I believe digital advertising is one of the highest ROI opportunities out there to leverage the power of the internet and build a fanbase as an independent artist.
Sure, when you’re just starting out, spending $300-$500 per month can sound like a lot, but fast forward to when you have a rich, full life with a job, friends, family, and other obligations and paying for ads to automate your growth sounds like a much better deal than spending your time learning every single new social media tool and platform out there.
For many artists though, Facebook ads don’t work, or they just haven’t worked in the past.
I have heard more artists than I can count tell me, “You know Tom, Facebook ads just don’t work for me.”
My argument is that Facebook ads just haven’t worked for you yet.
If ads haven’t worked for you, it’s not because there’s an issue with the platform. More likely, there’s an issue with the way you’ve been using it.
So here are the top three reasons I see artists fail with Facebook ads (and how to fix them).
Impatience
The single biggest reason I see artists fail with ads is impatience.
Facebook’s ad platform (and, really, any ad platform) takes time.
It takes time to learn how to use it, time to find the right ad setup, and time to season your ad account so results become predictable.
And when we live in a culture of instant gratification, the patience to figure out a tool as complex as an ad platform can often be more than we bargained for.
But a successful ad campaign benefits from patience. Dramatically.
It’s not just the patience to learn the process that has an impact, but the patience to leave it alone so it can process information.
That last part is the tough one.
Most new ad accounts won’t start off strong right out of the gate, and until you have a seasoned ad account that produces predictable results, most campaigns won’t either.
Even seasoned ad accounts have campaigns that flop at the start.
This can be a tough pill to swallow.
Learning to be patient with ad performance is every bit about learning the tools of the trade as it is about reorienting your own expectations and habits.
Try again, but this time, be patient.
Inconsistency
Digital marketing works best when it runs all the time.
Slow compounding applies in every area of life: relationships, the stock market, real estate, and yes, even advertising.
Almost every overnight success you’ve ever heard of was 10 years in the making.
That’s compounding at work.
The prevailing assumption amongst independent artists is that you promote a new release, and when that release cycle is over, you don’t promote anything until the next one rolls around.
I believe this is wrong.
Statistically speaking, most of us will never have a smash-hit single that crosses that billion-streams mark.
We’re not in the business of shooting the moon with one song.
We’re in the business of consistently building a catalog of work that gains momentum over time.
There are few better ways to accomplish this than by constantly running ads in the background.
A dedicated daily ad spend is healthy in all ways: it repeatedly pushes new listeners, followers, and streams to your catalog; it builds ongoing engagement into your social profiles; and it consistently puts new data into your ad account, thereby improving its performance over time.
Instead of dumping your entire budget into one song over the span of a week and then turning everything off, do the math and divide that into a sustainable daily ad spend to consistently promote your entire body of work.
Every stage of your marketing strategy will thank you, even the new releases.
The wrong song
The most successful businesses in the world have a repeatable advertising strategy that works.
Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-a, Ford, Walmart, etc.
Coca-Cola is constantly running ads for its flagship product: Coke.
Sure, they’ll introduce ads for new flavors and additional brands, but none of that comes at the expense of their cornerstone ads.
In short, they don’t turn off the Coke ads because they have a new Sprite campaign—they run both at the same time.
That’s because they have found a system that works, and they will continue to use it until it doesn’t.
The right product + the right market + the right ad = results.
Music is no different.
We’re not in the business of making every single song a winner. We’re in the business of finding the songs that already are winners and pushing them until we find something even better.
The majority of successful artists throughout history have less than 5 songs that pay for the whole party—it’s only a small fraction of bands and artists that manage to churn out hit after hit.
Go ahead, think about all the one-hit or two-hit wonders you know.
When it comes to ads, performance always comes down to the song.
The right song + the right market + the right ad = results.
So if you haven’t found success with ads yet, maybe you just haven’t found the right song.
Do yourself a favor and keep testing new material until you find the track that produces the results you’re looking for.
It’s out there. You just have to keep going.
