Zero to 2,500 Spotify Monthly Listeners
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2024
- In this video I go over a case study taking an artist from zero to 2,500 monthly listeners on Spotify from one song using Facebook ads, getting the song to 32,000 streams and counting.
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This is a MUCH needed video, largely because THIS is actually what success for most people's Ad campaigns looks like (this definitely more closely resembles what my successful campaigns look like lol). ~$0.33 cost per conversion, 2000+ conversions, & hopefully (although not always) long term algorithmic triggers. The campaigns that do like 100k streams on a $400 budget are always interesting case studies, but an abundance of them can shift what people perceive as successful -- going from 0 people to a VENUE's worth of people listening to your music regularly is an incredible accomplishment.
Thanks! This was a big reason I did this video. People love watching the videos showing off the big budgets, the big streams or the crazy results. However the reality is not every song is huge, success doesn't always mean millions of streams, and not every artist has thousands and thousands to invest.
I want to show people what's possible with the huge case studies, but hopefully doing videos like this every so often avoids people having false expectations.
Thanks for the info as always! Are you saying that the ads help with pushing up more release radar streams as well?
Andrew, I have done everything the same as you - different ads, ad sets, song parts etc. and waited 3 weeks for the ads to get better, ended up with €1.50 per result (for the last one that performed the best, I disabled others at some point).
I start to think that when you're making your ads from Europe it costs a lot more money, i spent €322 and got only 37k Reach (I used both tier 1 and 2 countries the same as you). I see your reach 200k. OK you spend 2,5x more money, but that case I should have 92k Reach, still over 2 times lower...
This Video actually makes me feel much better about my first campaign that I ran this year^^ Its actually remarkably similar in Terms of starting point, budget and cost per conversion. However we started I think about one month before this campaign started and are now at about 68k streams and 3.5 k monthly listeners. I felt really bad about not really being able to go under 0.33€ per conversion over longer durations and ended up at I think 0.34€ per conversion over all. Having watched pretty much all availeable content about music marketing and puttting a lot of effort into it I was a bit disappointed that I could'nt reach something like 0.25€ and also felt bad for my friend which I was doing this for, that I couldnt provide a better conversion rate, for waht I felt and still feel like is an exceptional Song. But this Campaign seems to be the more average realistic side of it, so it makes me feel decent about my performance after all. Thank you for the video Andrew! definitely gives me confidence to keep trying and not be discouraged!
Hi Andrew. So you finally sticked with FFM for all your campaigns ? Or do you still recommend hypedit too
Both are awesome. I use FeatureFM mostly nowadays because I run an ad agency and have so many artists i'm creating links for, and the multi-artist functionality and multi-user support makes all that possible.
However for most artists I recommend Hypeddit.
Hi Andrew. Love your videos and i also got a question included due to the royalty cut. Before.. we could potentially build a big catalog of, let's say, between 150-300 songs, and each song would hypothetically need less streams per track for us to gain more money in the future, as we grow simultaneously by releasing more and more music. So as we were growing a big catalogue = we needed less streams per track in order to gain x amount of money to make more money per year in the future. Of course, these new rules with the 1000 mark threshold doesn't make it that simple, as some song will die eventually, if not treated with ad traffic. My question is: Would the solution be to also run a playlist campaign in the future only targeting the artist playlist that contains own songs in the future, assuming having a big catalogue and really building that playlist? Did you ever make a video about that? All the best from Denmark.
Great video
I might have to watch this video again
Andrew I have a question: is it crucial to start running ads the same day as I release the song? For example if I release a song and start running ads like 1-2 months later - is it still gonna be ok?
thank you
Is 300 budget the absolute minimum for yielding some reasonable results?
With me being new to working with ads, would you (and/or others) consider $500 with a gained 114 monthly listeners and 533 streams decent or no? One of the bigger issues I have with this so far is just not knowing what is really decent or not, and when I need to know when to try something new.
