Guides · Music promotion
·Verified against Spotify for Artists and the TikTok/Luminate Music Impact Report·8 min read
The short answer
Playlist pitching has to happen before your song goes live, so if it is already out, that door is closed for this release. Everything else is still open. Build your followers so Spotify notifies them and adds your track to their Release Radar, post short-form video clips on TikTok, Reels, and Shorts since that is where most new songs get found first, and put your energy into owning your audience directly through email and direct-to-fan sales instead of only renting attention from a platform.
If you have real traction already, meaning thousands of monthly listeners and steady streams, Spotify's paid and algorithmic tools like Marquee, Showcase, and Discovery Mode can add reach on top of that. If you are just starting out, those tools matter less than getting people to actually follow you and buy something directly from you.
Either way, the fastest thing you can do today is get your next release's pitch and pre-save page ready, because a lot of the highest-leverage tools (playlist pitching, Release Radar priority, pre-saves) only work if you set them up before the song drops.
You pitch through Spotify for Artists, under Music then Upcoming, and it only works for unreleased songs. Spotify recommends delivering your music at least 7 days before release so editors have time to listen, and pitching by that deadline is also what gets your song added to your followers' Release Radar playlists. You can only pitch one song at a time, you can edit the pitch up to release day, and pitching does not guarantee a playlist placement. Once a song is live, it can no longer be pitched, so this is a pre-release move to plan into your next release cycle, not something you can do for a song that already dropped.
Release Radar is Spotify's personalized playlist of new music that refreshes every Friday and currently reaches nearly 9 million listeners a week. It pulls from artists a listener follows, artists they listen to, and algorithmic picks based on their taste. Your followers automatically get your new release in their Release Radar. If you pitch your song at least 7 days before release, Spotify uses that pitch to help pick which track from your release shows up there. If you do not pitch, Spotify picks for you. Growing your follower count on Spotify directly increases how many people see your music this way, since Release Radar and Discover Weekly are both personalization-driven, not something you can buy your way into.
They solve different problems and have different costs. Discovery Mode flags priority songs to Spotify's recommendation system for certain personalized playlists and radio. It requires no upfront budget, but Spotify takes a 30% commission on recording royalties from streams that come through Discovery Mode contexts specifically. To be eligible you generally need at least 25,000 monthly listeners, at least 3 eligible songs, and a track that has been live for 30 or more days with at least 20 streams in Discovery Mode contexts in the past 28 days.
Marquee is a paid, full-screen recommendation shown to Spotify listeners on mobile, used only for new releases within 21 days of the release date, and it runs for up to 10 days or until your budget is spent. It requires at least 1,000 streams in the last 28 days in your target market plus at least 5,000 monthly active listeners there. If you do not clear those thresholds, neither tool is available to you yet, and the better use of your time is growing your listener base and follower count first.
Marquee is a full-screen pop-up for new releases only, available within 21 days of release. Showcase is a banner on Spotify's Home and Browse sections that can promote new or catalog music at any time, running for up to 14 days per campaign or until the budget runs out. Both fall under Spotify's "display campaigns" and both need at least 1,000 streams over the last 28 days in a target market to unlock.
Yes, but only if you set them up before release. Spotify's Countdown Pages let fans pre-save an upcoming album or EP, preview the tracklist, watch countdown videos, and shop your merch, all before it is live. On release day everyone who pre-saved gets a notification and the music lands straight in their library. Spotify reports that on average nearly 60% of people who pre-save an album stream it in its first week. Countdown Pages currently require at least 3,000 monthly active listeners and only apply to new albums and EPs, not singles, so build this into your plan for your next release rather than this one.
A lot, and it keeps growing. A Luminate study conducted with TikTok found that 84% of songs that entered the Billboard Global 200 chart in 2024 went viral on TikTok first, and TikTok users are 74% more likely than the average short-form video user to discover and share new music. The same report found TikTok's "Add to Music App" feature has been used to save more than 6 billion tracks to streaming services in the twelve months to April 2026. Posting short clips of your song, whether it is a hook, a behind-the-scenes moment, or a lyric snippet, on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts is one of the few promotion moves that works just as well after release as before it.
A single stream on its own is worth very little, so streams alone rarely add up to meaningful income for an independent artist without volume most new artists do not have yet. The bigger opportunity is converting listeners into people who follow you directly: an email list, a fan text list, or a storefront where they can buy the track, a lossless download, or merch straight from you. Every platform push, whether a playlist pitch, Release Radar, or short-form video, should point somewhere that captures the fan permanently, not just a stream that disappears into a queue.
No. Spotify's pitch tool only accepts unreleased songs, and pitching closes once the release goes live. Plan the pitch for your next single instead, ideally 7 or more days before its release date.
Release Radar only adds a song a listener has not already heard, and each listener gets one song per artist per week, so if a fan already streamed the track elsewhere it may not appear there. Check the Playlists tab under your song's stats in Spotify for Artists to see if it was added.
That depends on whether the extra algorithmic reach is worth giving up 30% of royalties specifically on the streams that come from Discovery Mode contexts. All your other streams keep their normal royalty rate, so it is a bet on incremental reach, not a blanket discount on everything you earn.
Yes. Marquee needs at least 5,000 monthly active listeners and 1,000 streams in the last 28 days in your target market, and Discovery Mode generally needs at least 25,000 monthly listeners. Below those numbers, focus on followers, short-form video, and direct fan-building instead.
They are not competing anymore. Editorial and algorithmic playlists still drive real discovery, but short-form video is where a huge share of chart-entering songs get their first spark, so a release plan needs both, not one instead of the other.
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