How to choose a music marketing agency: know which kind of help you are buying

A music marketing agency is a company you pay to put your music, shows or fan business in front of more of the right people. The label hides three different kinds of help. This is an editorial split, not a legal one. The first kind is attention work: press, radio promotion, pitches to playlist curators who take no payment, and paid creator posts. The second is fan-building: paid social and video ads, an email list, and the sales path behind tickets, merchandise or lessons. The third is stream selling: a fee in return for a number of streams, followers or a place on a playlist. The first two are ordinary marketing with ordinary risks. Spotify says the third kind violates its terms and conditions. The rest of this article follows the order in which you hire, and shows where each kind gives itself away.

Before the shortlist: decide the job and check your own tools

Start with the job, not the agency. Write down one result you want: a release heard by people who might buy a ticket, a sold-out tour date, or an email list that keeps growing. Then see what you can do yourself. Spotify for Artists lets you pitch an unreleased song to Spotify's editorial team, and Spotify Ads Manager lets you create audio and video ads.

Check where you stand against Spotify's own thresholds too. Spotify's display campaigns, called Marquee and Showcase, need at least 1,000 streams over the last 28 days in a target market, and Marquee also needs 5,000 monthly active listeners there. So a brand-new artist cannot use Spotify's display campaigns yet.

Get access to your own Spotify for Artists account now and keep the login in your name, because you will need it to check anyone's work. Screenshot your last 28 days of streams by source before an agency starts, so any change can be traced to what they did.

The shortlist: read what each agency promises

Read each website and proposal for one thing: what is being promised. Spotify strictly prohibits using any third party service that promises streams or playlist placement in exchange for money. A proposal that offers "50,000 streams in 30 days" (an invented example) is selling the third kind, whatever the agency calls itself. Spotify says many of these services use bots to stream a song on repeat.

Paid promotion is not the same thing. Spotify sells its own paid display campaigns, which run on a budget you set, and ads, press and creator posts can all be legitimate. The difference is what you are buying: reach to people who may choose to listen, or a stream count. Spotify says the only way to grow your career on it is by gaining legitimate fans who engage with your songs.

Treat "pay to be considered" offers with the same suspicion. Spotify says some services charge money to be considered for user playlists without guaranteeing placement, tells artists to be highly sceptical of them, and warns that they may use artificial streaming tactics. The rule is not only Spotify's. YouTube does not allow anything that artificially increases views, likes, comments or other metrics, so check video promises the same way.

A paid creator post is advertising, so labelling rules apply. In the UK the ASA says content made for a brand that pays the influencer must be obviously identifiable as advertising, and the US Federal Trade Commission says an endorsement should make a paid relationship obvious. A label settles the advertising question only. Spotify's rule on paid streams and placement is a separate test, so a labelled post can still fail it.

The meeting: ask how the audience arrives

Ask where the listeners will come from, and ask for the method in plain words. Spotify's own advice to anyone hiring is that you should research the services and their methods of promotion to ensure they do not engage in artificial streaming. Then ask which playlists, creators or partners the agency will use, and whether any of them takes payment.

Ask to see a past campaign's source-of-streams view from Spotify for Artists, shared with that artist's permission. A capable agency can show listeners arriving from the places its ads and posts were aimed at.

Next, ask for proof from a business like yours. Match on stage, genre and audience size, and do not accept a campaign for an artist with a million followers as evidence of what an agency will do for a new act. Ask to speak to a past client, because Spotify tells artists to talk to others who have used a service.

The contract: write the rule down

Put the platform rules in the agreement, because the penalties fall on you. When Spotify detects artificial streams, they earn no royalties, they do not count toward public stream numbers or charts, and they do not help recommendations. Depending on severity, the song can be removed from Spotify playlists, and your distributor may issue warnings, charge a penalty fee, suspend your account or remove the music. Spotify can remove a track from Spotify altogether where it appears to be primarily a vehicle to enable artificial streaming.

The fee is real money. TuneCore says Spotify currently charges a monthly 10 euro penalty to labels and distributors for each track with high levels of artificial streaming. It also says any fee is passed on to the account holder. Spotify says the charge applies only to very high rates of artificial streaming per track. Check your own distributor's terms, because they may differ.

Ask for three lines in the contract. The agency does not buy or arrange streams, followers or playlist placement for money. It names every playlist, creator and partner it uses when you ask. It covers any distributor charge caused by its work. These are suggested terms, not standard ones.

The first weeks: watch your data and agree when to stop

Agree the stop rule before the first pound is spent. Spotify lists what abnormal activity can look like in your own data: a sudden spike in streams followed by a drop, an unexplained spike from a location where your tracks have not been active, most streams from unexplained sources such as "Other", and sudden short-lived follower growth. If you see any of these, pause the campaign. Spotify asks artists to tell their label or distributor and share details of any services they have hired.

Spotify says some services use bots to stream a track against an artist's will, though its data shows this is a small minority of artificial streaming. So the steps above lower your risk without removing it. And Spotify says the royalty report from your label or distributor is the most accurate source on what Spotify streams earned, so compare it with the dashboard.

Ordinary underperformance is less dramatic: an ad that does not sell tickets, an email list that stalls. Set a review at 30 days with one agreed number, such as cost per ticket sale or per email sign-up. Agree what happens if it is missed: change the creative, change the audience, or stop.

Our own marketing for musicians and artists is of the fan-building kind: paid ads, content and email. One published case is the JP Bouvet Method, an online drum-education brand: the case page reports 6× the business in under two years from Meta paid advertising, in a relationship running since 2024. That is evidence only if you are buying paid acquisition for lessons or courses. It is not a band, so it says nothing about streams or tour sales.

Artists who should not hire an agency yet

Some artists should wait, and a good agency will say so. Below 1,000 streams in 28 days in every target market, Spotify's display campaigns are closed to you. Since April 2024 a track needs at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months to be included in Spotify's recorded music royalty pool. Those are thresholds for Spotify's own tools and payouts, not a test of whether you are ready for an agency: an agency could still promote a local show or grow your email list. But if streams are the goal, our take is that a retainer at that stage buys little you cannot test yourself.

Do this instead. Pitch each release to Spotify's editors through Spotify for Artists. Run a small ad test yourself in Spotify Ads Manager. Ask a freelance publicist whether they would take one release without a retainer. If a manager already works with you, ask them what they can cover. Build the email list that turns listeners into a direct audience, so your next release does not start from zero.

You are also not ready if you do not control your own distributor and Spotify for Artists logins, or if what you want is a stream count rather than fans. Spotify's rules leave no legitimate way to buy a guaranteed stream count, and waiting costs less than a fee for streams that Spotify will not pay for.

Whether to hire for this release or wait for the next is a decision you can talk through with us: tell us about your business, and if waiting looks like the better call, we will say so.