The Complete Guide to 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 active, previously active, and programmed audience. 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:

1. Active Audience: 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 active audience.

   • Super listeners: These are your most dedicated listeners in the past 28 days. They're also the most likely to keep streaming your music in the next three months, more than any other segment in your total audience. Super listeners are your biggest fans on Spotify and a key measure of fandom.

   • Moderate listeners: These are active listeners who intentionally streamed your music multiple times in the past 28 days. 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 active listeners who streamed your music once or a couple of times in the past 28 days. While they're not heavily engaged like moderate or super listeners, there's potential for them to become more engaged over time.

2. Previously active audience: These listeners were part of your active audience in the past two years but haven't intentionally streamed your music in the past 28 days.

3. Programmed audience: These listeners haven't intentionally streamed your music in the past two years. However, at least once in the past two years, they have streamed your music from programmed sources such as editorial playlists, personalized playlists, Radio & Autoplay, or playlists created by other listeners.

Growing your active audience, 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 audiences.

Listeners in your previously active audience have already shown interest in your music by actively streaming it in the past, making them easier to re-engage. On the other hand, listeners in your programmed audience 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 join your active audience.

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 joined your active audience after not intentionally streaming your music for at least two years. 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. New active listeners will be included in your active audience numbers.

• 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 audience segment shrinking and your active audience 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.