I Spent $300 on Spotify Showcase... Was It Worth It?

[@AndrewSouthworth]

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[@JRWRITER]

$100 for 137 listeners is crazy.. Spotify ruined how artists release music overall not just this feature.

[@DudeSilad]

Yeah, very expensive. Getting a song which you could call successful, IE, it makes a profit, is very difficult. Even if said song is very good.

[@SpacedOutStudiosEntertainment]

@@DudeSilad I agree it is expensive. Definitely not for everyone, but you have to think of it in the long term. Will this drive engagement to your song long term? Will those new listeners listen to other songs they may like and save/playlist? Will they become fans? And what could that revenue look like? This to me is doubly important now that Spotify is changing the payout threshold. For us, I see pushing Meta ads to playlists of songs, going to trusted playlisters (no so called agencies), triggering Discovery mode and radio, and if eligible running Showcase Ads to songs with the most potential.

[@DudeSilad]

@@SpacedOutStudiosEntertainment I've been watching KZbin vids on how to market music. It's for my daughter who will start releasing her own music in a few months. After paying for a song in a studio with professional musicians. Then the ads on various social media, distribution etc. Probably looking at around a £1000 a song. Highly unlikely they will make that back. Or it will be awhile anyway. But her songs are too good to not record and release so we pay for it. When she starts getting regular gigs she can pay for it herself. But also looking at synchs if that is the correct terminology. Still, it's all good fun and interesting! I don't know what Discovery mode is. Something else I have to learn 😏

[@CodingPhase]

Thank you for being such a cool dad not alot of people help their kids with their dreams @@DudeSilad

[@vxd]

Only available in the US?

[@SpacedOutStudiosEntertainment]

Thanks! We had trouble deciding whether to try our Showcase or Marquee. But this seems to be better for us at this time. We have Meta ads running and will use this in conjunction for now.

[@AIMHIGH803]

As a band who has ran multiple showcase campaigns, Spotify needs to introduce genre targeting of some sort. “What could turn this good tool absolutely great?” More targeting options

[@BinThereDumpThatShop]

What did you get with a budget of $1,000 ?

[@UrsaandtheMajorKey]

Random thought I had after watching this video: After my experience with running a bunch of KZbin ads and generating a bunch of very positive data on a single video, only to have KZbin throttle the video’s reach the second I stopped running ads on it, I have a very hard time trusting the concept of driving traffic to a platform using tools provided by that same platform. I hope this doesn’t happen to your songs that you’ve promoted here, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Spotify pulled something like this. It would be great to know any follow up data to see whether this is a trend.

[@misswill8488]

Yeah it’s a mind trick to get you to keep buying ads. I notice FB does it when I boost a post.

[@SpacedOutStudiosEntertainment]

@@misswill8488 I would suggest never boosting a post. You get much better traction from running an for Ad manager to the post. Especially if you set the goal as interaction.

[@TanoshiSan]

I set a budget of $1,000 for my showcase with a very generous bid, and it only spent $464. I didn't even zone in on any demographics

[@mrr5835]

Do you think it spent less because u didnt? Like maybe it got buried under too many other competitors? Just curious.

[@priceofsilver]

You brought up a really good point about location and listener segment. I'd like to see Spotify break down active audience vs programmed by country. Would be really useful!

[@leocas7ro]

Not me watching this video after spending 100 bucks on it lol

[@DragonDuelist11]

Great vid dude, the kind of proper breakdown I was looking for.

[@AngelaPredhomme]

Thank you. Great video! I appreciate your sharing the results of your campaigns.

[@motherstalk_official]

Folks, you need at least 1k monthly listeners to even be eligible for Showcase (which rules out like 95% of artists on Spotify). You need 5k monthly to be eligible for Marquee. Andrew - prefacing your Spotify Campaign tutorials with eligibility requirements would have been a nice courtesy. Overall your videos are excellent. The Engineer-Musician is an exceptionally rare person, and as one myself, the no-bullshit pragmatism and clarity of your tutorials is CLEAR evidence of an engineering mind. Keep doing the lord's work!

[@justantknee]

1k STREAMS not monthly listeners. BIG difference

[@MasterSplinterPDX]

You need 1k streams within the past 28 days for Showcase. You need 5k streams ALL FROM ONE SINGLE AVAILABLE MARKET (USA, Canada, UK, Australia) within the past 28 days to be eligible for Marquee, meaning you need 5k or more from at least one of those countries. If you have 5k total between the 4 countries, you're not eligible. They're really unclear about that on SFA.

[@PatriciaPalmeroAlvarez]

Great video Andrew! Thank you for sharing this information!

[@ceoselfthemogul]

Absolutely useful. But I’m not sure if this will have me stop running Facebook ads… unless you suggest otherwise. Thoughts?

[@AndrewSouthworth]

I feel the same. Great tool, but doesn't replace targeted ads. It's a nice supplement to ads, especially if you want to balance out some of those expensive countries.

[@cblanchhiphop]

Great content man - still feels like investing in co-releases is the best way to grow on Spotify (along with discovery mode)

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Thanks! Collaborating with artists is definitely a great strategy. Not only do you cross promote your audiences, but you can double up on marketing investments or share the cost.

[@AIMHIGH803]

You can also showcase a co-release, we just finished one and got pretty good results🤠

[@cblanchhiphop]

@@AIMHIGH803 good to know! About to try this out

[@hambonetunes1988]

Can anyone do a showcase or is this only rolled out for some?

[@AndrewSouthworth]

I believe its USA artists and greater than 1,000 streams in the last 28 days. However they're rolling it out so you won't get instant access if you meet that criteria. I know some artists that are in CA and UK and have access as well though, not sure how though.

