How to Use Spotify Marquee for Music Promotion

Spotify Marquee is a paid promotional tool that displays a full-screen recommendation card to Spotify listeners who are already familiar with your music. When those listeners open the Spotify app, they see a card promoting your new release with a direct link to stream it.

Marquee is different from most music promotion tools because it targets warm audiences rather than cold ones. The people who see your Marquee card already know who you are. They have streamed you before or follow your profile. Marquee is asking them to listen to your new release, not introducing you to a stranger.

This makes Marquee a specific kind of tool with a specific use case. This guide explains exactly how it works, what it costs, when it is worth the investment, and how to run a campaign effectively.

What You Will Learn

• What Marquee actually does and who sees it
• What Marquee costs and how to budget a campaign
• Eligibility requirements in 2026
• When Marquee is worth using versus when it is not
• How to interpret your Marquee campaign results
• How Marquee fits into a broader release promotion strategy

How Marquee Works

When you run a Marquee campaign, you set a budget, a target audience (by geography and listener segment), and a release to promote. Spotify then shows a full-screen card to eligible listeners in your target audience when they open the mobile app.

The card shows your release artwork, track name, and a play button. The listener can tap to go directly to your release or dismiss the card. Spotify tracks whether the listener clicked through, streamed the track after seeing the card, and saved it.

What makes Marquee different from other ads: The audience is specifically Spotify listeners who have some prior familiarity with your music. Spotify divides the target audience into segments:

• Active fans: Followers and recent intentional listeners
• Previously engaged fans: People who listened intentionally in the past few months but less recently
• Programmed listeners: People who have heard your music passively through algorithmic or editorial playlists

You can target one or multiple of these segments per campaign. Active fans will likely have the highest conversion rate. Programmed listeners are a larger pool but with lower prior engagement.

Eligibility Requirements in 2026

Marquee has eligibility requirements that not all independent artists meet. As of 2026:

• You must distribute your music through an approved distributor (DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, and most major distributors qualify)
• Your release must be within 21 days of your release date (you cannot use Marquee for old catalog)
• You must have sufficient reach in your target market. Spotify requires you to have a meaningful number of listeners in the markets you want to target
• Marquee is available in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, and several other markets. Coverage has expanded annually

If you are a very early-stage artist with limited existing Spotify listeners, you may not yet qualify. Check your eligibility inside Spotify for Artists under the Campaigns section.

What Marquee Costs

Marquee uses a cost-per-listener model. You pay for each listener who clicks through your Marquee card and streams your release. You set a total campaign budget and Spotify distributes your spend across the target audience until the budget is exhausted or the campaign period ends.

Budget guidance:

• Minimum effective campaign: approximately $100 to $150 in most markets
• Typical independent artist campaign: $150 to $400
• Cost per listening session varies by market and competition, but typically falls between $0.50 and $1.50 per listener reached in the US market

Spotify provides a forecast tool inside the campaign builder that estimates your expected reach given your budget, target market, and audience segment. Run a forecast before committing to a budget to understand the expected return.

You can also run Showcase campaigns, which are similar to Marquee but appear on the Spotify home screen and can target slightly different audience configurations. Showcase costs are comparable. Both are managed from the same Campaigns section of Spotify for Artists.

When Marquee Is Worth Using

Marquee is designed for a specific situation: you have a new release, you have an existing Spotify audience that has not yet streamed it, and you want to close that gap.

Most worth it when:

• You are releasing a single, EP, or album and want to maximize first-week streaming numbers
• You have a meaningful existing listener base in your target market, several thousand to tens of thousands of monthly listeners, who have not yet listened to the new release
• You want to improve your streaming velocity in the first two to three weeks of a release, which feeds algorithmic distribution signals

Less worth it when:

• You have very few existing Spotify listeners. Marquee reaches your existing audience. If that audience is very small, the budget is better spent on growing that audience through external promotion first
• Your new release is more than three weeks old. Marquee campaigns are intended for new releases and have a 21-day release window requirement
• You are looking for new listener discovery. Marquee does not introduce you to new listeners who have never heard of you. For new listener acquisition, TikTok organic content, SubmitHub pitch campaigns, and Spotify editorial pitching are better tools

How to Run a Marquee Campaign

Step 1: Verify eligibility

Log in to Spotify for Artists and navigate to Campaigns. If Marquee is available to you, you will see the option to create a campaign. If you are not yet eligible, you will see information about what criteria you need to meet.

Step 2: Select your release

Choose the track or album to promote. The release must be within the 21-day window.

