Just Suddenly
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My name is Vedaunsh Pradeep. I’m the Vocalist/Guitarist of the Alternative/Post-Rock band Just Suddenly. And here’s what I learned from the Bronze Spotify Promotion Campaign I ran for my song ‘Step Down’, with Omari MC.
I learnt about Omari MC through an online article titled ‘12 Best Spotify Promotion Services’. I opted for Omari MC’s lowest-priced plan – Bronze Spotify which promised 1-7 playlist additions and around 500 to 5,000 streams. This campaign is supposed to last for 2-4 weeks and costs around 77 USD. I had no experience with Online Promotion Services before this and Omari MC was the 2nd one I tested. I tried ‘YouGrow’ first, however, couldn’t run the campaign because my songs weren’t a great fit for YouGrow’s network of playlists. Anyway, let’s dive deeper into my experience with Omari MC and the Bronze Spotify Promotion Campaign I ran, and see what the results were. I’m distributing the whole experience in bullet points, so it becomes easier to jump in and focus on one point at a time. I’ve also tried keeping it as short as possible and elaborating only when necessary.
Campaign Duration – 10 weeks (9-Nov-22 to 31-Jan-23)
Streams Before Campaign – 80
Streams After Campaign – 950
Total Streams – 870
Total Listeners – 750 (Approximately)
1. Legitimacy: Their service is legitimate. No shady plays, no bots, and definitely no plays from ‘Other’ devices.
2. Actual Listeners: One of the biggest concerns of hiring Spotify Promotion services was getting bot plays or tricky plays through the ‘Other’ Devices Channel. However, all the 870 streams I received came from actual listeners on ‘Other Listener’s Playlist’ + ‘Spotify’s Algorithmic Playlists’ and not from ‘Other ‘devices as shown in the image below.
3. Healthy Playlists: All the playlists had a natural follower growth. I checked if the playlists were legit on the following site – ‘Isitagoodplaylist.com’. Another good site to get statistics about a playlist is 'Chosic.com/Spotify-Playlist-Analyzer'. You can check it for yourself. Here is some data on 2 of the healthy playlists:
4. No. of Playlists: My song was added to 8 playlists on 9th Nov. However, since the playlist did not generate the minimum 500 streams promised in 4 weeks I wrote them an email, and the campaign manager, Jessica, put me on 4 more playlists on 15th Dec, 2 new playlists and 2 from the first list which gave me promising streams in the first 4 weeks. So, my song was added to a total of 10 playlists.
5. Total Followers reached through Playlists: The combined number of followers from the 10 playlists was around 39,236. So, my song was exposed to about that many listeners.
6. Total Streams: The campaign promised 500 to 5000 streams in 4 weeks. However, since my song got only 359 streams in the first 4 weeks, Jessica ran the campaign for another month, and my song ended up staying on the playlist for another 6 weeks and generated an additional 510 streams. So, a total of 870 streams in 10 weeks. I agree, kind of slow and stretched out. But, this was a starter campaign and organic growth does take time.
7. Spotify Algorithmic Push: I would also like to point out that running this campaign gave Spotify’s Algorithm some basic data about what kind of people might like my song Step Down. Now, granted my target audience was screwed up because of being placed in some of the wrong playlists, however, Spotify’s Algorithm pushed my song onto its radio channel and got me 94 extra streams. Also, Spotify stopped pushing my song on the radio as soon as my song dropped out of the playlists. In conclusion, the more playlists you stay on, the more Spotify will push your song organically.
8. Communication: The Campaign Manager, Jessica, was extremely prompt with her replies. And she was kind enough to let my campaign run for 10 weeks and helped me get 870 streams in total.
1. Genre: 8 out of 10 playlists focused on the desired genre, Alternative, and Rock, or at least had Rock as a sub-genre. And 2/10 playlists were a complete mismatch. Now, looking at the numbers 8/10 is really good, Omari MC had promised 1-7 playlists and added me on 8 instead. However, as the playlists were inactive, despite the genre being on the right track, the result was below average at best. Hence, this becomes a Con rather than a Pro.
2. Inactive Playlists: Even though 8/10 playlists sort of focused on the genre of my liking the resulting streams were not that great.
a. Good Playlists – 2 out of 10 playlists were good as they focused on Rock and Coldplay with a total of 12,660 followers, but got me only 150 streams.
b. Inactive Playlists - 4 out of 10 playlists catered to Alternative/Rock songs with a total of 6077 followers, but got me only 44 streams.
c. Average Playlists - 2 out of 10 playlists favoured Hip-Hop and Pop, but had Rock as a sub-genre with a total of 9,214 followers, and got me 358 streams.
d. Wrong Genre Playlists - 2 out of 10 playlists were a complete mismatch as they focused mainly on Hip-Hop and Pop with a total of 11,285 followers and got me 102 streams.
