Playlist Push Revisited
Playlist Push promises to help independent artists get their music on Spotify playlists, and gives playlist curators a way to monetize their music discovery. As of this writing, they have 242 curators across 60 genres with a total of 8 million followers.
Campaigns start at $185 and run for two weeks. The price increases with genre popularity, or by adding multiple genres, providing more placement opportunities. Pop, hip hop, and indie rock are their main genres, which doesn’t bode well for a retro synth nerd like yours truly, but more on that later.
When I first reviewed the service in November, they were experiencing a massive influx of curators, and weren’t able to screen them all properly. As a result, my five playlist adds were of negligible to questionable value, and I didn’t see my Spotify numbers budge.
Since then they’ve gotten their act together. They monitor all accounts for suspicious activity, fake or inactive followers, multiple accounts, and other violations. I saw plenty of improvements on the curator end, until I decided that screening songs at $0.75 a pop wasn’t worth my time, especially since so few were a good fit for my retro synth playlist.
That’s not a standard payout, mind you. It’s determined by your reputation score as a curator, which hinges on a variety of factors, like leaving helpful reviews, how long you’ve been on the platform, and how active your playlists are. My playlist barely met the minimum requirement of 400 followers and I was a total newb, so my payout was relatively low.
Last time I mentioned that CEO George Goodrich offered me a redo, which we did in March with my song “In Motion”.
I sent an mp3 and they took care of the rest, so I can’t walk you through the campaign creation process like I normally would. I found out afterward that the campaign would have cost $230, and the genre my song was placed in was… disco.
Yes, disco.
Apparently it’s still a thing. I don’t know if that decision was a fatal flaw or a stroke of genius, but there were plenty of curators ready and willing to screen my track.
My Playlist Push Campaign Results
After two weeks, I received 41 written reviews and 4 playlist adds. Unapproved or less than two-star reviews aren’t shown, so I don’t know how many curators actually listened to the song.
The quality of the written reviews was excellent, with many curators promising to follow me, check out my other tracks, or even add the track to their playlist at a later date. For example, here’s way more than $0.75 worth of feedback from someone who didn’t even add the track:
And a refreshingly musically-literate comment from someone who did:
Of course, there are also the usual backhanded compliments I’m used to from SubmitHub:
As much as I’d love to be able to tell you my streams went through the roof, that wasn’t the case. So you may be wondering what the song popularity +55% figure above means.
Spotify assigns a popularity score to every song and artist, which you can see on Chartmetric. So Playlist Push approximates that the playlist adds will result in a 55% increase in that score. Of course, that’s just a guess, because it has no way of knowing how many streams it will actually get.
Currently my song has a popularity score of 16 out of 100, so if their algorithm were accurate, that would mean the campaign took the song from a 10 to a 16. In other words, from totally unpopular to very unpopular.
When I wrote my first review, Spotify for Artists only showed playlists that generated 25 streams of a song. Now it shows the top 30 playlists for the artist, and the top 15 playlists for any individual song.
Out of the top 15 playlists for “In Motion”, currently two are from Playlist Push (#4 and #6). It hasn’t been 28 days yet, so I expect those numbers to go up.
The four playlists that added my track are:
Workout – Running Playlist by Chris Lee
SPOTLIGHT – Edm • Pop • Hits by Augmented Music
New Cool Music ☊ Pop Hits ♬ 2018 ♬ 2017 by Gerardo Boué
the popularizer by talkaboutpopmusic.net
They’re all legit as far as I can tell, but if you discover otherwise, let me know!
Your Playlist Push mileage will vary
It would be easy to conclude that Playlist Push doesn’t work, but I don’t think that’s fair. Ultimately you’re only paying to use their software. The way I see it, the moral of the story is: don’t submit retro 80s synthwave to mainstream playlists and expect good results.
George gave me a PDF with two case studies showing fantastic results, as you’d expect. Just last week I was talking with a friend/mastering client/patron who landed some big placements with Playlist Push. It all comes down to the music.
If you’re working in a niche genre like I am, maybe Playlist Push isn’t the best choice. Otherwise, it’s basically SubmitHub Lite™.
