Bot Detection Alerts

What are Bot Detection Alerts?

Bot Detection Alerts send real-time email notifications when our systems detect suspicious or inorganic activity tied to artists, tracks, or playlists. They’re available on Artist Access and higher plans.

• Why it matters: Customers who address issues early see up to a 14× reduction in takedowns, protecting royalties and keeping releases live while distributors and Spotify investigate.

• You choose the scope: Turn alerts on per Artist, Track, or Playlist.

What you’ll receive

Artist alerts

• Any new likely-botted playlists that include any track from the artist

• Playlist details: name, link, curator contact (if available)

• Recommended next steps (templates + escalation guidance)

Track alerts

• Same as Artist, scoped to a single track (useful for singles and feature spots)

Playlist alerts

• A clear summary of why the playlist was flagged (top signals)

• Suggested remediation (visibility, submissions, follower policies)

How we detect suspicious activity

We score playlists using multiple independent indicators and weigh them together. These signals also roll up to the Artist and Track levels to estimate catalog-wide risk.

Playlist indicators (high level)

• Growth integrity: Consistency of follower and engagement trends relative to expected patterns.

• Curator trust: Reputation signals across the curator’s network and history.

• Audience authenticity: Listener origin and behavior quality aligned with genre and market norms.

• Discovery consistency: Size, age, and timing signals that should align with how legitimate playlists are typically discovered.

Artist indicators

• Aggregates whether the artist’s tracks appear on playlists that score as botted (per the playlist signals above)

• Prioritizes actions based on total exposure and potential catalog impact

Track indicators

• Mirrors the Artist logic but scoped to a single track for per-release triage

Note: Thresholds and weights are adaptive and update over time as behaviors evolve.

Enabling alerts

You can enable alerts from any entity page on artist.tools by clicking the action menu.

The toggle shows whether alerts are currently enabled for that specific playlist, artist, or track. Flip it on to start receiving notifications when suspicious activity is detected.

Managing alerts

You can manage your alerts from the Settings → Alerts page or by clicking Bot Detection Alerts in the sidebar.

The Alerts page has two main tabs: Bot Detection and Custom Reports. Under Bot Detection, you'll find sub-tabs for each entity type:

• Playlists — Enable real-time email alerts when any of your saved playlists are flagged for bot activity

• Artists — Get notified when suspicious playlists add tracks from artists you're monitoring

• Tracks — Receive alerts for specific tracks you want to protect

Enabling alerts for each entity type

Use the toggle switch on each tab to turn alerts on or off:

The toggle shows whether real-time bot detection emails are currently enabled for that entity type.

Recommended response playbook

1. Document suspicious activity

2. Notify your distributor or label of the exposure

3. Report the playlist using Spotify's official Playlist Reporter Form

4. Contact the playlist curator directly, if possible

FAQs

Do alerts mean guaranteed fraud? No. Alerts signal risk based on multiple indicators. Treat them as early warnings to protect releases while investigating.

Can I get Slack or webhook alerts? Please reach out to us on the Developer Access plan to talk webhooks and integrations.

How often are signals updated? Continuously. We're monitoring data 24/7 in the background.

Can I see the raw signals? Quality indicators and signals are available on the Playlist page on the Artist Access plan and higher.

Troubleshooting

• Not receiving emails? Check spam, and verify alerts are enabled in Settings → Alerts.

• Disagree with a flag? Click Mistake? Submit Evidence on the playlist page, or contact support with your playlist link and evidence showing legitimate growth (Spotify for Artists analytics, promotion proof, growth spike explanations). Our team reviews each case manually and updates detection models as needed.