How to Avoid a Takedown Notice from Spotify

I distributed a single from a very talented artist to all digital service providers. The artist and their team set up an advertising campaign via Twitter which sent all consumers to Spotify linking them to the single for listening purposes. The results of the advertising campaign were substantial racking in over 4.4m impressions, which translated into over 120k plays and close to 700 followers on Spotify.

The streaming giant did not receive the campaign well though, stating that there was a high amount of streams for the artist that they deemed questionable. Now again, since the plays came from a Twitter advert that sent a spike of users to Spotify during the campaign, the streaming platform flagged the spike as “questionable”. Without any type of warning, Spotify took down the single. I communicated with the DSP via my digital distributor, and they stated there was nothing that could be done.

It seems like I’m not the only person who has experienced this detrimental situation. Take a look at the band Smokey and the Mirror. According Digital Music News, back in 2015 the up-and-coming folk duo decided to upload their new album Thin Black Line onto Spotify via CD Baby. Then, the band rallied their fan-base to check it out. The band ended up racking up 79,000 plays but at the time they only had 30 Spotify followers. Due to the disparity of plays/followers, the streaming giant flagged the release as “suspicious” and took it down.

Smokey and the Mirror said their small fan-base rallied to the cause, listening to the album over and over again. Bryan Hembree of the band told Digital Music News that a local bookstore had put the album on repeat as well.

So how can artists avoid this critical situation? According to my distributor, the first step is to alert Spotify of any campaigns surrounding a release that may spike the streaming numbers on the platform. This commutation with Spotify can be submitted through the recently formed Spotify for Artists website via their contact page. Provide the streaming platform your Spotify Artist URL when you send your message to them. Knowing this step before hand would have diverted my artist’s single being taken down from the platform. The problem was, this information was only provided after the fact. I guess you live and you learn!

What are your thoughts on this matter? Chime in 👇🏽