Why Spotify Trigger Cities Don't Matter

In this video, we're going to be talking about the concept of trigger cities, which is something initially proposed by Chart Metric back in 2019 and then again when they updated the report in 2024. And in a nutshell, it's a concept that there are certain cities around the world that if you get your music to kind of be become popular there or get algorithmically activated from those places, then it's more likely to cause it to spread worldwide. And this is a long article. We're not going to comb through the whole depths of it and I'll link it down below. But but overall, the the kind of message of this video that I want you to take away and then I'll explain why is I think trigger cities the the concept that's mostly shared about trigger cities is mostly >> And to self worth [music] the music marketing guide. >> So, when I say that I think that the concept most people share when they talk about trigger cities is I'm not saying that this report is. It's just that I don't think a lot of people are misinterpreting what this is. Because the the information in here is that hey, there are these cities around the world that a lot of artists end up becoming popular in first before they become popular on a more global scale. Become they start before they start growing dramatically. And and some of these you you very well may have heard of. For example, there's Buenos Aires, there's Sao Paulo, Brazil, you know, there's New York City and LA and Mexico City and then there's Istanbul, Mumbai, and Bangkok and Singapore and and yeah. But a lot of countries in a lot of big cities in big like the like countries like you know, the US and the big countries in Europe. But a lot of the ones when people say trigger cities, they're talking about big cities in cheaper markets a lot of the times. So, for example, that's where like Sao Paulo, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina and I think there's a Philippines one Um, or Jakarta, Indonesia is one and I'm very bad at geography. Quezon City, I believe, is Philippines. But there's these cheaper markets that are often lumped in as being a trigger city. And the the report isn't wrong. I'm not here to say that this very in-depth, very thoughtful report is somehow like useless. It's just that um, a lot of people read this and their assumption is that, hey, if I market in these trigger cities, then it's some type of algorithmic secret sauce that's going to make my music pop off globally. Which that's not what this report says. This what this report actually says, we're going to we're going to go through some more details of it in a sec. But what this report actually says is there are artists that grow up and and blow up more global. And but before they did that, they grew in these markets. And that doesn't mean that the reason for that blow up was that there was some algorithmic secrecy that be if you if you promote your music in these different places, it's some secret combination that unlocks the key to global super stardom. That's what people a lot of people are assuming. And if you've never heard anyone talking about this, um, then good. You're not being misled. But I I know a lot of a lot of people who have thought this way and then they spread the message on online and then I'll have a call with someone and they're saying, well, what about trigger cities? I heard that if I promote in these markets, it's going to be it's going to help my music further than if we just do, you know, this list of countries that you're recommending. And there is a little bit of truth to this. For example, if I share this graph back again, a lot of the times when I run campaigns, I have a specific list of countries I call tier one, tier two. And one of them the tier two markets include Brazil and Mexico. And a lot of the times what happens is Sao Paulo, Brazil and Mexico City end up like very much climbing to the top of the list. A lot of times LA and New York and London will climb to the top of the list. Um and that's generally fine. It's a It's a good thing. And the reason is like Brazil and Mexico climb to the top of the list so much because they're cheaper markets. So it isn't that there's something special about São Paulo that causes your music to get algorithmic traction. It's that when you're running ads, for example, the cost of getting a person to interact with your music in Brazil is way cheaper than it is in the US. And also just from talking to Brazilians over the years, um they seem to have more of like a culture of supporting independent artists and also importing music from other countries, which is not the case globally. The um certain countries are kind of the opposite where like they don't appreciate indie artists as much. They tend to value like bigger artists that are more established. And some markets are more like they only support their local scene. Or not only, but you know what I mean. Since we're talking about whole countries here, so there's there's no such thing as like an absolute when you talk about that. But for example, um Australia and India are two countries I think of in particular that are very very very proud of artists that come from their country. And they support their their local uh artists. Australia like is very intense with that, honestly. And and um whereas Brazil, the people I know in Brazil are saying that like the it's almost like people don't want to support their local markets. They would they would much rather um they're they're much more likely to rally around an American artist that's