If you’ve got more time than money, start with SubmitHub. They don’t have anywhere near as many Spotify curators, but you can research them individually and choose only the most promising.
If you can afford it, Playlist Push will get your music to the ears of a wide swath of curators in one fell swoop, zero effort required.
If you can afford both, even better, assuming the song justifies the investment! I always get a Crowd Review first.
I get the same sorts of feedback on both SubmitHub and Playlist Push…
“Love the song, but it’s not a good fit.”
“Too retro.”
“Amazing vocals but I don’t like the production.”
“Amazing production but I don’t like the vocals.”
Should you decide to give it a try, please support the site by using my referral link. Use coupon code KNNX437 for a 7.5% discount on your first campaign. Curators can sign up here.
Don’t forget to share your results in the comments!
Thanks Brian, great article as always, I’ll definitely be checking them out!
Thanks Daniel! Let us know how it goes!
Great insight, Brian. Thanks for the review of my review! Man, it’s tough being on the receiving end of this…
You are the star of the show! Thanks again for the thoughtful comments and playlist add Chris!
I just joined as a curator… on the strength of your article. Fascinating experience so far. I think there needs to be a few more genres added or sub genres for ‘electronic’ in particular or at least a bit more targeting (of the song to the curator). I’m getting some great songs but they are miles from my stated playlist genres
Glad to hear you’re giving it a go! I haven’t actually seen all the sub genres for electronic, but if my best option was disco, I’m sure you’re right. Maybe they don’t have the curators to support that level of focus yet, or they just want to cast a wide net.
Hi. I was wondering if i’d be able to contact you because I make lots of electronic music 🙂
You bet! If you’re looking for me to check out your music and give you feedback and/or share it, your best bet is Fluence: https://fluence.io/colortheory
Poor Brian Hazard…still dumping his time and money in worthlesss payola services…aren’t you ever getting tired of being ripped of?I guess not.
Maybe you should focus on your reading skills rather than making worthless comments. As the article clearly states, it was free.
I appreciate this article, you’re always looking out for your fellow artists!
My pleasure! Thanks for reading and commenting!
Update to my previous comment. Thoughts on Playlist Push as a curator – mostly a positive experience. Some questionable songs came my way and I found it hard to write them off but I had to reject them to preserve the integrity of my playlists. It was so nice when I received amazing songs AND they fit either of my playlists.
My experience as an artist submitting a song – Holy crap it was devastating! Some of the comments made me realise just how generous I’d been as a curator. I had a dozen or so reviews mostly negative and was added to only 3 playlists, two of which removed me within a week or two. To be fair, my slower style of music is probably too niche for the majority of curators. Not sure if I’ll continue with it.
Thanks for the view from both sides of the mountain!
Yeah, I stopped curating because my playlist is just too niche. I was letting in stuff that really didn’t belong, because I wanted to be nice and not reject EVERYTHING.
As for submitting, maybe it’s worth trying Crowd Review and/or SubmitHub first to make sure people are responding positively to it. That said, I just submitted an instrumental that got rave reviews on Crowd Review (a 7.9 = 97th percentile) and it pretty much bombed on SubmitHub.
Very insightful, really helpful as I navigate these waters.
Thanks Brian! Happy navigating.
I found playlist push to be a massive scam. Paid 1000 dollars and the FEW playlists they got me on did almost nothing for my song. I literally got more streams from a 20 dollar gig on fiver.
Sorry to hear that! You must have put it in multiple genres, which makes me wonder if the targeting could have been better. Or maybe one genre has grown so big that it commands that kind of price on its own, which is pretty intimidating!
I assume that you got a ton of feedback and that the curators actually listened to the song? If so, I don’t think it’s fair to call it a scam. You’re paying to use their software and connect with curators. They can’t possibly guarantee playlist adds.
Have you had any better luck with SubmitHub? I think that’s a cheaper way to test the waters, if you’re willing to do the work of finding the most appropriate curators to pitch to.
