If you know your way around Spotify, you might be familiar with editorial playlists. These curated playlists — organized by genre, mood, music scene, and more — rack up millions of plays from listeners around the world looking for new music. As such, placement on these playlists can significantly boost your streams, but it’s an incredibly competitive process. What you might not know is, your pitch still provides Spotify with additional descriptive metadata it can use to better recommend your music to new listeners, regardless of whether it’s placed on an editorial playlist.
In this blog, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how Spotify’s editorial playlists work — including a few tips for how to perfect your pitch. Let’s dive in.
What are editorial playlists?
Spotify’s editorial playlists are official playlists curated by Spotify’s editorial team of genre, lifestyle, and culture specialists. The team maintains thousands of these playlists, reviewing artist submissions from around the world. Editorial playlists feature both chart-topping and emerging artists, serving as a primary source of discovery for the millions of listeners that tune in.
Why do editorial playlists matter?
Spotify’s editorial playlists provide instant access to a targeted set of fans. Placement on an editorial playlist can grow an artist’s monthly listens and provide real pathways to gaining new fans. Even if a submission isn’t accepted, pitching Spotify on your release can provide the platform with additional descriptive metadata that it can use to more intelligently recommend your music to new listeners.
How do I get my music on Spotify’s editorial playlists?
You can pitch your music for editorial playlist consideration directly within your Spotify for Artists dashboard. You must submit your pitch at least 7 days before your release date. Spotify recommends pitching 4-6 weeks in advance to provide sufficient time for review.
Note: You can only pitch one song track from an upcoming release and once it goes live, it’s no longer eligible for pitching.
Here’s how to pitch your music for Spotify editorial playlist consideration:
- Release your music to Spotify with CD Baby. Get started here.
- Claim your Spotify for Artists account. If you’re a CD Baby artist, you can easily claim your account here.
- Log into your Spotify for Artists account.
- Go to the Music Tab and select Upcoming.
- Choose a song and fill out the information. The more information you provide, the better your chances of getting placed on a playlist.
Tips for pitching your music to Spotify editorial playlists
If you’re preparing to pitch your music to Spotify’s editorial playlists, here are some best practices to help maximize your chances.
Give yourself enough lead time
Pitch your song early — at least four weeks out — to give the Spotify team sufficient time to review your music. Editorial playlists are unique because submissions are reviewed by an actual team of editors — not an algorithm. With that, artists have to recognize Spotify receives thousands of submissions per week, so pitching early maximizes your chances of getting full consideration.
Provide additional music metadata
Spotify’s pitch process will ask you about instrumentation, mood, genre, and more to help editors more effectively sort your music. It’s essential that you fill out all of that information and reinforce it in your written pitch using keywords that overlap with playlist names. Remember, even if your music doesn’t land on an editorial playlist, this additional information about your music helps Spotify connect you with new fans.
Be specific about placements
Ahead of pitching, do your research on Spotify playlists that might be a fit. Make a list of playlists that seem promising. You should be realistic and strategic with your choices — don’t start with the most popular playlists. Look for opportunities to dial into your niche. Identify emerging artists who sound similar to your music and note what playlists they’ve been featured on, ask friends for recommendations, follow relevant independent labels and distributors and track where their artists are placed.
The Spotify Editorial Playlist Pitch Template
Now that you understand how playlists work and some of the best practices for crafting your pitch, here’s how to make the most of the 500 characters Spotify allows for the pitch.
Get your music on Spotify with CD Baby
The first step to getting your music on Spotify editorial playlists is releasing your music to the platform. Over two million artists around the world trust CD Baby to distribute their music to Spotify. As a preferred partner to the platform, CD Baby makes it easy to claim your Spotify for Artists profile and provides resources like this blog to help you succeed.
Ready to release your music to Spotify and more than 150 other platforms? Create a free CD Baby account today.