New analytics dashboard ‘Apple Music For Artists’ lets musos drill deep on data

Apple is testing the axiom that it’s better late than never.

The tech giant is rolling out “Apple Music for Artists,” an analytics dashboard that’ll enable artists to study their fans’ listening and buying habits and boost their game.

A few thousands artists are testing the dashboard, which is now in beta and, in time, may launch with a mobile app.

Apple is taking a bite out of similar artist-focused analytics dashboards launched more than two years ago by the likes of Spotify, Pandora and YouTube, notes Billboard, which broke the story overnight. But the U.S. firm is confident its new arrival has a competitive edge due to its depth of data, functionality, transparency and its easy-to-use front end.

“Apple Music for Artists” is all about building your business, more efficiently and with less overhead. Its home page allows users to track the number of plays, and song and album purchases, and provides data ranging from the past 24 hours and dating back to the launch of Apple Music in June 2015.

An Insights panel highlights milestones (in bullet points) such as all-time number of plays for specific songs, while a global map allows musos to click on any of the 115 countries where Apple Music/iTunes is available to check where their recordings are getting action.

Artists can go deep into their data, which can be broken down for individual cities and even listener demographics. The upsides to all this are pretty clear. With this information, a performer and their team can map out a touring itinerary based on where the clicks are coming from. Or target their fans with the music they really want to hear.

Canadian R&B singer Daniel Caesar, who was consulted during the building phase, told Billboard that Apple’s new tools could empower smaller acts to “level the playing field” on a budget. Artist manager John Silva added, “This wealth of data will improve our efficiency in serving our artists and their fans, both on the market-by-market level of previous eras and the new global context opened up by Apple dashboard.”

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This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.