Coincidentally, I was just on SubmitHub and the latest chat item was a Playlist Push success story. 50K spins in 1 month. But the point that drew my attention was this:
“I would suggest just picking one or two genres to submit to, as their genres cross over a lot, so basically you’re paying for the same playlist twice.”
Wonder if that was the case for you…
wow interesting man… thanks for sharing!
Hi, Brian!
Thanks for this article. I registered with Playlist Push to promote my “It’s Over” cover, but it was just so expensive I decided not to go with it yet, a bare minimum of $150. I went for SubmitHub and paid $10 just now.
I have noticed that on your original Playlist Play review, you said “My Spotify numbers are weak compared to my other social stats. I hover around 1200 listeners….per month.”. But right now, your monthly listeners on Spotify are 8,092. What has led to that increase of nearly 700% since you wrote that? A belated effect of Playlist Push or your own campaigns?
Thanks,
Mark
Very interesting insight, seems spotify isn’t the best platform for leftfield artists to grow their fanbase , neither bandcamp has the social abilities for similar tasks, so the only recipe for success is constant gigging, or am I wrong?
I don’t perform, but from what I read, that’s tough too! Spotify and Bandcamp aren’t one-stop solutions, but both should be part of your master plan!
You used to perform though, didn’t you Brian? At least back in the “Snowing” days? Sure I’ve heard a live version of Snowing. But I agree that the live circuit is tough, so if you are still quite a young artist you should be doing it.
I was sweet 17 when I first performed, but (mostly) retired by 30. But I’m starting up just-for-fun again in an acoustic set up very soon, at the grand old age of 44…will see if I enjoy or hate it. Will be a shame if it is the latter, as I am really enjoying the rehearsals.
The live version of “Snowing” is included in the reissue of my debut album. Yep, I used to do the Borders circuit and played most weekends because I felt it was something I needed to do to grow a fanbase. But I was lucky to sell a couple of CDs per show, and beyond getting paid anywhere from $80-125 for 2-3 hours, it didn’t do much of anything for my career. So I stopped performing entirely in… 1999? No regrets. I never enjoyed it.
Hey Brian – first of all I really appreciate the in depth info posted on your site but sad to say I found the Playlist Push experience pretty disappointing to put it mildly. I think artists like us are caught in some kind of strange nexus of wanting recognition and some dollars for what we do but fail to recognise that, unless we are extremely lucky, we are the ones bleeding money and supporting a burgeoning fringe industry that essentially preys on our ego for what is ultimately a vanity project with little hope of any return on investment. This industry is like the guys making a fortune selling picks and shovels to the old time gold miners struggling to make a living.
Anyway – I notice that all of the playlist pr services you use also drop you after a month so assume any perceived value is a temp bump and saves followers etc. Looks like a long and very expensive and uncertain game to me – I think you mentioned several thousand dollars! Playlist Push sent me a followup email and I include a link to the song in question.
Hey Steve,
Very timely that you contacted me as I was about to post on the net for feedback on other peoples results as mine were terrible- especially when the cost is taken into account! .You guys placed me in 3 playlists but these playlists all dropped the song about 30 day’s after placement. The fact that my song was dropped by all playlists within a few days of each other is very suspicious and I am seriously unhappy as at US$380.00 for 2300 streams this looks like a scam!
The song in question “Find The Time” has been crowd reviewed with a score of 9 out of 10 and the feedback from your curators was positive.
Under the circumstances I am asking for a rerun of my campaign at no charge so I can further evaluate your service without additional risk to me.
I understand that (at least notionally) you have no control over curators actions but the fact that your Curators are rewarded for play listing your customers songs creates a conflict of interest for your customers as it would appear this promotes accessive turnover of playlists songs.
Your service came to my attention from PassivePromotion.com
Looking forward to your response sooner rather than later.
Richard Hollingdale AKA Ricky Sax
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2IQvL5fE46rM5RgE0AaUI7?si=fmb5WkomTlqYFrVy_w41RQ
Great track Ricky! This was not the sound I expected when I saw your artist profile photo. With your clean cut look, age, and “sax” in the name, I was expecting something like smooth jazz. For what it’s worth!
