Why all musicians need an Artist ID
Ever wonder how streaming platforms sort artists and songs with the same name? That’s where artist IDs come in. Let’s dive in to how you artists can navigate and utilize their own ID.
from Horus Music
With over 100,000 releases being uploaded onto digital platforms daily, it can be hard to keep track of your music and make sure it displays on your correct artist profile across DSPs. To ensure your music is available on your existing profile for your fans to easily locate your new music, stores and music providers use what we call an Artist ID to map releases to the correct profiles.
What is an artist ID?
An artist ID is a unique identifier assigned to an artist to easily locate them across digital platforms. They are exceptionally important for keeping track of where releases have been delivered and also for identifying different artists who may have the same name. For example, “Rainbow” is the name of a K-pop girl group and also a Hard rock band from the UK. Without their own unique artist IDs, stores wouldn’t know which Rainbow profile was the correct page to publish each artists’ releases on.
Each platform has their own format for displaying Artist IDs. On Apple Music, artist IDs are a string of digits found at the end of an artist’s URL. Spotify Artist IDs are strings of numbers and letters found within an artist’s URL. For Audiomack, they’re a string of digits found in the artist’s profile.
Why do I need my artist ID?
Knowing your artist ID is vital information particularly for liaising with your distributor. If you share your ID with Horus Music when you submit a release, we can use the ID to map your release to your existing profile on platforms, meaning all your music will display on the same page. Without it, there’s a chance your release could be sent to a newly created profile or end up on another artist’s page. If this does happen, you could miss out on streams and fan engagement, so it’s important to take the necessary steps to prevent this from happening during the submission process.
It’s important to note that if you’re a new artist with no published releases, you won’t have been assigned an artist ID. These are only created for you once your first release is delivered to DSPs. If you require your artist ID before your submitted release goes live, you can reach out to the distribution team at alr@horusmusic.co.uk.
How do I locate my artist ID on major platforms?
Locating your artist ID across different platforms varies across DSP’s. Below we have outlined how to locate your ID’s across Spotify, Apple music and Audiomack.
Apple Music
For Apple Music, you can find your ID at the end of your artist URL when using a desktop. You can also search an artist name in the search bar, click the “…” at the bottom right of the artist image and click “share”, then “copy link”. This copies the artist’s apple URL – the artist ID is the group of numbers after the last forward slash shown below in bold:
https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/rihanna/63346553
Spotify
For Spotify, use the search bar to search for an artist on a desktop. From the search bar, you’ll see that the URL contains a long code after “artist/”. This combination of letters and numbers is your unique artist ID and can be copied directly from the URL.
Audiomack
To locate your artist ID on Audiomack, log in to your account and click the dropdown arrow at the top right next to the name and profile photo. Then click on Creator Dashboard. From there, in the top left corner you’ll see your Artist ID below your profile photo. You can click on it and then select “Copy Artist ID”.
For Horus Customers: How do I add my artist ID MMDZ?
Now you know where to find your artist IDs, here’s how to input them on our platform to ensure your releases match to the correct profile:
- To upload a release, log into your My Music Distribution Zone account.
- Select “Releases” then “New Audio Release” from the left-hand menu (artist IDs are not needed for video releases).
- Enter your release details in the first page. For each performer you add, click the green “Add Artist Store IDs” button and enter the ID in the corresponding box. Then click “OK” to save.
- Once you’ve finished on page one, click “Save & Continue” at the bottom to move to the next page.
- On the second page, fill out the remaining artist roles (i.e. producer, arranger etc.). Then click the green “Add Artist Store IDs” button again and input the artist URLs/IDs.
- Finally, click OK to save and finish uploading your audio. You’ll need to do this for each artist role added every time you upload a release.
In some cases, a mapping issue can occur even if you’ve provided your artist ID. If this does happen, simply reach out to the distribution team with your artist name, release title, release UPC/barcode, a link to the profile the release is currently on, and your correct artist ID and we will request this to be corrected for you. We hope this feature will make it even easier for you to add artist IDs to releases, but if you still have questions, feel free to contact us at alr@horusmusic.co.uk.
If you’re interested in signing up to Horus Music, click here to start your journey today.
