Spotify Growth Playbook Targeting Best Practices and Examples

Learn best practices for the targeting used in the Spotify Growth Playbook. We'll show you how to make the best target audiences, providing targeting examples by genre.

Targeting Best Practices

One of the influencers of your "cost per follower" is interest targeting.

Interests are important, even if they do contribute less than location targeting and ad creative.

The interests in the "Generated Interests" section are who you target on Instagram.

The "Add Spotify Artists" section helps you find interests to include. We check if artists in the "Fans Also Like" section appear as interests and then add them.

We check if artists in the "Fans Also Like" section appear as interests and then add them as a general interest.

Sometimes a less relevant interest appears. Please double-check your interests to make sure they're all relevant to your audience.

Best practices for interest targeting include:

  • Listing 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section

  • In the "Generated Interests" section:

    • Picking 1-2 genre interests (e.g. "Indie Pop" and "Pop Music")

    • Adding 1-2 headliner interests (e.g. "Vampire Weekend" and "Twenty One Pilots")

    • Including 3-10 other artist interests

Targeting Examples by Genre

Here's what your "Generated Interests" section could look like if you were targeting the following genres:

Pop Music (Ariana Grande)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Ariana Grande

    • Camila Cabello

    • Alessia Cara

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Pop Music

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Miley Cyrus

    • Demi Lovato

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Hip-Hop & Rap Music (Kendrick Lamar)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Kendrick Lamar

    • Vince Staples

    • Frank Ocean

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Hip Hop Music

    • Hip Hop & Rap Music

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Pusha T

    • Schoolboy Q

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Electronic Dance Music (Deadmau5)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Deadmau5

    • Eric Prydz

    • Kaskade

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Electronic music

    • Electronic dance music

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Axwell

    • Chris Lake

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Country Music (Sam Hunt)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Sam Hunt

    • Brett Eldredge

    • Cole Swindell

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Country Music

    • Country

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Chase Rice

    • Kip Moore

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Alternative (The Airborne Toxic Event)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • The Airborne Toxic Event

    • Cold War Kids

    • Silversun Pickups

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Alternative rock

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Interpol

    • Portugal. The Man

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

R&B (Alicia Keys)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Alicia Keys

    • Keyshia Cole

    • Kelly Rowland

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Contemporary R&B

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Beyonce

    • Janet Jackson

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Latin (Bad Bunny)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Bad Bunny

    • J Balvin

    • Nicky Jam

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Latin Music (genre)

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • J Alvarez

    • Ozuna

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Rock (The Black Keys)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • The Black Keys

    • The White Stripes

    • Black rebel Motorcycle Club

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Rock music

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Queens of the Stone Age

    • Jack White

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Indie (Tame Impala)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Tame Impala

    • Toro y Moi

    • The Growlers

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Indie pop

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • MacDeMarco

    • MGMT

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Folk/Acoustic (Hozier)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Hozier

    • The Lumineers

    • Lord Huron

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Indie folk

    • Folk music

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

    • Mumford & Suns

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Metal (Lamb of God)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Lamb of God

    • Killswitch Engage

    • Gojira

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Heavy metal music

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Atreyu

    • Between the Buried and Me

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

Punk (Taking Back Sunday)

  • Put in 3-5 artists in the "Add Spotify Artists" section:

    • Taking Back Sunday

    • FIDLAR

    • The Used

  • Pick 1-2 genre interests

    • Punk rock

  • Add 1-2 headliner interests:

    • Hawthorne Heights

    • Silverstein (band)

  • Include 3-10 other artist interests (see screenshot)

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