To be fair, Playlist Push doesn’t place your song in playlists. It puts the song in front of their curators. We’ve got no reason to suspect that didn’t happen, so most likely, mission accomplished.
You acknowledge that, but then cite a conflict of interest that doesn’t actually exist. Curators are paid for listening and commenting, not placing songs. Perhaps never placing any songs could impact a curator’s “score” (I forget what they call it), but there’s no direct link between placement and payment.
I suspect that your music, like mine, falls between the cracks stylistically. Unfortunately that makes it much more expensive to promote on a service like Playlist Push, because you’d have to submit it to multiple genres to really cover all your bases.
With that in mind, I can understand why they haven’t granted your request to rerun your campaign. Playlist Push would likely have to do it at a loss, and there’s no reason to think it would perform any better.
Needless to say I did not receive a reply. Anyone had any luck getting a Spotify editorial playlist from a submission?
Do you mean from a Playlist Push submission? Because I don’t think that’s likely. I’ve never had one, and I submit every time through Spotify for Artists.
Sorry Brian- I meant through a Spotify submission from Artist profile to editorial team. As for the name – it has been pointed out that it’s a bit 80’s but I just got stuck and wanted to move on…maybe I’ll change it. The playlist PR business seems to work on the same basis – get the streams – loose the streams – hope some listeners stick by way of saves and fans. As a creator I find Spotify is really in your face with the numbers – listeners/plays/likes/followers so feel the need to move the dial! Maybe I’ll try Midnight Blaster with an EDM track (yes I am multi genre) When/if Spotify don’t playlist me.
You’re right, Spotify puts that monthly listener figure front and center! Which makes social proof that much more important. It’s too bad, really. They should just use “<10,000” like they use “<1000” with songs until they reach that mark.
No playlist placement is permanent, as you’ve seen, but hopefully the follower count continues to rise. I don’t think there’s any way to make Spotify profitable in and of itself, unless you get lucky with an editorial playlist. Maybe someday there will be an easier way to migrate those fans to email or another platform. For now you can at least run an ad to your fans.
I have one more week left and then I will be writing my own experience and views on this versus some others I am trying at the same time!
Can’t wait to read it! Thanks for taking the time to analyze and share.
I’m wondering if this experience may help when you submit through Spotify for artists to their playlists in that it may help the algorithm. I’m not entirely convinced that submitting to Spotify for Artists unless you somehow can get on the radar first is even worth it, they just won’t listen? So that’s why I’m super curious.
I’m not sure I follow, but I think you’re suggesting that success on Playlist Push could translate into success with editorial submissions. My guess is that it would definitely help!
It’s worth submitting to Spotify for Artists at least a week ahead so that your new track will be on the Release Radar of your followers.
Well, that was a great big fat failure and waste of money for me! And I agree with Katie – Fiverr is a fraction of the price and better results. And my experience is probably similar to Ricky Sax, although it seems I beat everyone with my very, very measly results (maybe the worse in the history of Playlist Push!!!). So, rather than bore you with the full details, I will post my email to Playlist Push here which basically gives the story of my experience. I have yet to receive a reply from them:
MY EMAIL
I am absolutely mortified at how big a failure this campaign was.
I was placed on ONE playlist for just 9 days (despite the description stating that typically the song stays on for a month) and gained a grand total of 63 streams as a result. Your statement to ‘Please allow up to 4 weeks for the latest playlist adds to have effect and generate streams/listeners.’ is redundant for me as I am no longer on the playlist – or any other, therefore the 63 streams in total are the final result of my campaign.
Either the song was not good enough – therefore you should not have accepted it and taken my payment – OR, it went to the wrong curators as some of them stated it wasn’t their style and did not fit their playlist.
Struggling artists choose very carefully where to spend their limited pennies for promotion and I put mine in good faith in Playlist Push expecting some results. I wasn’t under the illusion that I would go viral as a result but I thought I would get at least a few thousand streams as using Fiverr playlists for a fraction of the price has yielded far better results so I expected Playlist Push to do something great for me.
