How to Build and Grow Your Own Spotify Playlist: 8 Steps From Zero to 100,000 Saves

Have you ever sent your song to a playlist, waited a whole week for an answer, and gotten a no?

When the playlist is yours, you decide which songs go at the top, including yours. And someone who likes the playlist can end up listening to a few of your songs, again and again.

My playlists started with 0 followers, and today they have over 100,000 saves and followers between them.

So I'm walking you through every step, from an empty playlist to ads that bring you new followers every day.

1. Pick a genre and a vibe

Pick a genre you love and know well, because you're going to listen to this playlist a LOT. And pick one your own music fits into, so you can add your songs to it.

Then choose the mood inside that genre. Pop can go from energetic electronic to chill acoustic, and having both in one playlist is tricky, so decide on the vibe before you add a single song.

2. Name, description and artwork

The name should tell people the genre, the vibe, or both, like "Chill Lo-Fi Beats 2026." If the playlist is full of new music, adding the year shows it's up to date. And words people search for, like "workout" or "rock music," help people find you in Spotify search.

In the description, write who the playlist is for, the genres, a few popular artist names and how often you update it. If Taylor Swift is in your description, someone searching for Taylor Swift has a better chance of finding your playlist.

For the artwork I recommend Canva, and you can get free pictures from Pexels, Unsplash or Pixabay. Choose an image that fits the theme, like someone working out for a gym playlist or a crowd at a concert for a rock playlist.

3. The right songs in the right order

The first song is the most important one on the playlist, because it sets the vibe for everything after it. I recommend making it the song people hear in your ad, since that's the song they came for.

Put songs people already know and love in the first five spots, and put new music right under them, inside the top 10, because the songs at the top get the most plays.

When I started, I added every new song to the bottom of my playlist, and I felt like my ads weren't working until I moved the new songs into the top 10.

From my experience, 60 to 80 songs is the size that gets the best engagement.

And of course, put your own music in the playlist too. If you have 10 songs, spread them across positions 1 to 30.

4. Keep it fresh

Update it at least once a week. You don't need to change everything, because swapping 2 or 3 songs near the top is enough.

To find new music, I follow artists from my genres on Spotify, listen to my Release Radar every week and check the editorial playlists in the genres I curate.

5. Share it for free first

Post it on your story, send it to your friends and family, and every week tag a few small artists you added in a "Discoveries of the Week" story. A lot of them will probably share it with their own followers, and it costs you nothing.

This helps a lot, but it can't bring you new listeners every single day, and that's where ads come in.

6. Make your ads and your deep links

Make 3 different ads for each of 3 songs, so you start with 9 ads and Meta picks the best one.

A good ad grabs attention in the first second, sells the feeling someone gets from the playlist, doesn't look like an ad, and shows it's a Spotify playlist with the logo and the songs on screen.

A simple screen recording of you scrolling through the playlist can sometimes work as good as a fancy video, and you can edit everything in CapCut or Canva. But the more you test, the better results you'll get over time.

Only one song can be first on your playlist, so make a deep link for each song in your ads. A deep link opens your playlist and starts playing that exact song, so the person who heard it in the ad hears it first and the playlist keeps going after it. SubmitHub explains how to make one here.

7. Set up the campaign

Before you start, you need a Facebook page, an Instagram business account, a Meta business portfolio (it used to be called Business Manager), an ad account with your payment details, and a Meta pixel.

Then create an Engagement campaign that sends people to a website, which is your landing page. Set the performance goal to "Maximize number of conversions," and choose your pixel.

Your pixel has to work. You can't put a pixel on Spotify, so the pixel on your landing page is how Meta knows who clicked through to your playlist and finds more people like them.

You can build the landing page on Feature.fm, or on SubmitHub Links if you want a free one.

For the audience, use the original audience options instead of Advantage+ and choose your countries and languages. Then under detailed targeting, click "Define further" and add Spotify.

Show your ads on Instagram Reels, Feed and Stories, and turn off the AI enhancements before you publish.

For the budget, start with at least $5 a day, which is about $150 a month. My estimate for that budget is 275 to 950 new followers a month, depending on your genre. You can see what followers have cost on the playlists I grow on my case studies page.

8. Adjust and test

Don't touch anything for the first 72 hours, because Meta needs time to learn. After that, look at your results week by week, since they go up and down every day.

The number I look at is cost per follower, which is what you spent divided by the new followers you got. Meta finds you the cheapest conversion, and that isn't always the cheapest follower.

If you get a lot of clicks and very few followers, check that your artwork and playlist name match your landing page, and listen to the playlist again to make sure the songs are good enough. If you get no conversions at all, check the link and the pixel.

Change only one thing at a time so you know what made the difference. When an ad set works, raise its budget by 10 to 20 percent every 3 days, because a bigger jump can send it back into the learning phase.

I refresh my ads at least once a year, because after a few months Meta starts running out of new people to show them to. And when the year changes, change it in your playlist name and in your ads too.

Two ways to go from here

That's a lot of steps for one article.

If you want to do it yourself, Label Level Playlists is my course, where I show you on screen how to build a playlist you own and grow it with ads.

And if you'd rather have me do it for you, Playlist Growth Using Ads is where I create the playlist, make the ads and run the campaign for you.