Have you ever built an ad campaign for a new release only to have it launch with skyrocketing costs and underwhelming results?
I certainly have.
It’s heartbreaking.
You’ve spent all this time on your song, you’ve saved your money, you’ve done your research, and you’ve set up your ads precisely as they should be, only to be met with disaster on release day.
Few things are more frustrating than watching your hard-earned money trickle away without knowing the cause of it, and while it can seem impossible to troubleshoot a floundering release, the performance of an ad campaign really comes down to three factors.
So let’s examine each of these in order of importance.
Check your targeting
Your targeting at the ad set level is the first point of impact for your campaign.
The right targeting can set you headed down easy street.
The wrong targeting can bottleneck your reach and destroy what might otherwise have been a successful release.
When you’re setting up your ad set, here are a few rules to keep in mind:
When in doubt wider is better.
It’s far more beneficial to have a potential reach of 100M people than it is to have a potential reach of 1M people, especially when you are targeting a cold audience. You want options here. Go wider.
Countries matter.
Be intentional about which countries you target and why. More countries will give you a broader audience, but the wrong countries will eat up your budget and deliver no results regardless of how much you spend. I recommend this list.
Consider removing detailed targeting altogether.
Meta’s advertising AI continues to improve year after year. In fact, my recent experiments have shown that completely open targeting has become more effective than including any detailed targeting at all in many cases.
In short, if you’re unsure of your current ad set targeting, open things up and let Meta’s machine learning do the work for you.
It’s gotten pretty good.
Make better visual creative
Once you’ve addressed your targeting, you have to make an ad that actually grabs your audience, and the first step to achieving that is to have strong visual creative.
The easiest, most effective way to do this is to have a great album cover.
There are multiple reasons to use your cover art in your ads, not least of which is that the listener will actually know which song they’re looking for when they land on Spotify.
A visually appealing album cover will grab the attention of the viewer, and only once you have their initial attention will they take the time to actually listen to the song it represents.
Second to your album cover is your call to action.
Does your ad communicate to the user what you want them to do?
Simply including the Spotify logo is enough to clearly indicate what the viewer (and potential listener) can expect from your ad.
To be unclear is to be unclicked.
You have to have a good song
This is the toughest part: your music has to be good. If your song isn’t good, then none of the rest of this matters.
And honestly, this is one of the biggest factors I see that negatively impacts ad performance.
“But Tom,” you say, “my music is good.”
My response: “Do your results support that?”
It may sound harsh, but if you’re not getting the results you want, it might be time to take a look at your music.
Once you have a person’s attention, you have to earn more of it to get them to click through to listen to your song on Spotify. If the audio clip in your ad isn’t high-quality, they have no reason to listen further.
And not only that, you have to deliver once they get to Spotify.
In short, good music is the single biggest contributing factor to your success as an artist and advertiser.
You can read every book, watch every video, and use every hack in the world, but if your music doesn’t hold up, you will lose.
No one is obligated to give their attention to anyone else (myself included). Every single one of us, as artists–we have to earn the right to be heard–and the most effective way to do that is to make great music.
So if you feel your targeting is on point and you have great visual creative, it might be time to take another shot at the net with a different song.
Sometimes, that can make all the difference.
Have you ever built an ad campaign for a new release only to have it launch with skyrocketing costs and underwhelming results?
I certainly have.
It’s heartbreaking.
You’ve spent all this time on your song, you’ve saved your money, you’ve done your research, and you’ve set up your ads precisely as they should be, only to be met with disaster on release day.
Few things are more frustrating than watching your hard-earned money trickle away without knowing the cause of it, and while it can seem impossible to troubleshoot a floundering release, the performance of an ad campaign really comes down to three factors.
So let’s examine each of these in order of importance.
Check your targeting
Your targeting at the ad set level is the first point of impact for your campaign.
The right targeting can set you headed down easy street.
The wrong targeting can bottleneck your reach and destroy what might otherwise have been a successful release.
When you’re setting up your ad set, here are a few rules to keep in mind:
When in doubt wider is better.
It’s far more beneficial to have a potential reach of 100M people than it is to have a potential reach of 1M people, especially when you are targeting a cold audience. You want options here. Go wider.
Countries matter.
Be intentional about which countries you target and why. More countries will give you a broader audience, but the wrong countries will eat up your budget and deliver no results regardless of how much you spend. I recommend this list.
Consider removing detailed targeting altogether.
Meta’s advertising AI continues to improve year after year. In fact, my recent experiments have shown that completely open targeting has become more effective than including any detailed targeting at all in many cases.
In short, if you’re unsure of your current ad set targeting, open things up and let Meta’s machine learning do the work for you.
It’s gotten pretty good.
Make better visual creative
Once you’ve addressed your targeting, you have to make an ad that actually grabs your audience, and the first step to achieving that is to have strong visual creative.
The easiest, most effective way to do this is to have a great album cover.
There are multiple reasons to use your cover art in your ads, not least of which is that the listener will actually know which song they’re looking for when they land on Spotify.
A visually appealing album cover will grab the attention of the viewer, and only once you have their initial attention will they take the time to actually listen to the song it represents.
Second to your album cover is your call to action.
Does your ad communicate to the user what you want them to do?
Simply including the Spotify logo is enough to clearly indicate what the viewer (and potential listener) can expect from your ad.
To be unclear is to be unclicked.
You have to have a good song
This is the toughest part: your music has to be good. If your song isn’t good, then none of the rest of this matters.
And honestly, this is one of the biggest factors I see that negatively impacts ad performance.
“But Tom,” you say, “my music is good.”
My response: “Do your results support that?”