And the increase in popularity as an artist and the number of listeners has NOT come from Playlist Push as I had 2 other tracks from the EP on Fiverr playlists at the same time which is why my numbers inched up the same time as your campaign.
I would like to express my disappointment and kindly request a refund as this campaign has been a complete failure. Please do not quote me your loopholes of ‘placement is not guaranteed’ etc because as I stated, if the song was not good enough for at least a few playlists or was in the wrong genre then this is a travesty and not fair on me.
And of course, I have taken a severe knock to my self-esteem and confidence through the rejections that are divided between ‘great voice, bad production’ and ‘great production, bad voice’.
I am really really upset at this whole experience as I genuinely thought I would get some kind of result that would justify the investment.
I will let you know IF I receive a reply from Playlist Push and what their reply will be (although I suspect it will be the rhetoric of ‘we tell you it is not guaranteed and is based on the track). I don’t accept that – the wise thing for them to do would be to have a handful of playlists that they operate themselves with a decent following and at least place artists that otherwise do not get selected by other curators on these – that way if an artist fails with the rest of their curators they will have at least had some results from the campaign.
I would never claim to be the best but music is very subjective and I refuse to believe that there are no curators and music lovers out there who would like my stuff. (if anyone is curious to hear and perhaps tell me if I am justified or if Playlist Push got it right, you can find me as Apostola – 5MinsFame EP. I am not trying to promote myself, just would be curious to know which side of the fence your readers fall on in case I am completely deluded!!!).
I also think that curators have become the new gatekeepers and have all the power in the industry as it is today, and this perhaps makes them more ‘snobbish’ in what they select (I don’t mean to offend any curators reading as I am sure there are many who are not so harsh and strict and appreciate that independent music is ‘indie’ for a reason and therefore cannot be perfection and is also actually liked by a lot of people who are interested in listening to unknown artists). I found the same kind of attitudes on Submithub – ‘like the song BUT…’. If you generally like the track – give it a chance with your listeners!!!!
Come on curators – we don’t expect you to compromise your integrity and taste but it is getting to the point that it is virtually impossible to get accepted!!!
Sorry for the rant Brian – I hope this will help other artists weigh up the pros and cons.
And in ending, I have placed another track with their rival Playlist Promotion – same kind of company. Same cost too and a silly idea to do so – BUT I am curious to see how similar companies compare and will let your readers know if Playlist Promotion fares better.
Thanks for sharing your story, and I’m sorry to hear it didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped!
That said, I don’t agree that Fiverr is a better option. Sure, you’ll get placements and plays, but by definition those playlists aren’t very selective, and I wouldn’t trust the plays to be legit.
If the goal is to make fans, you want to be on more selective playlists. But not so selective that they reject our music!
I suspect your songs, at least the title track of the EP, fall between the cracks genre-wise. While it could work in several genre playlists, I’m not hearing a slam dunk in any particular one.
If Playlist Push replies, they’ll likely explain what you already know, that they are only responsible for putting your music in front of curators. They can’t predict, and I wouldn’t have predicted from listening to your music, that your results would be as unsatisfactory as they were. Yet they still have to pay the curators!
When in doubt, I always suggest testing on SubmitHub first before plunking down hundreds of dollars. The comments and approval percentage there should roughly correlate with Playlist Push.
Please let us know how your Playlist Promotion campaign goes! And don’t forget you can always bypass the gatekeepers by running your own ads through Spotify Ad Studio.
Hey Brian – you mentioned you might try Spotify studio adds again for a couple of singles this side of Christmas. Just wondering how it went if you did it as with the Spotify PR services you were trying earlier results were difficult to judge in your last review. Thanks again for your good natured insights into this biz. Happy holidays by the way.
You too Richard!
I tried another set of ads for my new album, and didn’t have much luck. Not only that, people were getting spammed over and over because I was running multiple ads to the same targeting. Definitely learned my lesson there.
So I re-ran my original ad spaced out over three months and it’s doing well. Lower frequency than before, which I appreciate. I think it’s around 3.5.