getting popular in Brazil than a local Brazilian artist. Again, this isn't absolute. There's no such thing as an absolute when you're talking about millions of people. Um it's just a overall trend that I've seen a lot of people repeat. So, combined with the cheaper cost and the cultural differences that may lead to different music discovery, that leads to more people listening, which then leads to algorithmic traction. And what I've seen people take to the extreme of this is what they do is they look at this this chart that they have here, and they'll go through all of these markets either from this graph here or they'll scroll through and they'll say like, "Okay, Latin America, we have these certain markets that are highlighted." I think I forget where they list the countries on here. Um but, you know, for example, there's certain markets that are listed in each in like region. So, here it's like Santiago and Lima and Bogota. Um but you can go up and you can grab all of the South American and Latin American trigger cities, and then you go and grab all the other trigger cities around the world, and then in your ads, you target only your trigger cities. And in my opinion, that's that's not just my opinion, in my experience, uh that just ends up being dramatically more expensive. Because let's say you just target Sao Paulo, Brazil. Um Brazil's a big place. Like, Brazil's very big. Sao Paulo is huge alone. Like, Sao Paulo has more population than LA and New York combined. Which a lot of people don't know. But there's other big cities in in Brazil. There's tons of other people in different places in Brazil. So, um by by targeting just like New York City and just Los Angeles and just Chicago, you're you're missing most of the United States, where you very well might get a cheaper cost. So, you're just arbitrarily shrinking your cost per result. Um and especially in these expensive markets, generally New York City and LA are the two most expensive places to run ads in the states. Um and I don't know this to be a truth for other markets, but I would be willing to bet that running ads in like London and Manchester and and Glasgow is going to be more expensive than running it in like more suburban areas in in the UK. And just because when you have big cities, usually it's more expensive to run there because it's such a densely packed area. There's a lot of businesses competing for ads, which causes the auction rates to shoot up. So, if you if you make it so that your ads are only running in trigger cities cities, right? Is the keyword here. You're shrinking your audience down to a much smaller amount and you're increasing your auction competition than if you were to the whole country. Now, the the truth or not the truth part, but like the the thing that I do sometimes is let's say I do want to include running ads to cities that historically aren't as reliable to run ads to. Like running ads to India is is can be kind of tricky business. It It a lot of the times you end up getting burned where you're seeing results on meta, but you're not seeing the streams coming on the other side. So, when I do target India, I will actually go in and type in um like Mumbai and New Delhi and I don't know or or no I do know Bangalore. So, I'll target like the big cities essentially. Um and the same thing goes for Jakarta, Indonesia. And the same thing goes for Quezon City. Basically, if it's a it's a riskier market where historically I've had a bad time trying to run ads and get people actually listening, then in that market I will do cities and that seems to increase the probability that it ends up working. And I want to read one section from the article here on a specific market because I think it kind of backs up a little bit of of what I I said. Um and for example, if we scroll down to this, let me zoom in so you can read it as well. Um listeners in these countries are a little less likely to willingly reshare or be supportive of the friends taste in music. Individuals have a tendency to gatekeep music, be dismissive of preferences unlike their own. Um and they talk about like you be this is basically European countries are considered to be strong music markets. The less social nature of online behavior in the region um results in more insularity. So, that's like a cultural difference. I don't just give cultural is the right word, but it definitely changes things and if we were to pivot and look at Latin America, um causes trigger cities here have been very large or have very large populations and exhibit high levels of music streaming and social media usage, creating fertile ground for the spread of new music. So, again, it's supporting the idea that different markets have different like susceptibilities to different types of music and and then what I said about like there being different costs associated with different markets. That's really where like where you should understand where trigger cities are and why this value is useful and why it's talked about so much. Just make sure you're not misunderstanding that it's not some like secret voodoo sauce that you should therefore like only run your ads to trigger cities and avoid targeting countries. That's not the purpose of this article. Now, if you want to learn how to run ads like I talked about in this video to promote your music on streaming platforms, you can check out this video right here to see the entire process from start to finish. And make sure you subscribe to my channel so you don't miss another upload. Anyways, I'll see you in the next video. Bye.