Armed with Fan Data: CD Baby Empowers Indie Musicians with New Analytics and Trending Dashboard

The fans are out there. Their clicks and taps can make a musician’s career. But how are fans listening? And where do they live? These questions stand between indie artists and substantial career development and revenue. CD Baby helps answer these questions with a new data analytics tool that’s been over a year in the making.

In addition to physical and digital distribution, as well as streaming and licensing opportunities, thousands of CD Baby artists now have access to a Trending and Analytics dashboard. The new tool provides interactive data reports of geographic heat maps of countries, states, and cities where an artist’s music is most widely streamed and downloaded.

“This knowledge gives our musicians a vital guide of not only where to tour, but where to market their tracks and albums via targeted social media promotion,” says Kevin Breuner, CD Baby VP of Marketing.

With the new Trending and Analytics tool, artists can also observe trends in how their fans are listening, whether through Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes or other streaming services. Within streaming services, artists can also find out which tracks are most popular as well as the most popular playlists that have boosted their track plays. Data is also broken down to show preferences for desktop, mobile, or tablet listening.

Digesting this influx of data turns out to be an immense undertaking. “We often receive up to 14 million lines of data in one night from Spotify alone and trends in this data changes constantly.” says Erica Sinkovic, CD Baby Manager of Product Development. “Now artists can observe these changes on a daily basis.”

“Our new analytics features are the next logical step in our expansion of our CD Baby Pro artist dashboard,” explains Kevin Breuner, CD Baby’s VP of Marketing. “We’re working to become a truly one-stop shop, where artists who have been historically shut out of entire sides of the business can gain access to real income and vital information.”

About CD Baby:

CD Baby is one of the largest distributors of independent music on the planet, home to more than 400,000 artists. The CD Baby catalog makes up an estimated 17 per cent of iTunes track offerings. With a one-stop professional dashboard allowing indie musicians to manage their royalties and licensing, CD Baby has become the go-to partner for many icons in the new music industry. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Macklemore had their start on CD Baby, while others like Ingrid Michaelson and Gregory Alan Isakov have maintained independent and highly successful careers. Greg Brown, Willis Earl Beale, and Grant Lee Phillips are among musicians who’ve dropped the old label system and turned to CD Baby to strike out on their own.