Music marketers Jesse Cannon, Dustin Boyer & Matt Bacon explore the ongoing debate about whether artists with under 100,000 monthly listeners should use Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) to promote their music. The conversation covers the effectiveness of these ads, comparing them with organic growth methods such as TikTok campaigns. They highlight potential pitfalls, like the lower quality of fans garnered through ads and the complexities of Meta’s advertising tools. The experts also share strategies for targeting and optimizing ads, including the concept of influence accounts and the importance of content quality. The episode features insights into the music promotion tactics used by experts and the challenges faced in effectively utilizing advertising budgets.
00:00 Introduction: Should Artists Use Meta Ads?
00:27 Understanding Algorithms and Music Promotion
01:35 The Quality of Fans from Facebook Ads
03:21 Organic Reach vs. Paid Ads
04:09 Leveraging Meta Ads for Algorithmic Boost
05:30 Effective Ad Strategies and Testing
07:46 Innovative Approaches to Music Promotion
09:28 Challenges and Considerations in Ad Campaigns
17:27 The Role of Content in Successful Ads
26:53 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Dustin Boyer
VP of marketing at Venture Music
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Head of the Music Marketing Agency Dropout Media
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I love these round table type discussions.
Is there gonna be a more in depth video showing how we can utilize this tiktok influence-account strategy?
I’m always looking for alternatives to meta ads since the targeting can be so hard to nail, but I don’t feel like I have enough information to try this method you speak of.
A lot of people forget that you have to have good music and good content for FB ads to work in their favor, also that being said targeting tier 1 countries only instagram will result in high quality listeners and spending the right amount too!
Hilariously a hypeddit ad played right before this video.
Awesome convo, you should talk to Indepreneur about this too though!
This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. I’ve been doing marketing for major record labels for years. Meta ads is the go to so you can actually get algorithmic plays and make money on your music. 3rd party playlists are dead or mostly bottled and bring no followers or actual fans. Obviously an artist needs to do organic content. Clearly you’re not a real “marketing specialist” that understands code and how to implement code and conversion APIs to get real fans or you have guys like this that “think” they know what they’re talking about. Oh yah, and this is the same guy that says “get editorial playlisting”. Good luck. I’ll put any major artist I’ve worked against any numbers you’ve actually ran on an artist. You’re steering artist down a road that you clearly don’t understand. This is actually hilarious.
Kinda personal question but do you have polyps? Ik that makes ppl sound nasal, but it can be surgically removed tho
META ads sucks regardless of what you do. I hate it so much
isnt promoting with ads same thing as labels promoting with radio play and music videos through mtv back in the day etc?
Hey Jesse! Could you make a video on how musicians can use discord to their advantage?
You guys say “spend money on content” rather than ads but what does that exactly mean? I’m just confused on where that money should go specifically. Can you give some suggestions?
You using modest budget being 500 to 1000 dollars a month to me seems high to me. What artists have that much money to easily spend that much? What should poor people do?
Great conversation, thx!!
00:00:00 – Introduction and Thesis: Should Artists with Under 100,000 Monthly Listeners Use Meta Ads?
00:01:17 – The Effectiveness of Facebook and Meta Ads in Music Promotion
00:02:25 – Organic Growth vs. Paid Advertising: Quality of Fans and Algorithm Impact
00:03:34 – The Role of Ads in Leveraging Spotify's Algorithm
00:05:31 – Combining Organic Reach and Ads: A Comprehensive Approach
00:06:50 – The TikTok Influence Strategy
00:07:56 – Cost-Effectiveness and Optimization in Ad Targeting
00:09:09 – Testing and Optimizing Ad Content and Audience
00:12:21 – Influence Accounts: A New Strategy for Music Promotion
00:14:30 – Audience Segmentation and Targeting Strategies
00:16:42 – The Importance of Broad and Diverse Audience Targeting
00:19:03 – The Nuances of Ad Optimization and Testing
00:20:06 – Leveraging Niche Content for Audience Engagement
00:22:11 – The Impact of Humor and Memes in Ad Performance
00:23:14 – Understanding Different Types of Listeners: Casual vs. Dedicated
00:24:53 – Balancing Niche Content with Broader Audience Appeal
00:26:23 – Comparing Audience Sizes and Engagement Across Genres
00:27:00 – The Risks of Inexperienced Meta Ad Management
00:28:06 – Pitfalls and Challenges of Using Meta's AI Tools in Ads
00:29:12 – Choosing Between Investing in Content or Ads for Independent Artists
00:29:43 – The Importance of Regular Ad Audits and Optimization
Really great conversation. Thanks for sharing.
