Trends / Streams counting on iMusician Dashboard

hi @SimonG,
I wanted to ask how reliable are the numbers that spotify gives per playlist, per day, for streams, listeners etc. and also I wanted to ask how it may come that on iMusician dashboard quite often the streams per day are less than the spotify streams not counting the youtube streams and other platforms we didn’t even check for streams. and, maybe related to this, we were told by some people that they listened to our song on youtube but the streamcounter didn’t change and we checked that, it seems to be true, but then, maybe some hours later, it increases. maybe someone knows how that works, too? hope someone can help us with all this technical stuff haha :blush:

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Hey @Andi

I split this out from the original topic as it is quite an interesting question.

First things first - we take the data from the platforms themselves so our data should in theory match what is on the platform.

However, they are many ways in which this data can also change - I am going to chicken out of answering this and tag @Chris (our CTO) for more

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Hey @Andi just to clarify, are you talking about trends data (e.g. only the streams) or sales data (e.g. the money)?

We’re genuinely trying to figure out the answers here, as Spotify can be a bit of a “black box” but we’re not actually happy with that as an answer :thinking:

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yes, just the streams :v: I put some screenshots, in the details:

details

listeners_9-11_spotify
listeners_9-11_iMusician

as an example, on 9/11 on spotify there were 12 streams, on the Dashboard 11. the curves are parallel so it’s apparently not a matter of time delay (at least not in the short term). I mean, it’s not a big difference but as there are streams on youtube and on other platforms too, you would expect the second one to be higher not the first. :blush:

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@SimonG

could it have something to do with the streams from the US (and maybe other countries Canada, Australia perhaps) that the streams arrive later?

Hey there @Andi thanks for your interest on that matter. As already mentioned by @SimonG things may be a bit hard to explain since the shop in question isn’t the most talkative.

One thing to note is that trends are an indication and not a fact. Sales numbers will in most cases look different.
Still, to have a clearer picture can you pm me your email, or an isrc of one of your tracks that we will look at, that might be even better.

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@Andi thansk for sharing your details.
First of to clarify: we are observing spotify exclusively.
The answer now is pretty straight forward, it seems that Spotify also reports the streams that are not beeing accounted for. While in our default view we only show data that is accounted for.
Meaning there is a track which was played for only 4 seconds and therefore will not be accounted for.

I hope this sheds some light into the situation!

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aaand also there’s trend analytics that would give you some additional data :slight_smile:
feel free to give it a go and provide some feedback!

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hey @Chris, yeah, that makes completely sense to me! thanks a lot for this :smiley: :+1:

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yeah, I definitely will! thanks for that suggestion too!!! :smiley:

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Hi @SimonG, still, i was wondering how does the payout work? Does the accumulated ammount show up somewhere, what do you need to do to claim it ecc? thanks a lot in advance :v:

Hi @Andi

You can go to control panel, click on your account, and then payout overview to see the money you have available to request a payout, let me show you an example:

Screenshot 2022-10-20 095128

Let me know if you have difficulties to find it.

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Hello Andi,

once you’ve received sales data, you can see the accumulated amount as cash credit on your dashboard. For details you can view your sales data or even download your sales report from there which contains all the information on where and when streams/downloads did occur.

As for the Trends from YouTube:

Until now only a few shops offer us daily trend data and YouTube is not one of them. So all streams from YouTube (Music) and income from Content ID will only show up in your final sales reports.

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thanks a lot @Kuo :smiley: just to understand, what might the smallest amount be that would be shown as cash credit? I mean, streams do generate credits, right? :blush:

thanks @Christoph !! sorry for asking stupid things :blush: but how do you receive sales data? or maybe when? As our sales overview still says 0 :smile:

Hi @Andi,

The smallest amount can go as little as cents, and the streams do generate royalties.
Not any stream can count as royalties, the streaming services have certain rules for a stream to count, for instance a track should be played for at least 30 seconds to generate royalties.

For more information regarding this, I recommend you to check out this video where we explain to you how does the stream services work:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HAIJCZ7ToTs
And for more information, you can always check out our FAQs or contact us here in the community.

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hi @Kuo, thanks a lot! yeah, I have seen this video, it is very clear yet short and it explains the thing really well! I still wonder why for example 1000 (more or less) streams that have been counted by the streaming services won’t generate at least one cent haha. how long might it take for royalities to be generated and visible in sales overview from when streaming occurs? Just out of curiosity and to better understand this thing, as I said, we have just pubblished our first song and we are new to this amazing world of musicproduction :blush:

Hi @Andi,

These are all big topics. I suggest you these 2 articles:

  1. When do I see my sales

  2. once you#ve received your first sales report I recommend How to check your sales report

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@Christoph , yayy, thank you!! that made it really clear :smiley: will have to wait another couple of month to see our first cent then :sweat_smile: thanks again!

First sales are usually available 4 months after release, we don’t release state earlier as streams (available in trend analytics), do not equal paying streams in a 1:1 basis (due to many many different things, but including trial users for Spotify to for example).

But you should see Trend Analytics (if you have the music analytics subscription) being populated a day or two after release.

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