Step 3: Set your target audience

Choose which listener segments to target and which markets. For most independent artists, targeting your highest-volume existing market with your most engaged listener segment first is the best starting point. You can run separate campaigns for different markets.

Step 4: Set your budget and review the forecast

Enter your intended budget and review Spotify's estimated reach. Adjust the budget until the forecast aligns with your goal. Note that forecasts are estimates, not guarantees.

Step 5: Launch and monitor

Once live, monitor your campaign in Spotify for Artists. Key metrics to watch:

• Listener rate: The percentage of people who saw the card and streamed the release
• Stream rate: The average number of streams per listener reached
• Intent rate: The percentage of listeners who completed the track or saved it, indicating genuine interest

How to Interpret Your Campaign Results

After your campaign, Spotify provides a report showing how many listeners your campaign reached and how they engaged. Compare your Marquee results to your organic streaming data for the same period.

A successful Marquee campaign shows:

• A listener rate above 10% (more than one in ten people who saw the card streamed the release)
• A meaningful intent rate, above 20%, indicating listeners who found the music worth completing or saving
• A cost per engaged listener that compares favorably to what you spent on other promotion for the same release

Marquee also affects your broader streaming metrics. The streams driven by Marquee from engaged listeners contribute to your save rate, completion rate, and algorithmic signals. Well-targeted Marquee campaigns can trigger downstream algorithmic distribution by improving the behavioral metrics the algorithm uses to recommend your music.

For more on the algorithm signals that Marquee streams contribute to, see our Spotify algorithm guide.

Marquee Alongside Other Promotion Tools

Marquee works best as part of a broader release promotion strategy rather than as a standalone campaign. Beach House and other established independent artists have documented using Marquee alongside editorial pitching and Discovery Mode to amplify release performance significantly.

How to combine Marquee with other tools:

• Before release: Spotify editorial pitch (free), pre-save campaign through your email list and social media
• Release week: Marquee campaign for your existing audience, SubmitHub or PlaylistPush for independent playlist placement
• After release: Spotify Canvas if not already in place, continued social content from our Reels guide and content calendar

For a broader look at which promotion services consistently produce real results beyond Marquee, see our best music promotion services 2026 guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can any artist use Spotify Marquee?

Not immediately. Marquee requires meeting eligibility thresholds around distributor, market availability, and listener base size. Early-stage artists with very few Spotify listeners may not yet qualify. Check your eligibility in the Campaigns section of Spotify for Artists.

Q: Is Spotify Marquee worth the cost for independent artists?

At $100 to $400 per campaign, Marquee can be worth it if you have an existing listener base and a new release to promote. Artists who have found it most effective have at least five thousand to ten thousand monthly listeners before running their first campaign. Below that threshold, the budget may produce better results spent on growing your audience through SubmitHub or TikTok promotion first.

Q: Does Marquee replace other promotion tools?

No. Marquee is specifically a re-engagement tool for your existing audience. It does not replace playlist pitching services, editorial pitching, or social media promotion, which all serve the goal of introducing your music to new listeners. Use Marquee alongside those tools, not instead of them.

Q: What is Discovery Mode and how is it different from Marquee?

Discovery Mode is a separate Spotify tool that allows artists to increase their algorithmic distribution in exchange for a reduced royalty rate on streams driven by that discovery. Unlike Marquee, Discovery Mode is free to opt into but costs you a share of royalties on participating streams. Some artists use both tools in combination: Discovery Mode for new listener reach and Marquee for re-engaging existing listeners.

Q: How long should I run a Marquee campaign?

Spotify recommends running Marquee campaigns for two to three weeks around a release. Campaigns longer than three weeks tend to reach diminishing returns as the listener pool familiar with your music but not yet streaming the release becomes exhausted. Shorter, focused campaigns in the first week of a release tend to produce the best stream velocity.

A Focused Tool for the Right Situation

Spotify Marquee is a valuable tool when used appropriately. Its strength is re-engaging listeners who already know your music and converting them into active streams of your new release. Its weakness is that it cannot grow your audience from scratch.

For artists at the right career stage, a well-targeted Marquee campaign during a release window can meaningfully improve your first-week streaming numbers, which in turn improves the algorithmic signals that drive longer-term discovery. For artists still building their initial audience, the same budget is likely better spent on tools that attract new listeners.

Track your results carefully, compare them to your organic performance, and use the data to calibrate how much of your promotion budget to allocate to Marquee versus external tools on future releases.

External references: Spotify Marquee for Artists, ArtisTrack Marquee Guide 2026, LALAL.AI Marquee Guide.