I believe digital advertising is one of the highest ROI opportunities out there to leverage the power of the internet and build a fanbase as an independent artist.
Sure, when you’re just starting out, spending $300-$500 per month can sound like a lot, but fast forward to when you have a rich, full life with a job, friends, family, and other obligations and paying for ads to automate your growth sounds like a much better deal than spending your time learning every single new social media tool and platform out there.
For many artists though, Facebook ads don’t work, or they just haven’t worked in the past.
I have heard more artists than I can count tell me, “You know Tom, Facebook ads just don’t work for me.”
My argument is that Facebook ads just haven’t worked for you yet.
If ads haven’t worked for you, it’s not because there’s an issue with the platform. More likely, there’s an issue with the way you’ve been using it.
So here are the top three reasons I see artists fail with Facebook ads (and how to fix them).
Impatience
The single biggest reason I see artists fail with ads is impatience.
Facebook’s ad platform (and, really, any ad platform) takes time.
It takes time to learn how to use it, time to find the right ad setup, and time to season your ad account so results become predictable.
And when we live in a culture of instant gratification, the patience to figure out a tool as complex as an ad platform can often be more than we bargained for.
But a successful ad campaign benefits from patience. Dramatically.
It’s not just the patience to learn the process that has an impact, but the patience to leave it alone so it can process information.
That last part is the tough one.
Most new ad accounts won’t start off strong right out of the gate, and until you have a seasoned ad account that produces predictable results, most campaigns won’t either.
Even seasoned ad accounts have campaigns that flop at the start.
This can be a tough pill to swallow.
Learning to be patient with ad performance is every bit about learning the tools of the trade as it is about reorienting your own expectations and habits.
Try again, but this time, be patient.
Inconsistency
Digital marketing works best when it runs all the time.
Slow compounding applies in every area of life: relationships, the stock market, real estate, and yes, even advertising.
Almost every overnight success you’ve ever heard of was 10 years in the making.
That’s compounding at work.
The prevailing assumption amongst independent artists is that you promote a new release, and when that release cycle is over, you don’t promote anything until the next one rolls around.
I believe this is wrong.
Statistically speaking, most of us will never have a smash-hit single that crosses that billion-streams mark.
We’re not in the business of shooting the moon with one song.
We’re in the business of consistently building a catalog of work that gains momentum over time.
There are few better ways to accomplish this than by constantly running ads in the background.
A dedicated daily ad spend is healthy in all ways: it repeatedly pushes new listeners, followers, and streams to your catalog; it builds ongoing engagement into your social profiles; and it consistently puts new data into your ad account, thereby improving its performance over time.
Instead of dumping your entire budget into one song over the span of a week and then turning everything off, do the math and divide that into a sustainable daily ad spend to consistently promote your entire body of work.
Every stage of your marketing strategy will thank you, even the new releases.
The wrong song
The most successful businesses in the world have a repeatable advertising strategy that works.
Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-a, Ford, Walmart, etc.
Coca-Cola is constantly running ads for its flagship product: Coke.
Sure, they’ll introduce ads for new flavors and additional brands, but none of that comes at the expense of their cornerstone ads.
In short, they don’t turn off the Coke ads because they have a new Sprite campaign—they run both at the same time.
That’s because they have found a system that works, and they will continue to use it until it doesn’t.
The right product + the right market + the right ad = results.
Music is no different.
We’re not in the business of making every single song a winner. We’re in the business of finding the songs that already are winners and pushing them until we find something even better.
The majority of successful artists throughout history have less than 5 songs that pay for the whole party—it’s only a small fraction of bands and artists that manage to churn out hit after hit.
Go ahead, think about all the one-hit or two-hit wonders you know.
When it comes to ads, performance always comes down to the song.
The right song + the right market + the right ad = results.
So if you haven’t found success with ads yet, maybe you just haven’t found the right song.
Do yourself a favor and keep testing new material until you find the track that produces the results you’re looking for.
It’s out there. You just have to keep going.