So, I think the listeners who love Hip-Hop and Pop songs streamed my song more times as compared to listeners who love Alternative, Rock, and Metal songs. So, I wasn’t very happy with this result.
The primary reason I didn’t flag this up with Omari MC was because I wasn’t aware of ‘Isitagoodplaylist.com when I started the campaign. The second reason I didn’t flag it up was because 8/10 playlists catered to my desired genre and target audience. But what I couldn’t anticipate was the inactivity of these playlists which resulted in a very sub-par promotion. As this was my first campaign, I went in with an open mind hoping that Omari MC would use all its expertise to get me on the best playlists possible. Now I know Omari MC didn’t do a great job at this. In order to get the best results, you need to make sure each playlist you were added to is filled with your Desired Target Audience. The only way to get it done is by making sure the genre of the playlist matches the genre of your song perfectly well and also that the playlist has active listeners. This was one of my biggest mistakes in this campaign. So, if you decide to hire Omari MC, be hyper-vigilant about the genre and the activity of the playlists. And flag it up with them. I’m sure Omari MC will find a better playlist for you.
3. Followers: Out of the 750 listeners, I think only 3 listeners liked my song enough to follow my Artist Profile Page. This is bad because the more right followers you gain, the more correct data Spotify has to pitch your song to similar listeners.
4. 7-Day Delay: Omari MC takes a week to begin your campaign after you buy the Promotion package. So, it’s kind of a drag to wait for 7 days before your campaign pitching begins. However, they had mentioned the 7-Day delay in the description. Also, after the first week, their responses were very prompt, 1-2 business days.
5. Independent Playlist Control: I’m not sure how accurate this is, but this is a point I don’t think I should ignore. I don’t know what kind of understanding, deal, or agreement Omari MC has with these independent playlist curators, but things seemed a little off because the first time around my song stayed on the playlists for 4 weeks. It gradually fell out as the playlist was regularly updated with new songs. But when I mentioned the campaign fell short, my song was added back to the 2 most popular playlists, and this time around my song stayed on the playlist for an additional 6 weeks. Now I speculate the following 3 scenarios:
a. The campaign manager and the independent playlist curator have a cordial understanding and they let my song stay a bit longer to achieve the minimum promised streams.
b. The curator actually thought my song deserved to stay a bit longer with/without the campaign manager’s request/recommendation.
c. The campaign manager has some sway over the playlists and the curator and can control how long the song stays on the playlists to achieve the desired streams. I don’t like this last speculation as it steps into the domain of payola. Cause the whole idea of organic growth and organic listeners is to take company-owned control over streams out of the equation. The point is to get the right songs to the right listeners, bridge the gap, and let actual love for a particular song grow the number of streams. Anyway, these are just speculations based on incomplete evidence. So, make up your mind, this is just my understanding/opinion.
6. The Age Range of Listeners: I am 34 years old, so before running the campaign most of my listeners had been between 28-34. However, most of the listeners this campaign got me were between the age range of 45-59 and 60+. Now I don’t think my songs lyrically appeal to this age range. I think my songs would appeal more to the younger generation in their early 20s or even 30s. Hence, I was a little disappointed with the age range of the playlist’s listeners.
Region Data: I don’t wish to comment on the countries and cities my listeners were from as I did not observe the data as much. Spotify for Artists is a little bit restrictive. It only gives me the data for the past 28 days for most demographics. So I can’t really analyse which cities and countries my listeners were from while I ran my campaign for 10 weeks. I guess I’ll have to hire the services of a 3rd party site to get a hold of this data. Currently, I have no clue how to even get a hold of the data.
Passive Listeners: Out of the 750 listeners that heard my song, hardly 10 listeners must have actually come to my Spotify profile page and heard the rest of my songs. So, I couldn’t convert any of the first-time listeners into fans with this campaign. And one of the reasons for this is that these listeners were passive listeners. Unless your song is great enough to make them stop whatever activity they were doing, open up Spotify and check who the artist is, running a Spotify playlist promotion campaign is a hit-and-miss situation. So, this is just a general pitfall of running a Playlist Promotion Campaign.
Conclusion: Omari MC is good. They have the network and connections. They have taken an effort to maintain relationships with curators. Their playlists have real listeners. The playlists are healthy and not filled with bots. They are here to help independent artists reach more listeners. They feed the right data to Spotify’s Algorithm helping your profile grow. I mean it’s worth every penny. They are honest, transparent, approachable, and reliable. And the most important point is, it’s not a scam.
I would only advice you to keep an eye on whether the playlist is active or not. Study your genre, your target audience and the playlist well. Don’t settle for a playlist if it doesn’t cater to your genre and vibe.
I would most certainly run another campaign with Omari MC in the future because I am definitely happy with the Pros I’ve mentioned above. I’ll make sure I let them know about the Cons and help them understand my needs and see if they can deliver the Target Audience I desire. I have provided as much data as possible and I hope you make the best out of your Promotion Campaign too.