I am still waiting for a reply (I re-emailed and they said they would look into it) and haven’t finished Playlist Promotion run yet so will revert with update on that, but in the meantime, am interested to hear what these Spotify Ads are – is this the Fans on Demand method (which I am in the process of doing now and will also update you on within the relevant review!), or something else? If it is something else, can you please direct me to your article on the matter? Thanks!
My Spotify ads predate my Fans on Demand experience. Check out the article Spotify Ad Studio Revisited for details!
Great, thanks! I am sure it will be another insightful read!
Hi Brian,
have you used any other promotion services? I am especially talking about daimoon.media, there is no info about them online and they offer specific followers number for all the playlists (so basically no gambling, you get what you paid for).
For Spotify specifically, I’ve used Virtuoso and Midnite Blaster, with articles for each (search for “Spotify PR Spotlight”).
I’d argue that follower numbers are meaningless. They could’ve been built up with Facebook ads to cheap (to advertise to) countries like Indonesia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, India, etc. Those aren’t necessarily going to be your true fans, and the payout from Spotify can be as low as one tenth of a cent, as opposed to 6-8 tenths from higher GDP countries.
Yes, but even if it’s not payed back shouldnt it help Spotify algorithms if you get specific amount of streams? What do you recommend then to build up Spotify fan base?
It’ll hurt your recommendation engine placements if you’re reaching the wrong fans, getting skipped after 30 seconds (bots), and/or not getting saves.
There are lots of potential avenues to building a Spotify fan base, but they’ll require more testing on my part, and a dedicated article!
Hi guys. Update on Playlist Push – not only have all my emails gone unanswered (except one message when I live chatted that said they would ‘look into it’ and nothing since then despite me sending further emails), but then I get their automatic email asking me to extend my campaign!!!! They also sent an automatic ‘rate us’ email so you can imagine the honest feedback I gave them!
Seriously, I am so disappointed in their service – probably more so than the dismal results (to recap: 1 playlist for 9 days totalling 63 streams – that’s it). If they had acted swiftly to reply to my email and see what when wrong it could have remedied things and I would just write the money off, but the fact that I have been consistently ignored too is just unacceptable – it shows me that they are not there for their customers and I am certainly glad I did not go for a more expensive package.
Playlist Promotion is still yielding results so I want to wait a while longer to give you an update on that – nothing spectacular but close to 10k streams now.
Remember – I gave different songs to different promotional companies so that I could monitor the success of each clearly. Four tracks – 1 with Push, 1 with Promotion, 1 with no one and 1 with Fiverr SEO backlinks (no idea how it all works but giving everything a try). Once I find the method that works best I will stick to it, but as Brian has shown us many times, it is all trial and error (and quite a lot of error!!!).
Wishing all indie artists a successful 2020!
Sorry to hear that! I wonder if the holidays are partially to blame for their lack of response, but I suppose they’ve had plenty of time to rectify matters.
If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love to hear a breakdown of the four campaigns. Of course it’s not exactly apples to apples since they’re four different songs, but it could still be instructive.
The more I learn, the more weight I give to reaching the right audience: people who are genuinely receptive to your music. That means, no soundtrack or mood-based playlists, unless those playlists contain artists who I’d like to see in my “fans also like.”
Hi Brian! I am trying SEO backlinks on one track and an email marketing promotion on another (both Fiverr gigs) in addition to Playlist Promotion and the failed Playlist Push. Waiting to see what happens with the former two as they are new so need to give them some time and then I promise to report back fully on my findings! You are right though, all four tracks are different and I have learnt from this that it is better to release singles rather than an EP otherwise you are trying to juggle promoting more than one track. I would have thought that by promoting one track people would naturally take a listen to the rest but it is really not like that at all – each track promoted tends to keep its own numbers without a spill-over to the other tracks which makes me suspect that even Playlist Push and Promotion might not be effective in gaining followers and real fans (surely there would be some overlap in streams??). This has been a revelation in itself. It’s both frustrating and fascinating finding out the mechanisms of all these methods (which you know yourself firsthand). I also did the Fans on Demand course (thanks again for the discount code!). I would say that was useful for someone who has no idea how FB ads work and is handy in guiding you through that – as well as the download gate method. I haven’t had solid results yet with that as my ad set wasn’t performing well and I then changed the criteria this week and it has started to pick up, so will report on that on the appropriate article thread once I have given it a good chance. The holy grail really is finding true fans – the streams and numbers mean nothing (as we have seen from the various methods that bump the numbers up but with no real followers or subscribers as a result). I am also happy to hear that your Patreon is going well – for me that would be the ideal; to find my true fans and connect with them on Patreon so that I could then divert my posts and engagement directly to an audience I know is genuinely interested rather than blanket-posting. Let’s see what 2020 brings us all!
