Numbers tell a story, but without context, that story can be misleading. Is 7 editorial playlists impressive? What about 19.65M user playlist reach? The answer isn't just about the raw numbers—it's about understanding how those numbers compare to artists with similar reach and audience size.

That's why we're excited to introduce Intelligent Benchmarking, a powerful new component that contextualizes your performance metrics by comparing them to artists with similar core metrics on each platform.

Smart Comparison Groups

Our new benchmarking system intelligently groups artists based on their core platform metrics to provide meaningful comparisons. Instead of comparing a rising indie artist with 50K followers to global superstars with 50M followers, our system creates relevant peer groups that offer actionable insights.

Across Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Pandora, and Deezer, we use each platform's core metric—like follower count, subscriber count, or follower count respectively—to determine comparison groups. This ensures that when you're analyzing any metric on these platforms, you're seeing how you stack up against artists with similar audience sizes, not the entire music ecosystem.

Performance Context and Rankings

Each metric displays clear performance rankings based on your position within your comparison group: Excellent, Great, Average, Slightly Below Average, and Below Average. Interactive comparison data reveals exactly where your numbers fall within the distribution of similar artists, showing median performance, your position, and percentile rankings. You can also see which specific artists make up your comparison group, so you know exactly who you're being compared to.

Insights Through Cross-Metric Analysis

This feature addresses one of the music industry's biggest challenges: the disconnect between impressive-sounding numbers and actual performance quality. A track with 1M streams might be underwhelming for a major-label artist but exceptional for an emerging independent musician.

The real power comes from identifying patterns both across platforms and within individual platform metrics. Performance differences reveal opportunities—whether it's overperforming on TikTok but underperforming on YouTube, or excelling in playlist reach while struggling with follower growth on the same platform.

Examples of performance pattern insights:

• An artist ranking "Excellent" on TikTok engagement rate but "Below Average" on YouTube engagement rate shows strong viral content creation but untapped long-form potential
• Low editorial playlist count paired with high user playlist reach indicates strong organic discovery and community-driven momentum
• High engagement rates combined with low total likes on a platform indicates compelling content that generates strong engagement from a limited number of posts

Understanding where you over or under-index helps identify focus areas. Rather than spreading efforts equally across all platforms, these insights can guide decisions about where to concentrate time, resources, and strategic attention for maximum impact.

What's Next?

We're continuously expanding Intelligent Benchmarking across the Chartmetric platform. Upcoming enhancements include:

✅ Custom Comparison Groups – Create your own peer groups for specialized analysis

✅ Improved Similarity Metrics – Enhanced algorithms for more precise and relevant comparisons

✅ Distribution Drill-Down – Interactive histogram views showing the full distribution and specific artists within your comparison group

Get Started Today

Intelligent Benchmarking is now live across artist profile pages, providing immediate context for all your key metrics. No setup required—simply navigate to any artist page to see performance rankings and detailed comparison insights.

Have any ideas or feedback? Reach out to our product management team at [email protected]. We'd love to hear your thoughts about this feature and what could make it even better. Let's continue to shape the future of music analytics together!

Read other recent product updates such as our Custom Alerts and Track Moods & Activities features!