New database: Music industry data tools
We're excited to announce the launch of our members-only database of 70+ music industry data analytics tools, building upon our popular Music Industry Data Tools market map from 2023.
Over 15 of these tools are NEW additions to the W&M knowledge base that were not previously featured in our research — including but not limited to Audience Republic, found.ee, Laylo, Merch Cat, Openstage, RealCount, and SongTools. These new entries improve our coverage of emerging solutions for direct-to-fan marketing, social ad automation, and live/ecommerce analytics, on top of the standard toolsuite of music streaming and audience analytics.
We’re confident this is one of the most comprehensive, up-to-date resources on music data tooling in the market, and will help you find the right solutions for your specific data needs.
Criteria for inclusion
Our database features tools and dashboards that deliver useful, relevant analytics for artists and music industry professionals, with a focus on streaming, sales, social, and fan data.
We prioritize tools with known industry customers, as backed by case studies, media mentions, and our own research.
How to navigate this database
Like with all our other databases, you can search and filter tools based on your desired use case(s) .
You can either filter directly to get the most granular results…
… or browse our curated views for more general overviews:
We have categorized use cases into the following types:
- Distributor-sourced analytics — Data and reporting provided by music distribution companies like TuneCore, Amuse, and FUGA.
- First-party streaming analytics — Data provided directly by music platforms, such as Spotify for Artists or Apple Music for Artists , offering more granular metrics on an artist’s own content performance.
- First-party smart link analytics — Data gathered from an artist's or label's own smart links on apps like Linkfire and Feature.fm, which track and measure user traffic across different platforms.
- First-party social/audience analytics — Insights derived from an artist's or label's own social media accounts and audience interactions, via platforms such as Meta Business Suite , Google Analytics , and startups like Naviro and Levellr.
- First-party live/ecommerce analytics — Data collected from an artist's or label's own live events, ticket sales, and merchandise sales, via tools like Audience Republic ,RealCount, and Merch Cat.
- Third-party music analytics — Data and insights sourced from specialized analytics companies that aggregate industry-wide data on multiple artists from multiple platforms, in order to provide comprehensive industry benchmarking, trend analysis, and competitor insights. Chartmetric, Soundcharts, and Luminate are among the most popular examples.
- Third-party social/audience analytics — Data and insights provided by external companies that focus on consolidating social media, audience behavior, and PR analysis for multiple accounts. Key examples include Brandwatch, Audiense, and SocialBlade.
- Third-party media monitoring — Services that track and analyze an artist's or label's media presence, including news, reviews, and mentions. Popular examples in the music industry include Mention and Awario.
- Social music marketing automation — Tools that automate and optimize social media marketing campaigns for artists and labels, such as found.ee, Immensity, Symphony, ToneDen, and un:hurd.
- Direct-to-fan music marketing & CRM — Software solutions used to collect, organize, and analyze fan data, enabling targeted marketing campaigns, direct-to-fan sales, and enhanced artist-fan relationships. Tools in this category typically focus on email and SMS data; popular music industry examples include Community, Laylo, Medallion, and Openstage.
- General CRM/marketing solutions — Software that helps manage customer relationships and marketing efforts across various industries, not limited to music. Examples cited in W&M research include Ghost, HubSpot, and Salesforce.
- Email marketing (general) — Tools and services that facilitate email marketing campaigns for artists, labels, and other businesses, such as ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and Substack.
Where available, our database also includes columns with links to relevant case studies so you can benchmark potential success with a given tool against real-world examples, as well as info on mobile functionality (roughly 35% of the tools in our database have an iOS mobile app).
Contribute to this database
Our Music Industry Tools Database is meant to be a living resource that matches the speed of the music-tech market at large. We hope more contributors and companies will participate, to ensure that our representation of music data analytics is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.
If you notice a key company or use case is missing, and/or would like to issue a correction, please email us at research@waterandmusic.com and we will review your suggestion ASAP.
Please note that to maintain the integrity of our research process, we do not accept anonymous database submissions.
P.S. Our State of Data in the Music Industry report is still open!
In partnership with Music Tomorrow, we are currently conducting our 2024 State of Data in the Music Industry Survey — and we’d love to hear from you!
This in-depth study aims to uncover how music professionals across all verticals, job functions, and budgets collect, manage, and leverage data . Whether you’re a full-stack data expert or feel overwhelmed by your Spotify dashboard, we’d love for you to contribute; our goal is to capture the full range of experiences with data in music, both positive and negative.
Upon completion, you'll receive a free PDF of our 53-page Intro to Music Data series — which provides a comprehensive walkthrough of how music professionals use data to pitch artists, market new releases, scout talent, plan live events, and more. This report is a $300 value, and is the core curriculum of our popular Music Marketing Data Bootcamp.
Your responses will remain completely anonymous . You won't be required to disclose your employer at any point, and your answers will always remain private. If interested, you may provide your email address at the end of the survey for potential interview quotes in our final report, but this is entirely optional.
Please click here to contribute to the survey. Thank you so much for your support!
Dive deeper into Water & Music’s research and reporting on music and data:
- Takeaways from our inaugural music marketing data bootcamp
- How artist-friendly are data analytics on DSPs?
- How artist-friendly is fan marketing on DSPs?
- How music professionals use data to pitch artists
- How music professionals use data to market new releases
- How A&Rs use data to scout and evaluate artists
- How booking agents use (and don't use) data
- Starter Pack: Digital music marketing