Spot Fake Streams on Spotify: Essential Guide for A&Rs

Kristian Gorenc Z

Dec 15, 2024

Detecting fake streams has become an essential part of assessing artist performance and ensuring that metrics are reliable and valuable for long-term investments. While many of Viberate's users come to us to understand the "whats" behind an artist's numbers, it’s crucial to dive into the "whys" as well. In my experience training A&Rs, I've developed techniques to filter out suspicious artists from our database of hundreds of thousands, narrowing down the list to a more manageable selection of viable prospects for record labels and distribution services.

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The starting point in this process is eliminating artists with high overall rankings. By excluding the top 50,000 artists in our general ranking—who are likely already tied into deals—we avoid wasting time. Then, we apply a high minimum threshold for Spotify monthly listeners, which typically reduces the list to around 100 artists per sub-genre. With this refined list, it’s time to dive into a more detailed analysis.

Understanding Geolocation Patterns: A Key Indicator of Fake Streams

One of the first steps in identifying potential Spotify fake streams is examining the geographic distribution of listeners. For example, let’s look at a European artist whose streaming stats reveal that the majority of their plays come from cities in Mexico, with their home country not even in the top 10. For a regional or "long-tail" artist, such a mismatch between expected and actual top cities can indicate unusual behavior. In cases like this, these fake streams may come from bots or purchased plays, especially if the artist lacks a substantial fan base in the regions showing high play counts.

Comparing Audience and Engagement Growth

Moving beyond location, the next layer of analysis involves examining audience growth in comparison to engagement growth. Ideally, these two metrics should show a degree of correlation, as genuine audience growth often leads to proportional increases in engagement. In one example, the chart below (not included here) highlights a suspicious pattern: the artist’s audience numbers are spiking periodically, yet engagement levels remain static. Such a disconnection between audience and engagement indicates possible manipulation, with fake streams generated by bots to inflate listener counts rather than authentic audience interest.

Listener-to-Follower Ratio: Another Red Flag for Fake Streams

A healthy listener-to-follower ratio is another key metric in determining whether an artist's streams are legitimate. Typically, an artist will have more listeners than followers, but an excessively high ratio often raises questions. In the case of the European artist we analyzed, the ratio was an astonishing 82.7—far above the norm. For context, rising superstar Sabrina Carpenter has a ratio of just 5.9, despite her growing popularity. This extreme discrepancy points to possible Spotify fake streams, as artificially inflated listener numbers can distort the true level of interest in an artist.

Cross-Referencing with Industry Averages

To further validate our findings, we often use Viberate's comparison tool to assess the artist’s stats against industry averages. For instance, our European artist boasts 625,000 monthly listeners and only 7,600 followers. By comparison, artists with similar follower counts (0-10k) typically average around 12,300 monthly listeners. This significant gap further suggests that the artist’s streams are inflated, likely due to suspicious methods such as bot traffic or playlist manipulation.

Final Thoughts: Why Diving Deeper Matters

Relying solely on basic KPIs when assessing an artist is risky. Without a more nuanced approach, labels and managers could end up investing in artists with inflated metrics, which may fail to translate into genuine fan engagement or revenue. By taking the time to analyze geolocation, audience-engagement ratios, and industry benchmarks, you can minimize these risks and make better-informed decisions about artist partnerships.

For anyone navigating the complexities of the digital music landscape, identifying fake streams and understanding how to spot fake streams on Spotify is essential. Remember, if you need further guidance on diving into more advanced metrics, I’m here to help.