5 Relevant Spotify Features & Tools for Independent Artists

Due to its widespread use and significant impact on the music industry, artists should consider learning how to promote their music on Spotify. Thanks to the many built-in tools, artists can leverage the platform in numerous ways. Let’s look into five Spotify features that can benefit independent artists.

Spotify for Artists is the arguably most relevant Spotify feature that no musician should underestimate.

Spotify for Artists is an all-in-one dashboard provided by the streaming platform that allows you to promote your music, see your audience stats, and manage your artist profile in one convenient place. You can also use it to upload music videos and sell tickets or merchandise.

The simplest way to access Spotify for Artists is by claiming your artist profile directly on the Spotify for Artists website. Many music distributors also provide tools to help you get your music onto Spotify and other streaming platforms. Once you’ve submitted a request to claim your Spotify artist profile, you’ll need to wait a few days until the Spotify team reviews it. If you’re part of a label, your team can make the request for you by adding you to its existing profile.

Looking to release your first project? Learn more about how to get music on Spotify.

Once you’ve claimed your profile, you should follow all the steps to set up a convincing page. When setting up your Spotify for Artists page, we recommend customizing your artist profile first to leave a solid first impression when fans come across your profile. This includes writing a compelling, up-to-date biography for the ‘about’ section, choosing a high-quality image, and including links to your socials so listeners can connect with you outside of Spotify.

Once your music is available on Spotify, use the Artist Pick feature to choose a release you’d like to highlight on your page. This way, you can guide your listeners to a specific track or album. You can also use Artist Pick to highlight other relevant elements, such as a playlist, a recent tour announcement, or a merchandise sale.

Another valuable element of Spotify for Artists is the Artist Playlist feature, which allows you to incorporate a playlist on your page. This way, you can showcase which playlists you’ve been featured in or introduce visitors to your music taste.

Other Spotify for Artists tools include a donation link (‘Fan Support’), your top tracks (‘Popular’) and releases (‘Popular Releases’) which both update automatically, your playlist placements (‘Featuring’), and the collaborations you participated in (‘Appears On’).

If you’re a touring artist, you can include your upcoming tour dates to let your listeners know which cities you will perform in next. Your tour can be further marketed to your fans via in-app pop-ups, and they can save them by clicking on the ‘interested’ button. Want to show your fans your merch? You can also do so via Spotify, which has partnered with Shopify to let artists sell their merchandise through the app.

Read more about Spotify for Artists on the Spotify for Artists website.

Spotify playlists are a highly popular feature among music enthusiasts, allowing them to explore music curated by others or by Spotify’s algorithms and build their playlists in line with their tastes.

For artists, securing a solid playlist placement can significantly boost their careers by exposing their music to potential fans. There are many ways to get featured on a playlist, and Spotify’s playlist-pitching tools are one of them.

You can pitch your upcoming track to Spotify’s playlist editors via Spotify for Artists by clicking on the Home section and selecting Pitch From Next Release. Make sure you fill out the info to provide the curators with enough context and make your track appear more valuable. If the process goes well, your music can end up on Spotify’s Release Radar.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind. According to Spotify, you can only pitch one song at a time and only do so once per track. You must also submit your music 7 days before the release date to give the editors enough time to listen. Read more about how to pitch music to Spotify playlists and what to pay attention to.

As a side note, you can also submit your music to iMusician’s Spotify playlists–our curators are happy to take the time to check out your track and decide if it matches the playlist you submitted it to.

Spotify Wrapped is primarily known for its yearly overview that gives music enthusiasts insight into their listening statistics, including their top artists, favorite tracks, key genres, and how their tastes changed over the months.

However, Spotify also has a version of its feature designed for musicians closely connected to the regular Spotify Wrapped for fans. With Spotify Wrapped for Artists, musicians can create short videos via Spotify Clips that will appear on the screens of your top listeners.

Additionally, they receive a visually appealing overview of their audience, progress on the platform, and see how listeners engage with them throughout the year. All slides are shareable, meaning you can add them to your Instagram story or send them to friends.

If you’re eligible for Spotify Wrapped for Artists, we recommend giving it a try the next time Spotify makes its Wrapped feature accessible!

Making money on Spotify from streams alone can be challenging, so it is essential to establish other avenues. Spotify’s fan engagement and fan support tools come in handy. As previously mentioned, you can use the Spotify for Artists feature to inform your fans about your upcoming tours and merch. By directing them to shops and ticketing platforms, you can ideally make more money leveraging these Spotify tools.

Additionally, you can set up a fundraising campaign with Spotify’s Fan Support feature. You can add a link to a GoFundMe campaign, PayPal, or Cash App, among other platforms, without having to pay any extra money to Spotify. This way, your fans can send you tips and donations to help you sustain yourself, invest in your career, or simply use the feature to show their appreciation for your work beyond a like and follow.

Spotify offers many tools you can use to promote your music, including its Marquee and Showcase campaigns.

Spotify’s Marquee campaign feature allows you to market your new release through a full-screen pop-up that appears when listeners open the Spotify app. With Marquee, you can choose your ad's background color and destination, but the headline cannot be edited.

Another option the streaming platform provides is the Showcase campaign tool, a banner that appears at the top of the mobile app’s Home tab. With this feature, you can promote both new and existing releases. Showcase lets you choose from preset headlines highlighting why your release matters to listeners. However, you can’t change its design—your artwork is used, and the background color is automatically selected.

Unfortunately, both tools come with many eligibility requirements. For instance, the features are currently only available for artist teams or labels with full or split rights in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, the UK, or the US. In other words, if you’re an independent artist outside these countries, you may need a label or distributor with rights in one of them to do it for you.

Additionally, both features are only available to artists who have obtained at least 1k streams over the last 28 days in at least one of the 43 target markets. That said, if you are eligible for the feature, it is worth trying.

To set up one of the campaigns, log into your Spotify for Artists account, go to Campaigns, click on Marquee and Showcase, and press + Create Campaign. You can read more about the requirements in one of Spotify’s FAQ articles about the two campaigns.