are any of you guys (Dustin and Matt) at liberty to say what KPIs you're looking at to determine if an ad is successful? Are you guys going off of price per conversion and CTR on Meta or the landing page? If you're looking at conversion prices, what would you guys deem as a successful campaign? In my book generally a conversion price of around 40-60 cents in tier 1 markets and a CTR above 2% on Meta and 50% on landing page is a clear indicator that a campaign is successful…appreciate u guys, great interview
We need the reacting to your songs video to drop 😂
Can't break an artist with $10k using meta ads??? I've seen a band go from 0 monthly listeners to 300k in less than a year with a 1 month long meta ad campaign of 8k. They're playing stadiums now. before they were literally nothing
4:46 and 12:43very good to know. I made that mistake and runs £10 add and lost all reach. Such a bad thing to do to accounts but as soon as you know about it you're always careful and best off to pay that money to another creator to promote you.
I got excited because you talked for a bit about how lofi can be used for content!
It would be awesome to get your opinion on how to market lofi or other types of genres of music that are similar. I think a lot of people would benefit from that type of content!
This was really good. Really enjoyed it!
This style of video is way better
80s dark fantasy AI FTW
We haven been using meta ads on instagram with a marketer for about 3 1/2 months now, with a budget of 300€ per month and the results we‘ve been getting since then are crazy!!
We had 80 monthly listeners for 3 years and couldn‘t get them up and in those 3 1/2 months we got up to over 2.000 and we build a real community with people who are interested in our music and us as people!
Right now we are waiting for the spotify algorithm push bc we have a stream per listener ratio of over 5 for the past months and our marketer said that he has witnessed too many times, that artists get the big spotify algorithm push at about 2.000 monthly listeners with a high stream/listener ratio!
Also we finally did a branding of ourselves and we do storytelling content/voiovers/songpitches that fit our branding and people naturally start gravitating towards us!
So guys, get a good marketer, make a plan/branding/concept and drop music every month!
Meta ads DO WORK!!
You still gotta put in the work but if you really want it, you can get a lot out of it with just 100-300€!
Good luck guys, never give up! 💜
Deinitely remembet a few years ago Spotify directly saying they had users who they could tell had better taste anx they use those users behaviour to guide decisions on songs, i remember disctinctly this because i wss sure i was one of them lol
I'm so glad you guys made this video. I hear Jesse mentioning how ads can destroy an artist. It's nice to hear an in depth explanation of this. Thanks for posting!
This is a great discussion
Those who have lots of music but hasn’t dropped anything to the public. Is there videos about how to create the social media accounts and getting music to the public how to go about it all step by step?
So… content type may have an association of quality fan statistic. This could be a very interesting multivariate analysis
Some genius ideas here… 😮
The 'INCEL ALERT' killed me… lol
Dark fantasy content was super successful in moving Dorian Concept’s song “Hide”
Wonderful conversation and very informative thanks guys!
Awesome discussion.
Great convo. Appreciate the different perspectives
It would be interesting to hear how meta ads or others should be used when ppl have $100 or less per song to promote!
Jesse can you please go back to doing solo videos? Nothing against the other dudes but we’re here for you and you only bro
I feel like I’ve been getting good ROI on Meta ads recently, but generally I have found that between $15-20 per ad seems to be the sweet spot. This is for IG, not FB, though, and I only run about two per month. Not a lot of money, but we have been gaining followers from them and they’re not bots
Yes… ads can be effective. However, you should spend at least 50% of your budget to campaigns in your country. This is a better return on investment because thisn audience can attend your shows, engage online, and buy your CDs. Investing heavily in overseas ads only for streaming purposes and vanity metrics is not a good idea. Personally, I just only spend a small daily budget for international marketing be because I appreciate having listeners from different countries and I might play shows there…. fans are fans no matter where theyre from but… I think running and traffic ads to your profile in your country is more beneficial ( at least most of your budget). Conversion ads on landing pages, in my experience, often lead to wasted time and money. Spending 30-40 cents per stream from an audience unlikely to become fans or attend shows isn't worthwhile.