I believe digital advertising is one of the highest ROI opportunities out there to leverage the power of the internet and build a fanbase as an independent artist.
Sure, when you’re just starting out, spending $300-$500 per month can sound like a lot, but fast forward to when you have a rich, full life with a job, friends, family, and other obligations and paying for ads to automate your growth sounds like a much better deal than spending your time learning every single new social media tool and platform out there.
For many artists though, Facebook ads don’t work, or they just haven’t worked in the past.
I have heard more artists than I can count tell me, “You know Tom, Facebook ads just don’t work for me.”
My argument is that Facebook ads just haven’t worked for you yet.
If ads haven’t worked for you, it’s not because there’s an issue with the platform. More likely, there’s an issue with the way you’ve been using it.
So here are the top three reasons I see artists fail with Facebook ads (and how to fix them).
Impatience
The single biggest reason I see artists fail with ads is impatience.
Facebook’s ad platform (and, really, any ad platform) takes time.
It takes time to learn how to use it, time to find the right ad setup, and time to season your ad account so results become predictable.
And when we live in a culture of instant gratification, the patience to figure out a tool as complex as an ad platform can often be more than we bargained for.
But a successful ad campaign benefits from patience. Dramatically.
It’s not just the patience to learn the process that has an impact, but the patience to leave it alone so it can process information.
That last part is the tough one.
Most new ad accounts won’t start off strong right out of the gate, and until you have a seasoned ad account that produces predictable results, most campaigns won’t either.
Even seasoned ad accounts have campaigns that flop at the start.
This can be a tough pill to swallow.
Learning to be patient with ad performance is every bit about learning the tools of the trade as it is about reorienting your own expectations and habits.
Try again, but this time, be patient.
Inconsistency
Digital marketing works best when it runs all the time.
Slow compounding applies in every area of life: relationships, the stock market, real estate, and yes, even advertising.
Almost every overnight success you’ve ever heard of was 10 years in the making.
That’s compounding at work.
The prevailing assumption amongst independent artists is that you promote a new release, and when that release cycle is over, you don’t promote anything until the next one rolls around.
I believe this is wrong.
Statistically speaking, most of us will never have a smash-hit single that crosses that billion-streams mark.
We’re not in the business of shooting the moon with one song.
We’re in the business of consistently building a catalog of work that gains momentum over time.
There are few better ways to accomplish this than by constantly running ads in the background.
A dedicated daily ad spend is healthy in all ways: it repeatedly pushes new listeners, followers, and streams to your catalog; it builds ongoing engagement into your social profiles; and it consistently puts new data into your ad account, thereby improving its performance over time.
Instead of dumping your entire budget into one song over the span of a week and then turning everything off, do the math and divide that into a sustainable daily ad spend to consistently promote your entire body of work.
Every stage of your marketing strategy will thank you, even the new releases.
The wrong song
The most successful businesses in the world have a repeatable advertising strategy that works.
Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-a, Ford, Walmart, etc.
Coca-Cola is constantly running ads for its flagship product: Coke.
Sure, they’ll introduce ads for new flavors and additional brands, but none of that comes at the expense of their cornerstone ads.
In short, they don’t turn off the Coke ads because they have a new Sprite campaign—they run both at the same time.
That’s because they have found a system that works, and they will continue to use it until it doesn’t.
The right product + the right market + the right ad = results.
Music is no different.
We’re not in the business of making every single song a winner. We’re in the business of finding the songs that already are winners and pushing them until we find something even better.
The majority of successful artists throughout history have less than 5 songs that pay for the whole party—it’s only a small fraction of bands and artists that manage to churn out hit after hit.
Go ahead, think about all the one-hit or two-hit wonders you know.
When it comes to ads, performance always comes down to the song.
The right song + the right market + the right ad = results.
So if you haven’t found success with ads yet, maybe you just haven’t found the right song.
Do yourself a favor and keep testing new material until you find the track that produces the results you’re looking for.
It’s out there. You just have to keep going.
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.