I spent $250 on Spotify Ads to promote my music

[@tomdupreeiii]

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[@MaxOstro]

10$ per listener is crazy. Imagine asking random people on the street to listen to music for those bucks, would probably result in even more listens

[@ermanevcil]

Spotify will hate you. But we love you !

[@INFAMOUSC-4]

Dude you so str8 forward I love it. No one tells it like it is anymore they are all about yo money. I love this video because you told the truth. Thank you

[@tomdupreeiii]

Man, I love this comment. Thank you for the kind and encouraging words. I'm trying to be as transparent and honest as possible out here. Glad that translated in this video.

[@redcurrantrecords]

Totally agree, we run some tests with similar results, over $1 per listener for spotify, around $0.40 for KZbin ads, even less for TikTok ads in many cases

[@EpicPulseMusic]

Thank you for this analysis! Saved me a ton of research!

[@tomdupreeiii]

Glad it was helpful!

[@SouhailEntertainment]

Introduction to Spotify Ads Experiment - 00:00:00 Overview of the Spotify Ad Campaign Setup - 00:01:07 Targeting Options and Limitations on Spotify Ads - 00:01:37 Comparison with Meta Ads: Traffic and Conversion Campaigns - 00:03:01 Results from the Spotify Ad Campaign - 00:04:31 Meta Ads Performance: Traffic Campaign Results - 00:07:05 Meta Ads Performance: Conversion Campaign Results - 00:08:22 Key Differences Between Spotify and Meta Ads - 00:09:05 The Role of User Behavior and App Design - 00:10:48 Limitations of Advertising to Free Spotify Users - 00:13:16 Conclusion: Why Spotify Ads Are Ineffective for Artists - 00:13:45 Invitation to Subscribe to the Newsletter - 00:14:18 Closing Remarks and Thank You - 00:14:46

[@p1aym_vlog]

I love researches. its a huge work and I very appreciate it! plus a great conclusion. I think, Spotify should be thankful for it)

[@tomdupreeiii]

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you enjoyed this one!

[@bnbsalsa]

Hey buddy, hope you're doing great. I have a question, trying to figure out the ideal way... how do you run Facebook Ads to take people straight to your Spotify profile? Why campaign do you use, regular Traffic or you use Conversion for that as well, I guess simple way is using Traffic Campaign with link to Spotify profile in the Ads.

[@thebetalactams5835]

Great information; you just saved us a lot of time and money that we would have wasted pursuing “dead ends”. Thank you for your thoughtful and experience-related insight.

[@tomdupreeiii]

Happy to help!

[@TrellDaniels]

Yo Tom, how about the showcase and marquee campaigns? Have you gave those a try?

[@tomdupreeiii]

Yes! I like both of those, but Showcase and Marquee are the only paid options Spotify offers that I like. I haven't had good experiences with anything else yet.

[@LouYorkLife]

Thank you for the depth, detail, NO FLUFF and your honest opinion. I am so happy I did not run this Spotify Ads campaign and researched it here before doing it (message to all). However... I did the showcase campaign and received great results. I can share the results with you if you'd like to see it for your data, etc. Again, thank you. Great video and keep giving people the truth with no sugar coating. That's appreciated in this bs world we now live in, at least in the west hahaa. Have a great productive week ahead.

[@lostinreverie2183]

What were the results for traffic and conversation campaigns? Like how many streams?

[@bulevardi_official]

Very useful explanation 👍👏

[@inwildestdreams9379]

I'm just learning that voiceovers are required for all spotify ads. Why do they not give an option for musicians to just play an audio or a video with music only?

[@tomdupreeiii]

Man, no idea. Seems silly. There are video ad options, but for audio-only, you have to do a voiceover. I'd love to have an song-only option.

[@inwildestdreams9379]

@tomdupreeiii I appreciate the reply. Yeah agreed. I don't know, maybe some musicians are still successful with doing voiceovers, talking about their music? I just feel like the music itself markets better than someone talking about it. Maybe I'll try IG/meta ads

[@Staykool777]

What i kept waiting for was the monthly listeners info.

[@andymcrae5450]

As a total noob in Marketing, I was going to spend 250$ on Spotify for my new Album, and I watched this video.. Your explanation on how people interact with an app makes a lot of sense. Thanks Tom

[@tomdupreeiii]

Super glad this was helpful!

[@T1C3]

I too spent $250 on the spotify, and then i realized or remembered what they paid per stream😅 yerp! Should have never tried it 🤣

[@highlonesome-coloradobluegrass]

Excellent video !!!