I watched a video he got 8k for 100 so yeah ide say thats not good
i recently ran a $600 campaign and got 11k+ streams on spotify, 5k on apple music. so i would say your numbers could be a lot better
Here my opinion. That is a decent start you made the pool of only 609K artist who have reached that audience. The trick to gaining more audience is QUALITY MUSIC! the more QUALITY you put out over QUANTITY the bigger your audience grows because that person who liked your 1st song would most likely listen to your second. That why is always important putting out music that Num 1 is just as good as Num 10 on a album. Is all about building a very good DISCOGRAPHY!. You will keep those algorithms very happy along with your POPULARITY putting you in playlists.
Long answer, but I think this will be helpful. Let's break down your data -- 533 streams/$500 = $1.06 per stream. If all 533 of your streams came from only the 114 monthly listeners, then your cost per conversion (theoretically) should be about $500/114 listeners = $4.38 per conversion. At 5:50 in the video, you can see Andrew's cost per conversion (CPC) of $0.33, which I'd say should be everyone's target (think about it this way: for $1, you get 3 listeners!) At your current cost of $4.38 per conversion, you're only getting 1 listener for almost 5x that amount! CPC is one of (if not the) primary metrics I'd use to measure a campaign's success.
Here's a possible interpretation of CPC's (you can +/- 0.03 to each range, but there's a reason I chose these numbers)
Great: $0.25 or under (4 listeners per dollar)
Good: $0.26 - $0.33 (3 listeners per dollar)
Above Average: $0.34 - $0.49 (2 listeners per dollar)
Average: : $0.50 (2 listeners per dollar)
Below Average: $0.51 - $0.99 (1 listeners per dollar)
Bad: : $1.00+ (you could argue anything over $0.70 or so if bad, this is just a loose interpretation)
Typically in my own campaigns, successful campaigns/adsets have CPC's ~0.55 or lower by end of the first day (this may vary depending on your pixel history & budget). If you have an ad that is above $1.00+ per conversion at the end of it's first day, it's not likely to optimize to a GOOD CPC (might optimize down to ~$0.60, but I've almost never seen it get lower). **So in short**: it should be fairly obvious if an adset has any chance at being successful within its first 24hrs per my experience (based on my statistical interpretations at least). Would love to hear thoughts from others.
Could you show us how it is working with heave music?
So basically you went from the pool of 6 Million artist on Spotify that gets from 1 to 50 listeners monthly. Into the pool now of 80k Artist on Spotify who has an audience from 5k to 10K. Yes you got added to discover weekly which is a good thing but with a down side. If those listerners don't add you to their playlist which you're hoping that they do liking your song. When the clean up that chart starts you will LOSE some of your audience. At the end of the day that is the trick to get ORGANIC users to add your song to their playlist. So that why when Spotify starts to clean up these playlist as they always do. Your audience dosen't take a big hit. Much success every niche you put in it will grow!
It is true that algorithmic playlists can be volatile, sometimes you're in it for years but other times only several weeks or months. However, as a result of this campaign listeners added this artist's song to 1,500 playlists and 1,700 libraries.
In the last 28 days 46% of their recurring streams are from those user's listening to the song in their own playlists and libraries. Even if the 35% algorithmic dies down in the future, the listeners should keep on listening as long as they don't get sick of the song.
In my experience the tail after these campaigns is quite long, as a result of those listeners adding the song to their own playlists and library.
In a nutshell i'm agreeing with you haha. My favorite stream source is 'Listeners own playlists and library', because for my personal music projects thats been the most stable source of streaming month over month. It's independent of ads, social media, editorial and algorithmic - it's purely fans listening to songs in your catalog that they like.
Exactly and thats the beauty of it that you're seeing your audience grow even at a stream at 0.003% As I tell many of my Tropical Latin artist friends. Don't use spotify in your mentality to get rich but use them to get your music streamed Worldwide played to all walks of life. The next step after that will lead to gigging in the near future and for many Independent artist it does. Thats where artist makes their money. @@AndrewSouthworth. Good video I enjoyed it. Hope many Independent artist takes this video to help them get over that 6 Million hump that only has 0 to 50 Monthly listeners.
So this (1) month Facebook ad campaign sent this artist from 5 monthly listeners to 2500 monthly listeners @ a total of 6,600 monthly streams? And this cost money??
Just a heads up - that sounds like they’re running bots for you. I mean don’t get me wrong - I’m sure there’s some real listeners in that pool but those numbers and the way they fluctuate, look awfully similar to my numbers when I’m looping 🔂 my own music on Spotify. I tested this process myself for 2 years to study their algorithm. And for transparency purposes - my numbers are WAY more than the results from this campaign. But I do the work myself - I don’t pay for it.