I’ve noticed the same thing in regard to releasing multiple tracks. On my latest album, the tracks that I didn’t release as singles, especially the ones towards the end, don’t get many plays.
I’m definitely interested to hear more about your Fans on Demand results, specifically how low you’re able to get your cost per conversion. To some degree that depends how much you’re willing to spend in order for Facebook to optimize on its own.
Patreon is great, but it’s a lot of work maintaining two separate content streams. Building up an email list where you can regularly put offers in front of your fans is a better place to start.
Hi again! I finally got an email back from PlaylistPush!!!!:
“After reviewing your campaign, I understand why you’re not happy with the performance. While Playlist push ensures no guarantees beyond sending your track your targeted set of curators and typically we cannot offer refunds once a campaign has launched (refund policy link), I was able to get approval to issue you a 50% refund.”
I am happy that they made the gesture of a partial refund but the fact that they were so slow and remiss in responding to me remains worse than the fact my total campaign streams remains at 63!!! Even if I put the results down to my track (perhaps it is not a good song and I am deluded??), I would not trust to use them again because I did not feel they were ‘on my side’ and the fact that they were unresponsive to emails makes them a no-no for me. But that said, I would not want to tarnish anyone’s reputation and this is of course merely my own experience of using them. As you have reported, other artists have had great results and are very happy with the service, opting to use it time and time again. I am sure the peeps there are very nice and I have to give them credit for the comprehensive client log-in page that shows analytics, comments/feedback and progress, but for me, it is a case of ‘once bitten once shy’. Been there, done that, chapter closed!
Playlist Promotion (same service as Push but without a comprehensive log-in site for clients) has been good in communicating. The campaign which was same cost and duration as Push has completed and I am still on the playlists garnering around 700 streams a day. I am impressed that the curators did not immediately take me off. Some did earlier on, but 5 playlists have kept me a good few weeks after completion of the campaign and are still amassing daily streams. BUT, now, whilst the figures are going up and I am fairly content (about 14K) the question remains: are these unique listeners or the same listeners playing the lists over and over? I cannot answer that and if the objective is streams to go up then it has done a fair job. On the other hand, as we keep discussing – our aim is to find methods that convert those streams/listens into REAL fans and REAL followers and so far, no method has done this. My followers remain more or less the same with maybe an addition of one or two here and there (few and far between). And so, I am still on a quest to find the method that brings me genuine music lovers who like and appreciate what I am doing and want to follow me on this journey.
One could argue that at the beginning, bumping up the streams is vital to make you more visible so that your potential real fans can find you, and so I don’t mind an initial activity phase of getting streams up, but I am becoming more and more disappointed each time I try a method that does not bring me followers. If I continue on this path, at some point I may have high stream numbers but if all they are is a figure and no one is actually enjoying my music it is pointless!
The other issue is that we seem to be focusing a lot of time and effort on Spotify… this is because it shows the numbers and you can get on playlists with various methods whereas that is not the case for Apple and other platforms. And so, are we also being short-sighted in putting most or all of eggs in the Spotify basket?
This is why I am trying the SEO backlink method to monitor if Apple shows changes in my plays and if I have people diverted to and liking my social media accounts. It’s been a few weeks but I have not seen any results yet. I have contacted the provider of the 7 million SEO backlinks to see if they have become embedded yet (he said it takes a few weeks for them to embed into Google) and am waiting for his reply. At 100 Euros it was not a massive investment and if his claims are correct then it has the potential to be a great investment, but I sure hope that it is not another failed method as at the moment I am throwing money at promotion and don’t really have anything to show for it – other than the joy of knowing I am recording my songs which brings me great personal fulfilment.
