Spotify really wants you to list your merch in time for this year's Spotify Wrapped campaign. The streaming company recently announced it would include merch suggestions to an artist's top fans as part of this year's social media-dominating Wrapped initiative.
In (multiple) emails sent to artists, Spotify says an artist can "get merch in front of your biggest fans on Spotify with Shopify's new Starter Plan." The company announced the agreement and new integration with Shopify last year.
Now they want to make sure you get it all set up by November 7th at the latest. At least if you want your merch to be in this year's massively popular "Spotify Wrapped" campaign.
One of the first thing's to know about having merch in your Spotify profile is that it used to be way harder to do and only available to a select few. The second thing to know is that it's not free — you'll need at the very least Shopify's Starter Plan, which starts at $5 per month.
But this was and continues to be a big deal. It took nearly 10 years of existence for Spotify to finally branch out and allow some level of "off platform" monetization that wasn't a COVID-inspired donation link. (They renamed the donation link to "Fan Support," by the way).
Spotify is also offering a $20 off coupon for anybody using Printful to create print-on-demand merch from their Shopify store instead of trying to sell existing inventory.
If any of this is totally foreign to you, we've got some great articles explaining the online merch world for creators.
That's still a bit hush-hush right now. The company usually likes to promote big numbers related to what's going into artists' pockets thanks to the platform. When it comes to the fundraising link, they only mention that users have clicked on those links 50 million times (as of May 2022). Whether or not they know how much money actually made its way to artists (or their chosen causes) remains to be seen.
We're more likely to see some numbers around how much money Spotify has helped sell in merch next year when it begins more outreach initiatives for artists. But they've already shared plenty of interesting numbers around merch clicks.
Only one month after the Shopify integration in late 2021, Spotify published a study showing how users were interacting with merch listed officially on Spotify. Those stats include things like more than half of all merch clicks come within 24 days of a new release.
In other words, when people are visiting your profile for something new, they'll consider your merch, too.
In addition to putting merch front and center, this year's Spotify Wrapped allows another first for the platform. Artists are now able to record up to 30 seconds of a vertical video as a message to fans this year.
This may be the most "personal" Spotify is getting between artists and users since all those years ago when you used to be able to message your followers. There are plenty of limitations, of course — like the fact that you can't include any music in the message — but it's a nice addition to the Wrapped initiative.
This year's Wrapped will also do a better job at promoting live performances to relevant audiences. So if you've got dates listed, there's a chance more people might actually see them now.
Go here to make sure you're all set to utilize this year's new additions.
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