[@tomdupreeiii]

Appreciate you!

[@LozaAlexander]

GOOD POINTS!!

[@germwarfare5707]

Peace Tom. Someone said that every song in our catalog has to have 1k streams before we get paid for one. For instance if one of my songs gets 1 million streams I wouldn’t get royalties because other songs in my catalog are under 1k. Is this true??

[@tomdupreeiii]

Not quite. It only applies on a per-song basis. So if you have one song with less than 1k and one with 1M, you'll get paid for the 1M song but not the 1k song.

[@germwarfare5707]

@@tomdupreeiii Thanks Tom. Always appreciate you my guy 💯

[@JonathanRCross]

And don't forget it's 1000 streams per song, per year! Not just get to 1k and then you get paid from that point on.

[@germwarfare5707]

@@JonathanRCross No doubt 💯

[@theirishlassies7160]

Great video with great information. Thank you for doing this.

[@tomdupreeiii]

Glad it was helpful. Thanks for watching.

[@stevenbarnard]

That “why” breakdown was spot on!!

[@GraceBlueMusic]

Just so you know meta link clicks don't mean anything. I've had days with 300+ clicks and only 30 streams that day, so doesn't add up at all.

[@tomdupreeiii]

A lot of factors go into that. If you're running a traffic campaign outside of only a handful of countries that work, you'll see a high click count but few results on Spotify. A lot of bot clicks can happen if you're not careful.

[@GraceBlueMusic]

@@tomdupreeiii i only chose US at some ads, so it wasn't bots from India or something I believe.

[@AuntieG]

Thank you! Very useful 👍

[@RobinNoppen]

Yes you are totally right 👍

[@billt3031]

Can I ask something? I used to run conversion ads but now I can’t find it. So I ran traffic ads. I set 5$ daily but the thing is I get clicks but nobody goes to Spotify or Apple Music. Why is that? I used linkfire. I can see that people go to the landing page but nobody clicked Spotify or apple. I targeted only USA, Australia, uk Canada. I can’t figure out what’s wrong

[@billt3031]

30 clicks on my landing page but with 0 click throughs 😢

[@tomdupreeiii]

It's because you're using a landing page with a traffic ad. The traffic ad is optimizing for people clicking the link, not clicking the button on the landing page. It doesn't care about that, so it's optimizing for a different objective than what the landing page is used for. When using traffic, use a direct link to Spotify (or wherever else) in your ad and bypass the landing page altogether. Only use the landing page with a conversion campaign.

[@billt3031]

Thanks for the answer. Do you know where the conversions got moved to? It’s been a year since I created an ad and everything is so different now

[@billt3031]

You know what, I’ll just change my link to the Spotify link because I have to create the ad from scratch. Hope to get some streams

[@wowellthisnew]

did you only use instagram placements only on the meta-conversion ad?

[@brinkxmusic]

I think you took really long to get to the point

[@stateofclarity-official9311]

It's so odd because you'd think people would be more open to clicking on an ad since they're already listening to music. Especially if it's a song that's right up their alley. But maybe not - I'm assuming most unpaid listeners are wishing the ads would hurry up so they could go back to whatever they were already listening to.

[@tomdupreeiii]

I think the second part you said is spot on. The ad experience is so different from the listening experience that it's more of a nuisance than an opportunity to discover new music. If it were just 15-30 seconds of the song with a text CTA, I think it might actually work better.

[@Charlie_sc]

Gracias bro soy de México y tu video me ayudo mucho.

[@tomdupreeiii]

🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@ericdavidwallace]

Very interesting and it totally makes cents. No pun intended 🖤

[@tomdupreeiii]

Ha! Love it!

[@AirFoxxProductions]

Conversion campaigns are the way to go, trust

[@wowellthisnew]

thx for the insight i really appreciated this is good research :))

[@wretchedpinheadpuppets]

Thank you for the video ... I may have missed it, yet how many impressions did Spotify deliver ... disregard any response ... how many people did Spotify deliver it to for the $250.00?

[@AirFoxxProductions]

Should have tried doing a showcase or marquee. They are better than the audio campaigns

[@RevelationSignal]

Hi Tom I came to this video because I saw your other video about not submitting to playlists and instead run ads. But here you say not to run Spotify ads. Can you point me to a video where you show which ads are effective. Thank you.

[@tomdupreeiii]

Sure thing! Here's a good one to get you started: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIrbo4iejN2Zobc

[@RevelationSignal]

@@tomdupreeiii Thank you!

