What are trending reports?

Here is all you need to know about trending reports

What are Trending Reports?
How to access trending reports within your account.
What information is included in trending reports?

What are Trending Reports?

A trending report is data that will give you a glimpse into your unofficial sales activity for all territories where your music is being sold.

We currently only offer these for iTunes and Spotify.

All sales and streams in these reports are subject to change, and are not a safe prediction of what your final monthly sales will be.

Trending reports are exactly what they claim to be: a measure of trends not sales. While you can view some detailed transaction information (tracks/albums downloaded, customer info, etc.), the trending reports will differ from official sales reports for several reasons, including:

• iTunes™ customers may take advantage of the “complete my album” program at a later time
• iTunes™ customers may return a purchase
• Months are not divided evenly into weeks and iTunes™ accounting months do not match calendar months.

A trending report should not be used as an indicator of official sales or streams. These reports come directly from our digital partners, and are provided as a helpful tool. We just download the files and transmit them directly to you.

How do I access the trending reports within my CD Baby account?

To view your Trending Reports simply follow these steps: 

1. Log into your CD Baby Artist Account

2. Click on the Sales and Reports button from your dashboard

3. Click on "Trending & Analytics" 

4. On the next screen you will choose the partner you wish to generate a trending report for. We currently offer trending reports from Spotify, and iTunes.

What kind of information is in the trending reports?

Once you come to the trending report for your selected partner, your data will be broken up into the following sections:

• Activity Summary 
• Top Tracks
• Activity by location
  
  • Due to new regulations, Activity by Location is limited to the country only, and may vary due to available geographic data.
• Unique listeners
• The device of Listener (mobile or desktop)
• Play Sources (i.e. playlist, album, artist, saves, searches)
• Age
• Top Albums*
• Top Playlists**

* This data only available on iTunes reports. 

** This data is only available on Spotify reports

You can also modify the date range at the top of the screen, under "Report Options". Our trending reports will only go back as far as 90 days.

Spotify and Apple have more robust analytics available on their own platforms. We strongly suggest you sign up for Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists to get more detailed stats from inside those platforms. To sign up go here.