How can I stop getting in-app recommendations?

[johnwastle]

I've attached an example of some Direct marketing sent my way.

How can I stop it?

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

IPhone 12

Operating System

iOS 17.1

[johnwastle]

Hey folks!

Just a follow-up here 🙂

Regarding the in-app messages with a 'Sponsored Recommendation' tag:

You’ll see them for artists you follow or listen to a lot and they will only appear when you first navigate to Home. They won’t interrupt your music listening experience. 

Opting out of them is possible for Premium subscribers. To do so -  tap on What's this? the next time you receive a notification. From there you can stop them from showing for the artist you've received the notification from, or stop them showing altogether. 
 
Regarding the in-app concert recommendations:

It is not possible to turn off in-app concert recommendations (or any other in-app messages in general), unlike email and push notifications which are sent outside of the app and can be turned off. We're making improvements on this matter.

Hope this clears things up!

[johnwastle]

Hi there Vasil,

I did already have that toggle set to off. 

In any case, it does say that "These preferences only apply to push and email." By push notifications, I assume that means notifications within iOS.

[rileyjar]

Allow users to opt out of receiving any in-app notifications for concerts in the area. I don’t like concerts, I don’t want Spotify to keep pushing them on me. 

[johnwastle]

Rather than suggesting this as an idea, I should be able to opt-out of unsolicited Direct Marketing (according to UK/EU law). It does not seem to be possible.

[YoJimboYo]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

(iPhone 11 Pro)

Operating System

iOS 16.6.1

My Question or Issue

Each day, I receive an in-app pop-up for Jamie XX’s new year’s concert. Yes, he is an artist I follow, but I closed the pop up literally a month ago, and the pop-ups keep reappearing on a daily basis. I don’t want to go to the concert. I didn’t want to go last month, and I haven’t wanted to go each day since. Why can’t the app remember my preference and stop advertising to me? I feel that Jamie XX’s label and/or Ticketmaster has paid a lot of money to force this event on us, but I pay for premium and would much prefer to just get the one ad, not a daily pestering. Can I not opt out of in-app advertising? This is not a “recommendation,” this is an ad. Just a gripe. I know this will be explained away by Spotify as “good for the listener and for the artist.”

[danwheeler]

I'm getting this too. Spotify apps keeps telling me about a Chicago concert even though I have all my notifications for stuff like this turned off. This is the kind of **bleep** that makes services fall from grace like MySpace. I just want music. I don't want the extras like lyrics, about the artist, etc. - all these extra things that pop up when you just want to listen to music makes Spotify look cheap.

[xithix]

Same issue. I saw the concert, bought tickets, but do not need daily reminders that the concert is happening or that the same band is having another concert nearby. I dropped Spotify during the Podcast-first era, happy to do it again if they can't figure out how to play music without their app giving unwanted reminders.

[zeropumpkin]

Same issue. It’s annoying that there is no setting to turn off these in-app notifications. They occasionally appear as modal pop-overs too. I note that the original question has not yet been answered by Spotify. 

[NotJohnBoy]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 14 Pro Max

Operating System

Current iOS

My Question or Issue

How do I turn off sponsored recommendations? I cannot find a way in options. I noticed today that I got a sponsored recommendation and the “?” button states I can turn them off, but doesn’t explain how or give an option to do so (see picture). Instructions on how to actually do this would be appreciated!

EDIT: Here are the directions to turn off sponsored content per a moderator in the replies: desktop > Account > Privacy settings > turn off Tailored ads.
Unfortunately this ad I got was despite already having tailored ads turned off. Still seeking a solution.

 

[NotJohnBoy]

 

This is how I got to the above message. 

[Elena · Accepted solution]

Hey there @NotJohnBoy,

Thanks for reaching out on the Community!

To opt out of receiving sponsored recommendations, go to your Spotify account on desktop > Account > Privacy settings > turn off Tailored ads.

This will opt you out of receiving sponsored recommendations and personalized ads generally across our product. If you turn off Tailored ads, you will continue receiving podcast ads in your Premium account, but they will not be tailored to you.

Hope this info helps!

[AnonMessiah]

This doesn’t work, I have premium, and tailored ads off and am still getting this ‘sponsored recommendation’ in my home page. 

[NotJohnBoy]

Hello,

Thank you for your response. I navigated to the section you mentioned and it turns out I already have tailored ads turned off. Any other way I can get them to go away? I am confused why I got an ad that tells me it is sponsored when I already have them turned off. This also makes me wonder if I am getting any other sponsored content that isn't labeled. Thanks.

[Vasil]

Hey folks!

Could you send us over some screenshots of what sponsored content you're seeing on your end?
You can attach them to the replies as @NotJohnBoy has done; we'd like to take a closer look into this if possible.

Many thanks!

[AnonMessiah]

 

[Maria]

Hey there folks,

Thanks for the screenshots and all the info you've provided.

We've passed on the info for further investigation. While we can't give a specific timeframe for when we'll have more info to share, we can recommend keeping your app up-to-date to stay on top of any new released fixes.

Cheers!

[benhackett4]

An especially annoying aspect of this is that the pop-up takes a sec to load, so it often causes me to tap on something I didn't want to, which is mildly infuriating.

The best example of this is when I went to play a song from an album, but as I went to tap the first song in the album, the ad popped up, and I tapped the button the causes the album to be removed from my library. Luckily I noticed this and added the album back, but it made me wonder if I always notice when mistapping due to delayed-load-ads.

If you're gonna force ads on Premium users, then please don't lazy load the ad, it's annoying to have the page layout shift as you go to tap stuff on your phone. (Or better yet, allow Premium users to disable this type of advertising!)

[Liev1]

I changed the city to a city in Russia (the point was to get a city with no concerts anywhere near it).

seems to work for now.

[user-removed]

same

[Ohhellnah]

Really annoying feature. Live near Norwich so had my location set as that, and now Spotify seems to basically count most of the UK as being "near me".