[@FBMaximUm]

The whole video I was thinking about, that main issue with Spotify Ads that they're going to free users and not for paid users

[@AirFoxxProductions]

That's why he should have done showcase or marquee

[@tomdupreeiii]

I've used those in the past as well and will do updated videos on them for sure. Obviously audio ads were the focus for this one.

[@AirFoxxProductions]

@@tomdupreeiii alright! Yeah, I saw that. I'm trying them out again for my new album soon.

[@charlesauspicks]

@@tomdupreeiii I'll be waiting for this video. I hope it drops soon

[@MCAlvesPortugal]

People are listening music not watching music. Those ads don't work

[@tomdupreeiii]

Yuuup.

[@AirFoxxProductions]

My click-through rate is 30% and I spend 5 bucks a day. I get about 10-15 saves on my playlist and about anyone from 5-50 saves on my tracks from it.

[@charlesauspicks]

Is this a Spotify ad? How did you do it and what genre?

[@AirFoxxProductions]

@@charlesauspicks it's ads on Facebook and meta

[@AirFoxxProductions]

@@charlesauspicks I make lo-fi music and I use hypeddit

[@WassupFred]

Amazing video man

[@tomdupreeiii]

Appreciate you!

[@Leemanuel05]

Hi Tom - on the whole I agree with your points. But I do want to point out that Spotify Ads platform does allow you to do "video ads" without a voice over if you choose. That being said my experience has been largely unsatisfactory (I've run about 7 campaigns). The support folks have admitted that their click metric is largely meaningless since a lot of users click or use other behaviors just to try and make the ad go away.

[@tomdupreeiii]

Thank you for this comment. I appreciate you pointing that out. I must have accidentally overlooked the video-only option when putting this video together. Wouldn't be the first time I made an error! Interesting to hear that the support folks admit to the click metric being useless. As I understand it, you only get a limited number of "skips" per hour as a free user, so I'm willing to bet people have figured out how to get past ads by clicking on them rather than wasting one of their "skips". Bummer.

[@Leemanuel05]

@@tomdupreeiii Support revealed that to me when I was complaining about how many clicks I received versus those that became listeners. Even though I selected the "click" objective for my ad. My point was that as I understood the setup, once a user clicked they were supposed to be sent to my playlist and it should start automatically. My complaint to them was that I received 2,350 clicks but resulted in only 47 listeners. Anyway it was a very unsatisfying exchange with customer support.

[@steinerrrr_]

Thanks for the video dude

[@tomdupreeiii]

You bet!

[@getkraken8064]

Spotxxx on!

[@drejpolin]

Great video, thx for this.

[@tomdupreeiii]

My pleasure!

[@POPSTARFACTORY]

bro only advertise to india and china for genre put pop / rock / rap cost per click 0.01 cents don't target any artist

[@MaxStackMusic]

That does sound dumb on their part if you're thinking the obvious - market some song on Spotify using Spotify Ads. It only makes sense if you're marketing anything BUT music 😅

[@lyrikiletrife]

I put up an ad on Spotify ads and spent over $50 just to get 46 streams rip off imo

[@post22unboxing22]

i use free version too

[@Livestrue]

Sorry but I read $18.70 spent for 157 clicks and not $250 So even when we go to see the New Listeners, we are talking about $18.70 x 25 new listeners = $0.70 Why don't you show us the data at the end of the campaign, when you will have spent $250?

[@harmonybeats6799]

what do you think

[@soulstersmusic]

The worst ad spend platform is Spotify. Even the formart that they allow you are bull s...

[@lfm119]

That's odd. I was thinking about going back to just spotify platform. It was just as good as Facebook and instagram

[@tomdupreeiii]

If your results were just as good before, you might have better luck than me!

[@lfm119]

@@tomdupreeiii maybe

[@lfm119]

It doesn't seem like you took into account the number of repeat streams. Or maybe I missed that Spotify is a music platform that people go to find music specifically. When they find you they're more likely to come back. What do you say about that?

[@tomdupreeiii]

@@lfm119 I spoke on that a bit around the 6:32 mark, but only within the context of the ad performance. Not long-term streams. But with the low new listener count of 25, I don't think there will be much outsized long-tail benefit from this campaign specifically in terms of lifetime or repeat streams. Certainly not enough to justify to listener acquisition cost.

[@jerseydemic]

The way to advertise in Spotify is showcase in the artist portion of the site