How To Spot FAKE Spotify Playlists

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a Spotify playlist you're on is fake or legit. In this video I show you how you can figure out if the playlists are real. Get 10% off Artist.Tools here: artist.tools/?referral=af06c4...
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[@AndrewSouthworth]

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[@chilltracks]

Thanks for shouting out my website! Glad you found it helpful

[@gentlemanbrawlers]

Thanks for the shoutout and for the help, Andrew!! Never feels great gettting scammed, but here's to hoping artists have more ways to suss out the bad companies out there.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Thanks for being willing to share this with everyone!

[@NickKizirnis]

Thanks Andrew!!

[@LegPuppy]

Thing is, people do this and end up getting on editorials. Tons of plays from Frankfurt De Main is also a very good way of spotting a fake playlist

[@PrinceManuh]

Great work as always

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Thanks!

[@moonstrivemedia]

7:00 thanks for the shout out! Studying playlisting for years, we noticed that only (advertised playlists possible too, but results are usually low) the playlists that are ranked for a high volume keyword gain organic traffic.

[@BrayanRodriguez21]

I did a campaign with you because Andrew talked about your service, ALL BOTS!!! could not be more disappointed, also a little bit disappointed with Andrew for "selling out" and suggest a service with bots!

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Hey guys! Thanks for chiming in.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Brayan, I personally vetted their service and found no evidence of bots. Additionally, Brian Hazard of Passive Promotion also vetted them and had the same conclusion. I've checked the playlists on Chartmetric and artist.tools, I combed through the Spotify data, I even had some other clients of mine show me their campaigns they ran so I could cross check the results without Moonstrive being aware i'd see the results. I'm not saying you didn't have a bad experience, but i'd just encourage you to take another look at the data and be sure if its bots or not. Feel free to email me some screenshots at [e-mail] and i'll take a look. Or if you want, invite me as a viewer to your Spotify for Artists and i'll take a look.

[@moonstrivemedia]

@@BrayanRodriguez21 "The number of my order is #14295 Please, let me know what you can find, I know spotify has a strict policy against bots and I dont want my account to suffer because of this, right now India is my top 6 and Philippines is my top 5 and I'm not doing any advertising in those countries, I even have them blocked! Thank you so much for your help, I really want to continue working with you guys, but as I'm sure you understand, I need to make sure everything is working as it should! Thanks," Our reply: "Hi Bryan, Thanks for getting back! Okay, the Top 6 and Top 5 are even realistic. I've checked the major cities and countries for you which are Latin American, which makes sense due to the 50 tons playlist. Initially i thought these countries were the biggest audiences for you. SEO playlists can be found in every country in the world and especially Spotify's Asian market grew significantly over the last years (especially since the launch in these countries). You can also feel free to check the cities more in detail and send us more insights from the Spotify for artist app but to me, everything looks good. It is absolutely normal that SEO playlists pull traffic from everywhere in the world. Best regards, Janik from Moonstrive Media"

[@retroact1766]

amazing video andrew thanks!

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Thanks!

[@alexbochelmusic]

Great video. I hope every artist who ever tries playlist promotion can get this info. I tried using this tool on a lot of playlists that I know are botted and a few did slip through the cracks. Playlists that only have listeners from 10 cities but have clean follower growth data are not marked as fraudulent. Do you know if there is a way to report this to the company so they can look in to collecting that data ?

[@DJFrizzie]

Thanks for this

[@dnico9052]

Help Please!! i’ve been added to a clearly fake playlist that’s shot my first song up to 13 listens per listener avg and a couple thousand streams, all coming from finland… will this ruin my account? i’ve contacted spotify support ect. but they haven’t done anything.

[@Somephase]

Ty for your help

[@DaikiGuitar]

thank you I just started up and Ive the exact same problem...I was thinking to give up cause all the music biz I felt like a scam...but I don't wanna in the same time...

[@michaelandrews6262]

So, I just released my first single and I've been Factbook advertising, running Spotify ads, and using Indie Music Acadamy and Playlist Push to market the song but for the last 2 days I've seen a huge increase in streams overnight (between 350-500) on a song that during the day is getting between 100-150 streams. I'm not seeing activity from playlist placement yet (only been added to 3). I'm also seeing 5-6 streams per listener and a low save rate. Am I being botted? I'm scared that Spotify is going to do something to my song. Any suggestions? Should I tell Spotify?

[@SaintDanielMusic]

what about Partnered Projects promo services? Are they affiliated with you? You're featured on their main page but I can't find any reviews of their services

[@johnwallace2319]

i can't get on any playlist, so, not sure if this info helps... it's like a ghost town

[@kxnganon9168]

The one city thing is interesting because. I've had a song that started getting pushed thru Spotify algorithmic radio and majority of those were coming from one city . I doubt Spotify radio is doing bots

[@mandem888]

Do you have a vid analyzing playlist legitimacy but on chartmetric??

