanent playlist placement, all music now has a much better chance of getting heard by the right listeners.

What does all this mean for artists and labels?

1. "When we tested this new system with some of our listeners, we found that they were much more likely to listen longer, according to Spotify. "Plus, these personalized editorial playlists increase the number of artists featured on playlists by 30% and the number of songs listeners are discovering by 35%.

2. "We found that, after discovering a song through a personalized editorial playlist, the number of listeners who then seek out the track on their own for repeat listens is up by 80%. In fact, the average number of times a listener saves a track is up 66%—all of which is good news for artists."

Because when a song is added to one of these playlists, it won’t necessarily appear on every listener’s personalized version of that playlist, Spotify will create unique links to these playlists for artists to share via Spotify for Artists and Spotify Analytics. "Anyone who clicks a unique link shared by an artist will see a personalized version of the playlist with that artist’s track as the first song. "

When songs get added to one of these playlists, an email notification gets sent to artists and their teams, so they can share it with fans. For editorial playlists that are not personalized, artists should continue to use public links as they do now.

Which Playlists Are Personalized?

Only Spotify’s owned and operated playlists are receiving personalization; not third party playlists. The selection of playlists that are personalized is dynamic and evolves over time. So far at least, they are focused primarily on "moods and moments playlists" like Beast Mode, Songs to Sing in the Shower, and Guilty Pleasures.

A Spotify spokesperson tells Hypebot that the best way for artists and their teams to understand which playlists are personalized is in Spotify for Artists and Spotify Analytics.