Conversion in Music Streaming Services

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Use this study as a bounded example of conversion in music streaming services; assess whether its population, intervention and outcome match your own decision.

Reported result

What the study found

Converting from no/free streaming to premium increased willingness to pay and demand for live music; unsubscribing or downgrading reduced them. Subscription changes were largely unrelated to physical and digital purchases. The scenario analysis found deleting the free version outperformed restricting free features on modeled revenue, subject to contingencies.

Research question

What the authors investigated

What does conversion in music streaming services show about customer decisions or business outcomes?

Design

Propensity-score-matching analysis of a six-wave biannual panel survey tracking Spotify subscription states and consumption in live, physical, and digital channels; includes scenario analysis of restricting or deleting the free version.

Sample and setting

11,744 observations from six biannual online-survey waves representing Germany's population aged 18–70; respondents were recruited by Respondi using quotas for age, gender, education, employment, and children.

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

The authors note reliance on stated survey intentions/behavior rather than user-level service data, possible bias from unobserved private information, data limited to Spotify users, a revenue-only scenario analysis that omits network effects, and short-term rather than long-term estimates. Full article methods and correction history were not independently reviewed.

Research sources

Publisher page directly retrieved; candidate metadata and reported result checked against that page. Full methods were not independently reviewed.