[@nximusic]

Thanks for including my tracks on your playlists Andrew

[@AndrewSouthworth]

No problem!!

[@dptheorigin]

I make rap hip hop, how do I go about finding the best playlists to pitch to that fit my style?

[@BTAVmusic]

What if you did a social media campaign with edm meme pages posting your music. I noticed my Shazam’s increased, but would that also increase the other % category?

[@AndrewSouthworth]

I don't think so. As far as I know the Other category is for TV's, smart watches, Alexa devices etc. If there are other categories that influence that Other section, I have to imagine it would always be quite a small percentage regardless. Shazams generally result in people clicking to go listen on a certain platform, which would fall in the 'Artist profile and catalog' category. EDM meme pages would likely increase Shazams, but I don't think it would impact the Other category on Spotify.

[@BTAVmusic]

@@AndrewSouthworth okay, yeah I noticed my other category is around 30% on old songs I haven’t promoted in months and I don’t know why. The current song I’m promoting is at 0% in the other category.

[@xeztan]

One of my song was added into what I believe is a bot playlist, how can I get it removed from there asap? I’m concerned I’ll get banned from the platform or soft blocked or something? What do you do in this kind of situation?

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Unfortunately there is nothing you can really do. You can contact the playlist owner and ask to be removed, but Spotify doesn’t have a way for artists to remove their music from someone else’s playlist.

[@YMGSHELUVZTOOFLY]

What if a small artist gets botted what are we supposed too do

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Unfortunately there is pretty much nothing you can do about it. It sucks. Spotify needs to have some way for artists to protect themselves from this, particularly small artists.

[@submithub]

Email in bio is often a flag. Not always, but usually means that they're pay for play.

[@submithub]

Did Gentlemen Brawlers share the streaming data with you for being included in the Pop Rising playlist?

[@submithub]

Also, it looks like the Craft Hits channel has had their playlists removed from Spotify. Nice work!

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Yeah very often if they have contact info they're accepting payment for placement. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to justify getting all the messages. They booked me for a consulting call to go over ads but while we were looking at their Spotify data to check performance they mentioned a few playlists they were on that seemed suspicious. When we looked at the data it seemed a little weird. If I remember correctly it was an oddly high percentage in small cities in the USA, and a weird country spread overall. Also the streams per listener count was unusual, and the save rate wasn't typical for a playlist. Then I checked the timeline of followers and it was a rollercoaster ride.

[@submithub]

Good to know, thanks@@AndrewSouthworth

[@u_ok]

why you changed the cover for the vid?

[@AndrewSouthworth]

I'm using TubeBuddy's A/B testing tool so I can track which thumbnails gives me the highest clickthrough rate. It auto switches every day and then shows me the performance differences so I can optimize my thumbnails more effectively.

[@u_ok]

wow this is a pretty cool tool :)

[@soundallowed]

What if your song gets placed on a playlist you didn't pitch for and you'd like to take it down? My Spotify Artist tells me I've got a spot on the Spotify editorial playlist, but when I go to the playlist in Spotify I can see I'm not on that playlist.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

There isn’t anything you can do to get removed from a playlist as far as I know. It’s also possible you could be on a personalized editorial.

[@mrarticle622]

How is the cover of this videos always changing? 🤔🤔🤔

[@dionnegang8901]

Someone asked me for a donation to get in their playlist. Is that sketchy?

[@user-mq4ny2qt9q]

tool discussed at 5:48 ... u r wc

[@GaryJRobinson]

Beware of Playlist Booker. Absolute jokers.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Crazy how many playlist companies are out there now, hard to tell who is legit and who isn't.

[@germwarfare5707]

Definitely 🤖

[@mightbefire]

Inthishvitimashowyou

[@Soydaime]

You could make a video using this tool that checks the fake playlists and confirms if the Distrokid playlists are a good option, since Distrokid has a section called spin the wheel where they randomly place you in one of their playlists but apparently it is not effective despite that he says he has thousands of followers

[@BrayanRodriguez21]

I did a campaign with Moonstrive Media because Andrew talked about the service, ALL BOTS!!! could not be more disappointed, also a little bit disappointed with Andrew for "selling out" and suggest a service with bots!

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Brayan, I personally vetted their service and found no evidence of bots. Additionally, Brian Hazard of Passive Promotion also vetted them and had the same conclusion. I've checked the playlists on Chartmetric and artist.tools, I combed through the Spotify data, I even had some other clients of mine show me their campaigns they ran so I could cross check the results without Moonstrive being aware i'd see the results. I'm not saying you didn't have a bad experience, but i'd just encourage you to take another look at the data and be sure if its bots or not. Feel free to email me some screenshots at [e-mail] and i'll take a look. Or if you want, invite me as a viewer to your Spotify for Artists and i'll take a look.