It’s not a secret that the major labels do this too. It’s obvious when these labels use bots to launch new artists or when they use bots to boost new releases. There’s also videos on this as well so feel free to look into all that.
So from my first hand experience with this payment model - this looks like Spotify and Meta made a deal to generate additional revenue. I mean, Spotify also inflates numbers for their own playlisted artists. That’s what gives artists the incentive to be on these exclusive playlists. Because you magically get streams lol!
But either way - this all benefits their algorithm and ecosystem. After all, the more streams in the pool - the more the major artists make because their % cut on every stream is more than the casual artist (this is because the major artists pull in more streams due to popularity and the off record agreement they have with Spotify to use bots).
So long story short - while this campaign is good info. You can get way better results 🔂 your own music on Spotify. And it’s free to do.
Remember, the RIAA likes to scare us. They used similar intimidation tactics when they sued households for downloading music during the Napster era. Out of 20,000 lawsuits- only 2,500 settled.
Don’t be afraid to experiment ✊‼️
This is a Facebook conversion campaign I personally ran, it's all real people. Most of the streams happen after the campaign is over from all the users that saved and added the songs to their personal playlists. They comment, DM, follow on multiple platforms and keep listening for months and years after the campaign stops.
Bots don't do any of those things.
I wouldn't recommend looping your own music. Spotify likely won't pay you for all of those streams anyways, and it's likely screwing with your algorithm unless you also have a ton of other people listening to your music naturally.
This is a good video. And I am a fan of Southworth. Meta Ads do reach a bunch of randos but it is real. It is a good way to kick star movement. It is always better to promote a playlist than just a song. What do you think is better to promote your Spotify profile or a playlist? My only problem with the content of this video is that the numbers are bad in terms of ROI. No business where you spend $1000 on ads and make $300 as a return is sustainable.
guy has higher education but doesn't understand this. Not the brightest chap I'm afraid. Whenever you tell him this he goes on rambling. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS.
Glad you like the video! Just to clarify though, I actually would recommend you send people to a specific song and not a playlist. The reason is, the saves and playlist adds are much higher when you send people to a specific song than a playlist meaning you end up with much more streams long term.
If you only send people to a playlist you don't have as long of a tail on your campaign. Meaning when the ads stop, the dropoff is much greater. When you do direct to song that massive increase in saves and playlist adds means people keep listening for years.
Depends on the genre also though, some genres do make sense to do a playlist instead, specifically ambient, lofi, instrumental music etc.
Many businesses are in the red for a while before they're profitable, this is no different. Each song builds your audience meaning your next song gets more and more listeners from your larger built in audience. Eventually you hit escape velocity and have enough momentum where the machine can keep turning on its own, and turns a profit.
If you spend $1,000 on a song, make back $500 after 2 years, but you gained 300 IG followers, 300 Spotify followers, 100 TH-cam subscribers and thousands of fans in the process - you've significantly moved yourself forward.
Followers and fans have real world value. Over time they keep listening to new songs, join email lists, come to shows and buy merch. It sounds like you're assuming that a listener is worth the value of 1 stream, but the reality is they're worth a whole lot more.
Video game consoles used to sell at a loss back in the day. They needed a way to get their consoles in the houses of gamers, so that they could sell them dozens of games over the life of the console. Up front they lost money, but acquiring that customer meant the lifetime value made the business profitable.
@@AndrewSouthworth Understood. One caveat is that the playlist that I am promoting with Meta ads contains over 100 tracks of my own material. "This Is Waves_On_Waves." For me, I just have too many collaborations and tracks to promote individual songs. But yeah you make a good point in that the followers I get are for the playlist mainly over my actual Spotify profile.
is it normal for a campaign to start off at £2.70 per conversion roughly? i’ve been following your videos for my last two releases and i can never seem to get my cost per conversion below £2 and i have no idea what i could be doing wrong. any help from anyone is appreciated! (love the videos)
same for me, I have done everything the same as Andrew and waited 3 weeks for the ads to get better, ended up with €1.50 per result. I start to think that when you're making your ads from Europe it costs a lot more money, i spent €322 and got only 37k Reach (I used both tier 1 and 2 countries).
