The 2% That Drives Your Catalog: The Real Impact of Superlisteners on Spotify

The key to sustainable growth lies in your most committed fans

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In an increasingly saturated streaming environment, the success of a catalog is no longer measured solely by total streams. The real key is building long-lasting relationships with your audience: it’s not about volume, but about listener quality and engagement. The audience that actively follows and supports an artist is what separates a catalog that merely exists from one that grows sustainably over time.

Superlisteners: the audience that changes everything

Did you know that regardless of an artist’s size, superlisteners make up only 2% of their monthly listeners but generate more than 18% of their streams on Spotify? Plus, the connection superlisteners feel with the artist and their music motivates them to share it up to nine times more with others, boosting the organic reach of the catalog. These listeners don’t just stream music, their impact goes well beyond streaming: they also buy merch and attend concerts.

Superlisteners make up just a small part of an artist’s total audience, but they play as much music as 20 listeners who discover it through editorial playlists. And in an ecosystem overflowing with music and content, the key is identifying and activating these highly engaged listeners—understanding their behavior and designing strategies to keep them close.

You can identify these superlisteners (and other audience segments) and evaluate catalog performance within each segment on Spotify through Spotify for Artists. Spotify’s fan funnel presents different segments: at the top are potential listeners, who might be interested based on their listening habits; next are programmed listeners, who have heard the music through editorial playlists or algorithmic recommendations. In the middle, you’ll find those who used to listen intentionally but haven’t done so in the last 28 days. And finally, in the active monthly listener category, you’ll find casual, moderate, and superlisteners—those who have intentionally listened in the last month outside of editorial playlists.

How can you reach your artists’ superlisteners?

First and foremost, knowing your audience is essential. It allows you to plan targeted strategies and prioritize efforts for each segment, with the goal of turning listeners into committed fans or superlisteners who can sustain your artist’s long-term success.

That’s why we recommend checking the information available in the “Segments” section of your Spotify for Artists profile to identify where your artists’ audiences sit within the funnel. It also helps to see how listeners interact with your releases, whether they come from an editorial playlist where the track was placed or searched for the song proactively.

If you haven’t activated your account yet and you’re one of our clients, you can visit the article in our Support Center where we explain how to access the Spotify for Artists request form directly from our platform.

You can tailor your strategy to your catalog’s goals based on audience segments using various actions. For example, in acquiring new listeners, Spotify offers Discovery Mode. To reactivate listeners, you can leverage tools that directly impact the Spotify listener interface, such as Marquee or Showcase.

And if your goal is to retain and build listener loyalty, where the true added value lies, it’s crucial to keep their interest alive. Countdown pages help build anticipation around releases and make pre-saves easier. In fact, one in four fans who pre-save ends up becoming a superlistener.

Keeping your artists’ profiles updated and active on Spotify and other DSPs is also essential. On Spotify, you can highlight tour dates, merch, and other updates, and encourage your artists to create visual content like Clips—short videos where artists share behind-the-scenes stories, connect directly with fans, and invite engagement or tease what’s coming next.

Lastly, consistency matters: artists who release music regularly see, on average, an 18% increase in superlisteners after each release.

The key to building a sustainable music career isn’t just reaching more listeners, it’s strengthening the relationship with those who truly drive the project forward. For labels, distributors, and managers, this is an ongoing challenge, but also the path to solid, long-term growth. Identifying superlisteners, understanding each audience segment’s behavior, and activating fans with the right tools is what makes the difference.

While Spotify for Artists provides a clear view of audience segment behavior on Spotify, SonoSuite centralizes management and streamlines the implementation of distribution strategies across multiple catalogs, helping scale the success powered by that crucial 2%.

Our technology ecosystem, combined with the professional support of our team, helps you optimize your catalog’s distribution in an increasingly competitive environment. We work directly with major DSPs and stay up to date with their latest updates to ensure your catalog performs at its best. If you want to learn how to apply these strategies to your catalog, email us at [email protected] and our expert team will show you how we can help.