From casual listeners to super fans: navigating Spotify's audience segments.
Monthly listeners, followers, and super listeners might sound alike, but they each represent a different kind of artist-fan relationship. Knowing these differences is key to grasping your Spotify audience and reaching your goals.
When we introduced audience segmentation to Spotify for Artists, the goal was to offer fresh insights into audience engagement levels. We want to help you see how listeners progress from discovering your music to becoming loyal fans.
We've since expanded the Segments tab to give you detailed stats on each segment's size, how they change over time, and their contributions to monthly stream counts.
This guide covers all you need to know about audience segments and the metrics on the Segments tab, empowering you to understand your listeners better and make informed decisions to reach your goals.
Segments
On the Segments tab, you'll see your unique listeners from the past two years — we refer to this as your total audience. It's our most extensive view of your music's reach. This includes your monthly active, previously active, and programmed listeners. These segments paint a fuller picture of your audience by showing who's intentionally seeking out and streaming your music, and who is listening more passively.
Here's a breakdown of these segments and why they're important:
Monthly active listeners: These are valuable listeners who intentionally streamed your music in the past 28 days from active sources like your artist profile, single and album pages, and their own playlists or library. On average, they make up 33% of your total audience but drive 60% of your streams and 80% of merch purchases through Spotify. You want to keep them engaged to ensure they continue listening and stay in your audience.
Super listeners: These are your most dedicated monthly active listeners who intentionally streamed your music 15 or more times in the last 28 days. They’re also the most likely to keep streaming your music. Super listeners are your biggest fans on Spotify and a key measure of fandom.
Moderate listeners: These are monthly active listeners who intentionally streamed your music 3 to 14 times in the last 28 days, and could still develop into super listeners. Although they're not as engaged as super listeners, there's potential for them to develop into super listeners over time.
Light listeners: These are monthly active listeners who intentionally streamed your music 1 or 2 times in the last 28 days, and could develop into moderate listeners.
Previously active listeners: These listeners were once part of your monthly active listeners but haven't intentionally streamed your music in the past 28 days.
Programmed listeners: Listeners who've only streamed your music from programmed sources. This includes places like editorial playlists, playlists made by other listeners, sets from AI DJ, and personalized playlists like Discovery Weekly, Radio, and Autoplay. They haven't streamed your music from active sources in at least 2 years.
Growing your monthly active listeners, especially super listeners, significantly impacts your streaming numbers and long-term audience retention. However, don't overlook the importance of your previously active and programmed listeners.
Your previously active listeners have already shown interest in your music by actively streaming it in the past, making them easier to re-engage. On the other hand, your programmed listeners may be discovering your music for the first time through channels like editorial playlists or Radio, so they may be primed to go deeper into your catalog in the future and become monthly active listeners.
Listener Conversion Metrics
When a listener starts streaming your music, they enter one of your audience segments, but that's not necessarily where they'll stay. As they discover your music on Spotify playlists, stream from your artist profile, or save it to their libraries, they transition between segments.
Listener conversion metrics track these changes every month, and gauge your success at turning casual listeners into dedicated fans over time.
New listeners: These are listeners who hadn't streamed your music on Spotify in the past two years but have now joined your total audience. Now you can measure how many new people your music is reaching each month on Spotify.
New active listeners: These listeners are intentionally steaming your music for the first time in at least two years, joining your monthly active listeners. Their active streams might be the first time they’ve listened to your music, or they might have transitioned from streaming from only programmed sources.
Reactivated listeners: These listeners have rejoined your active audience after a period of inactivity of at least one month. As you reactivate more listeners, you'll notice your previously active listeners shrinking and your monthly active listeners growing.
Share of Streams
Use the share of streams tool to grasp how different segments influence your streaming numbers. This tool provides data on how much each segment contributes to your streams in the past 28 days. By toggling between your share of audience and share of streams, you can see the streams driven by listeners in each segment, helping you understand their importance.
The data on the Segments tab helps you track your audience across various stages of fandom, from new listeners to loyal fans. Listener conversion metrics create a feedback loop connecting your marketing and release strategies to audience growth and re-engagement, which is essential for building long-term success.
Start getting to know your Spotify audience by checking out the segments tab on Spotify for Artists.