@@aaambienttt0140 yeah you might be right, i’m placing the ads from UK
The first 1-2 days of a campaign, especially the first one, can be especially brutal. However after a few days it isn't normal for the cost to be that high.
With costs that high I can't imagine the audiences are the issue, as long as they're at least millions of people and generally targeted at the right crowd. So i'd start with making new ads, and make sure you're testing at least 3 videos, i'd recommend doing multiple parts of the song.
If you tinker with the campaign too much that can cause issues as well. Meaning, if you turn things off or change stuff more frequently than every 2-3 days.
It's hard to know exactly what the problem is without seeing your campaign but these are some common things people get wrong.
I've seen people get just as good results in Europe as the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India etc. I don't think Facebook factors in the owner of the ad account's location at all when it comes to performance.
There definitely is a learning curve with this stuff though, and i've seen many people have several bad attempts before they crack it.
@@AndrewSouthworthwould you be able to help me with all this via one of your 1 on 1 consultations? I’m unsure if i have the budget left this campaign but if i can’t get this to work i’d be up for paying for an hour for my next campaign!
In 2022, I had several tracks on at least 2 major lofi editorial playlist and 4 smaller editorial playlist on Spotify. I went from 0 to 150 000 monthly listeners in only a few months, I even got a deal with Universal for 1 of my track! With 2 millions streams in total. I did all that without paying anything. This year, in 2023, I went from 150 000 to 4000 monthly listeners because for some reason, my music is no longer on editorial playlists anymore. I've done a Spotify campaign for 3 months in a row and nothing happened, my streams are getting lower every day. I'm not sure why it's happening. I was thinking about doing a facebook ads campaign, I hope it will work.
lets work bro i got you beats
@@eazy_beats_bet hit
Me
How do you feel about Spotify Marquee? Do you think it will make FB ads irrelevant due to its ability to convert easier and cheaper?
He has videos on Marquee. Generally he found that the cost per converted listener is ~$0.50 (Spotify guarantees this I believe) -- as you can see in this video at 5:50, his cost per conversion is $0.33 (which is usually a good target for a Facebook Ads campaign, unless you somehow get it lower), so Marquee is actually more expensive than just running your own ads. The benefit of Marquee was its retargeting abilities and the engagement rates (streams per listens in particular are higher using Marquee than the average ad campaign)
Spotify Marquee is a good tool, I have 3 or so videos on it actually. However it's only retargeting so you can't gain new fans with it, and it isn't cheaper than FB ads most of the time. Additionally it's limited to a small list of countries.
@@sutitootimusicshowcase
hi andrew, what would you say is the current best placement selection for Spotify ad campaigns on meta ? I know you mentioned previously that it's best to leave facebook out - is this still the case? I find if i just use Instagram sometimes the CPC can be quite high
Never been on discovery weekly . Done over 120k streams . Idk what’s up with Spotify algorithm .
Exactly man even I get ~10 streams a week from discover weekly, my song is on 56k streams rn. Sucks big time
Did you pay for playlist promotion or was the streams organic with facebook ads
organic but i think the algorithm just depends on ur music.@@jhitzsw
@@jhitzsw 50k organic travel playlist, i ran a couple of tests on the playlists, but the listeners were passive, not very high save rate. 7k through facebook ads which are still running now, i get ~50 saves a day for 5$
Hmm was the save rate, listen rate and playlist add rates for the individual songs good? Ive seen when people send listeners to playlists instead of the individual songs it lowers the engagement of each song and can make it harder to trigger the algorithm.
Oh man...yall are going to make me shoot something for IG wont you lol
Im a bit afraid that some people say that ads ruin spotify algorythm for an artist.
One of the biggest benefits of running ads is how effectively it can trigger Spotify's algorithm due to the high intention of the listeners.
From what i've seen people that claim it negatively affects the algorithm either have never run ads or are doing something wrong.