All interesting stuff and I continue to learn as I blunder along!!!!
Sorry for the long post! I hope that it is conducive to the site.
Thanks for getting “Last Christmas” stuck in my head (“once bitten, twice shy”).
I’m surprised and impressed that you were able to get a partial refund! They still had to pay the curators, so they probably lost money on you.
To be fair, they’re in a tough position, having to predict which tracks will go over well with their curators, and which to refuse. While their unresponsiveness doesn’t reflect well on the company, at least your interests are aligned.
As for whether the track just wasn’t good enough, the curator feedback should be a good indication. Sometimes it’s insightful, and other times it’s just “not a fit for my playlist.”
Taking a quick look at Playlist Promotion, I’m guessing they either pay their curators, own all the playlists, or some combination of both. Have you checked what countries the plays are from? Have you seen an increase in followers? How about an algorithmic boost on Discover Weekly?
The fact that they guarantee all placements is questionable. It’s clearly a completely different model than Playlist Push. Ultimately I think most large user playlist placements are paid anyway, but you have to be careful that the streams are legit.
They don’t address bots at all in their FAQ, and the only reassurance that it’s not a “scam” (their word choice) is “We have a verified PayPal account, business address, passport number, bank account and more. You get the service for which you pay.”
That said, the reviews on their site are encouraging. I’m sure they delete the nasty ones though.
I haven’t heard of the SEO backlink method but I’m not optimistic! I’m excited to learn more though!
I really appreciate your sharing all the gory details with us!
Have you heard of/what do you think of Daimoon Media? Thinking about trying it out, but information is a little slim, though it seems fairly legit.
Looking now, I’m skeptical. I pulled up one of their example songs, and while the track has 173K streams, the artist now has 160 monthly listeners.
Plus there’s a screenshot of the playlists he was included in, which makes no sense at all: Electronica 2019, Fresh! R&B Hip Hop, Hip Hop and Rap Hits, Pop Christmas Pop Music, Top Hits 2018, iTunes US Top 100 Charts.
Can you guess what genre his track is? Neither can I! What a mess.
I wouldn’t risk it.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the informative review. I have tried using this service recently and had some observations in the result. The results look fine with all the figures having significant increase. For followers It jumped from 4 to 104. But then when I checked “fans also liked “ section of my new fans, and then clicked on each of those 10+ artists, I noticed that for most of these artists, their “fans also like” are actually more or less the same pool of artists. I am not sure if it is a normal phenomenon.
What do you think?
JC
Not too shabby!
The Fans Also Like overlap is a logical consequence of getting a large percentage of plays from the same playlist. It’s natural for Spotify to deduce that if a fan likes you, and also plays the other artists on the playlist, they must like those other artists too.
Thanks Brian. Here’s an update, my campaign has ended and in general I think the result was good. But one thing i don’t understand though, the number of followers raised sharply from just a few to 170-ish, but it also dropped sharply back to single digit before the end of the campaign period. I think, usually people would not unfollow an artist that quick? I am not sure.
I wouldn’t expect to see many new followers in the first place from a playlist campaign. Maybe single digits?
Perhaps you’re a victim of Spotify’s recent move to clean up follower counts. I remember receiving an email about it, and my follower count dropped noticeably (double digits).
In any case, I doubt the movement has anything to do with Playlist Push one way or the other.
Hi Brian – Apologies if this is overlap, would you recommend submitting to both Playlist Push and also Submit Hub, or do you view these curators as probably belonging to the same pool ?
There’s definitely some overlap! I always suggest starting with your best bets on SubmitHub. If you’re not getting any approvals there, you probably won’t get any on Playlist Push either.
I am looking to get my song (which is on spotify) on a Smooth Jazz playlist with at least 50K-100K followers. Who can help,
Obviously I haven’t tried them all, but I’d look at SubmitHub and Playlist Push.