It may sound harsh, but if you’re not getting the results you want, it might be time to take a look at your music.
Once you have a person’s attention, you have to earn more of it to get them to click through to listen to your song on Spotify. If the audio clip in your ad isn’t high-quality, they have no reason to listen further.
And not only that, you have to deliver once they get to Spotify.
In short, good music is the single biggest contributing factor to your success as an artist and advertiser.
You can read every book, watch every video, and use every hack in the world, but if your music doesn’t hold up, you will lose.
No one is obligated to give their attention to anyone else (myself included). Every single one of us, as artists–we have to earn the right to be heard–and the most effective way to do that is to make great music.
So if you feel your targeting is on point and you have great visual creative, it might be time to take another shot at the net with a different song.
Sometimes, that can make all the difference.
Have you ever built an ad campaign for a new release only to have it launch with skyrocketing costs and underwhelming results?
I certainly have.
It’s heartbreaking.
You’ve spent all this time on your song, you’ve saved your money, you’ve done your research, and you’ve set up your ads precisely as they should be, only to be met with disaster on release day.
Few things are more frustrating than watching your hard-earned money trickle away without knowing the cause of it, and while it can seem impossible to troubleshoot a floundering release, the performance of an ad campaign really comes down to three factors.
So let’s examine each of these in order of importance.
Check your targeting
Your targeting at the ad set level is the first point of impact for your campaign.
The right targeting can set you headed down easy street.
The wrong targeting can bottleneck your reach and destroy what might otherwise have been a successful release.
When you’re setting up your ad set, here are a few rules to keep in mind:
When in doubt wider is better.
It’s far more beneficial to have a potential reach of 100M people than it is to have a potential reach of 1M people, especially when you are targeting a cold audience. You want options here. Go wider.
Countries matter.
Be intentional about which countries you target and why. More countries will give you a broader audience, but the wrong countries will eat up your budget and deliver no results regardless of how much you spend. I recommend this list.
Consider removing detailed targeting altogether.
Meta’s advertising AI continues to improve year after year. In fact, my recent experiments have shown that completely open targeting has become more effective than including any detailed targeting at all in many cases.
In short, if you’re unsure of your current ad set targeting, open things up and let Meta’s machine learning do the work for you.
It’s gotten pretty good.
Make better visual creative
Once you’ve addressed your targeting, you have to make an ad that actually grabs your audience, and the first step to achieving that is to have strong visual creative.
The easiest, most effective way to do this is to have a great album cover.
There are multiple reasons to use your cover art in your ads, not least of which is that the listener will actually know which song they’re looking for when they land on Spotify.
A visually appealing album cover will grab the attention of the viewer, and only once you have their initial attention will they take the time to actually listen to the song it represents.
Second to your album cover is your call to action.
Does your ad communicate to the user what you want them to do?
Simply including the Spotify logo is enough to clearly indicate what the viewer (and potential listener) can expect from your ad.
To be unclear is to be unclicked.
You have to have a good song
This is the toughest part: your music has to be good. If your song isn’t good, then none of the rest of this matters.
And honestly, this is one of the biggest factors I see that negatively impacts ad performance.
“But Tom,” you say, “my music is good.”
My response: “Do your results support that?”
It may sound harsh, but if you’re not getting the results you want, it might be time to take a look at your music.
Once you have a person’s attention, you have to earn more of it to get them to click through to listen to your song on Spotify. If the audio clip in your ad isn’t high-quality, they have no reason to listen further.
And not only that, you have to deliver once they get to Spotify.
In short, good music is the single biggest contributing factor to your success as an artist and advertiser.
You can read every book, watch every video, and use every hack in the world, but if your music doesn’t hold up, you will lose.
No one is obligated to give their attention to anyone else (myself included). Every single one of us, as artists–we have to earn the right to be heard–and the most effective way to do that is to make great music.
So if you feel your targeting is on point and you have great visual creative, it might be time to take another shot at the net with a different song.
Sometimes, that can make all the difference.
Whenever you're ready, there are four ways I can help you:
Subscribe to the Newsletter: Join our growing network of artists, creators, and entrepreneurs by receiving The One Thing directly to your inbox every week.
Book a Consultation: Schedule a one-on-one call with me to improve your marketing across paid advertising, social media, and more.
The Spotify Traffic Accelerator: Join the hundreds of artists who have successfully learned to automate their growth on Spotify using paid ads on Instagram.
Become a DuPree X Artist: Hire our team to manage your marketing across streaming platforms and social media so you can focus on what matters most—making music.
Whenever you're ready, there are four ways I can help you:
Subscribe to the Newsletter: Join our growing network of artists, creators, and entrepreneurs by receiving The One Thing directly to your inbox every week.
Book a Consultation: Schedule a one-on-one call with me to improve your marketing across paid advertising, social media, and more.
The Spotify Traffic Accelerator: Join the hundreds of artists who have successfully learned to automate their growth on Spotify using paid ads on Instagram.
Become a DuPree X Artist: Hire our team to manage your marketing across streaming platforms and social media so you can focus on what matters most—making music.
Whenever you're ready, there are four ways I can help you:
Subscribe to the Newsletter: Join our growing network of artists, creators, and entrepreneurs by receiving The One Thing directly to your inbox every week.
Book a Consultation: Schedule a one-on-one call with me to improve your marketing across paid advertising, social media, and more.
The Spotify Traffic Accelerator: Join the hundreds of artists who have successfully learned to automate their growth on Spotify using paid ads on Instagram.
Become a DuPree X Artist: Hire our team to manage your marketing across streaming platforms and social media so you can focus on what matters most—making music.