I find it hard to believe you got 2000 likes on 7000 listeners
If you are an EDM producer, I feel you can target lower costing countries like Brazil since that type of music is more streamlined to be enjoyed by every continent. Though if you are a vocal artist or incorporating someone's vocals as a big part of the song. Even if it costs more, it is ALWAYS best to just target countries that speak the same language as you//country you are based in. You will retain the most attention that way and even if they are not botted streams, if someone clicks on your profile and sees your top locations are in Frank Am, Germany, Sao Paulo Brazil, etc etc... They could come to the conclusion that you might be botting streams due to high numbers and being non English (or native speaking under most situations) to your vocally mixed music.
Especially if you are under say 50,000 monthly listeners. You should be focusing on more local/regional promotion than widespread. For example: I have about 1,000 monthly listeners and I am planning on playing around local shows on top of making literal posters and stapling them outside local high schools and colleges and in high density foot traffic areas to get my name out locally. On top of that, I have been starting to do Instagram ads and locally target a 30-50 mile radius of where I live to get more regional attention to me. Then for my broader adds, I mostly ONLY target US and Canada with SOME UK/Australia included.
Right now I sit at just sub 300 followers on Spotify, with 600~1,100 monthly listeners depending on month/luck interactions if my songs get played, 900 saves with 2.5k playlist adds and over 20k streams since I started (In March 2023). With over 2,500 followers on Instagram (while following no one) and small presence of TH-cam/Apple Music engagement without ANY direct promotion. It may cost more, but I feel the retention will definitely be there longer if you are selecting engagement from people who are more local to you culturally and common language based.
I've experimented with USA only and Tier 1 countries only, and personally I haven't found there to be a difference in retention or algorithmic growth. Despite the fact I spend more of my budget on Brazil and Mexico, my #1 country on Spotify is the USA because of the Spotify algorithmic playlists.
I'm not sure people would think these cities mean bots either. For example if we look at Linkin Park as an example, their top cities are Sao Paulo Brazil, London, Santiago Chile, Mexico City and Sydney Australia. Sao Paulo often comes up high for many people because it's larger than LA and NYC combined in population.
I haven't done much super local stuff (cities or states) for streaming, largely because I don't play shows. However I do regularly manage ad campaigns for touring artists promoting their shows, and the localized targeting works great in that situation.
The strategy can definitely shift if the artist is actively trying to play shows and tour locally. However in many cases it makes sense to split your local marketing away from streaming due to the high cost. For Spotify i'd rather focus on triggering the algorithm, and then run other objective campaigns in the local market to acquire retargetable fans at a lower cost than converting them off platform.
@@AndrewSouthworth I feel that there is some sort of bias or misconception when small artists show foreign countries as 'top plays' then. I have seen first hand many times people with 1k-25k monthly listeners get shunned for having foreign countries (especially big cities like I named) as top responses in their music. It comes with the stereotype that they likely are botted plays I assume then.
Though I do want to test some retention aspects. For example: Is specific song ads better than profile ads like targeting instagram profile, is local better than broad. I can understand doing locally targeted tour style ads but local ads in general should work pretty well (at least if you make it obvious that you're local)
Hey mate can you do a video on Koji being brought out by Linktree
Oh wow didn't hear about this! Looks like Linktree is shutting Koji down and sunsetting the brand on January 31st 2024.
@@AndrewSouthworth yeah not good! Loved Koji shame it’s going to go. Any good replacements?
I've been using Later's linkinbio tool because I pay for their service for scheduling content on social media. It's amazing, but only if you're looking for a scheduling tool.
Someone I know switched to Komi, I know several people using LinkTree. Not sure what the pricing is for Komi or LinkTree nowadays though. Rivet has a pretty cool link in bio tool with a bunch of other features as well.
@@AndrewSouthworth could you use it as a record label with multiple artist etc?
At their higher plans yes. Their base plan you can only link 1 set of social channels per platform. The Growth plan (which is what i'm on) gives me 3 social sets, but they have higher amounts.
Worth it if you use it in the time it will save you, but only if you can take advantage of everything it has to offer.
You should do a tour in Brazil since you have so many fans. 10010101010101
This isn’t my artist project, my largest country is in the US. However I do know people who tour in Brazil. It’s a pretty common tour spot.
How much do using your Facebook ad account (Genera studios), an experienced account, contributed to the success of this campaign?
Nice results 🫡
Thanks dude!