[@hambonetunes1988]

@@AndrewSouthworth I just looked, I’m not even eligible for marquee lol. My music career isn’t doing so well (jk I just started)

[@david-renedwight8358]

Most of us in the UK will not be able to use this, you need to be VAT registered.. it’s the same with Marquee and spotify ads.. so frustrating and spotify must be losing out on a massive amount of revenue ☹️

[@TJ-vt6rt]

Agreed. I found that out a few years ago when I wanted to run an ad on Spotify. Filled in all the necessary info, only to get to the end and be asked for a VAT number.

[@coolvibesradio3267]

I don't usually 'watch' Spotify. I mean, I listen to the music and I can even hear the ads, but I don't click on them, mainly for practicality. I listen to music while doing other things (working, playing, walking, training, etc.) so I can't physically click on the ad. For this reason, I think that musicians' ads on Spotify are not as effective as they are on other social media platforms where you are actively engaged with the platform/device. It would be great to see a comparison between the results of a campaign with the same budget, in the same timeframe, in the same country, with the same song, but run on different social media platforms and Spotify. Also, Brazil is not a great country for music promotion (full of bots)

[@mexezmusic]

I was thinking the same thing, about Brazil being full of bots, but my assumption is that since you run the ads directly on Spotify, bots are not a problem...

[@coolvibesradio3267]

@@mexezmusic The function of a bot is to execute a determinate task. Does it matter if you run ads directly on Spotify?. I don't think so. The task of the bot is to click on the ads no matter the source or the destination

[@AndrewSouthworth]

That's one advantage social media ads have over this for sure. However, this ad is on the home page right when you open the app so it isn't hitting passive listeners while they're doing something else like an audio ad. Brazil actually does work quite well for music promotion. There are a ton of people, a ton of them have Spotify, and marketing is cheaper than in most countries. You see them commenting on multiple platforms, sending DM's and streaming on several DSPs. Also the level of bad bots in Brazil is very similar to the levels in USA, Canada, UK etc. In raw numbers the USA has much more than Brazil.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Bots are generally programmed to perform very specific tasks using the platforms API. So people will code bots to interact with the IG API, FB API or Spotify API. They are not coding bots that can jump between platforms and interact with multiple API's, having accounts on each one. There would simply be no reason for someone to do this. Similarly, bots on Spotify will mostly only be able to interact through the API. This means the bots can play songs, save songs, add songs to playlists etc, from any country on Earth where their server or VPN is located. I doubt that there is any mechanism for a bot to be served a Showcase or Marquee ad, and even if there is I doubt they coded a way for a bot to interact with it. There are bots that do more than just follow the API, and sometimes there are click farms with real people behind computers. However you have to ask in that situation, will anyone do this for Showcase? Why would a company waste money clicking on Showcase ads on the Spotify mobile app home page? Why would an artist or label hire a bot or click farm company to run bots on Showcase? In my opinion, they wouldn't.

[@christopherbshort223]

What determines the number of reach that spotify actively sends through Showcase and Marquee? It says potentially 7k-21k but for me it doesn't even come close. For Marquee in the US the estimated reach is 2.6k-7.7k and my campaigns don't even reach 300. Why is that? Why aren't they showing it around?

[@jackplantemusic]

How much money would be a good starting point for showcase? (Particularly for a single)

[@Dihmarko]

That's pretty decent for U.S Listeners

[@drholliscertified1]

what is the lowest budget that your agency will work with?

[@znels]

logic pro jumpscare 😂 thanks for sharing these results!

[@coreylayzell]

Hi Andrew, love your videos, and your music. I checked you out on spotify after having watched several of ypur videos over the last few months. Anyway. What are your thoughts on running ad campaigns on two different songs at once? And further still, using the same ad sets to do so? Each with different ad variations for AB testing etc..

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Thank you! You can totally run campaigns on multiple songs at once, in fact thats relatively common for many artists. Using the same audiences in multiple is also fine, as long as those audiences are large enough (million of people). If they're super small (100k and below or so) then you may compete with yourself.

[@TanoshiSan]

I would personally suggest you advertise a playlist with both songs in it!

[@coreylayzell]

@@AndrewSouthworth thanks very much buddy, and how about this popularity score.. ive managed to get 575 streams in the first four days of release (its since jumped to 1053 after five days but hasnt updated on musix stax yet). If my song goes up by an average of 200-400 streams per day, by genuine new listeners gained by social media ads, how many days do you think it will take to hit the 20%-30% mark? Listener to saves rate is about 32% and a handful are following me, people are also shazaming the song and searching it on yt etc Whats your experience with daily stream count and its effect on popularity score?

[@coreylayzell]

@@TanoshiSan thanks, thats a good idea, ut is that possible with toneden?

[@coreylayzell]

@@AndrewSouthworth also, forgot to mention, the song’s popularity, with only the first 575 streams taken into account, is at 11%

[@LouYorkLife]

Thank you!

[@LukasiMusic]

Someone Contacted me asking if i wanted ads, i did not agree to this but the person promoted my song anyway, according to my stats it looks a bit too steuctural all from one country and no saves, and i dont want to be banned from Spotify, what do you suggest i do?

[@JohnnyThomas-py3jv]

You never fail to impress me. 😊

[@TheOmniscientHuman]

CPC is now cheaper might be more worth it. I got $0.23 in germany & $0.28 in US.

[@PSYB3RMOTH]

wow the results werent what i expected for $300. spotify doesnt pay enough for me to run ads with them. maybe a youtube, tidal or apple ad? i may consider

[@misswill8488]

If you’re already getting 5,000 streams a month, I would think you don’t need a tool like this. It seems pointless for that to be a minimum requirement to have access to this because I would assume the people who need it have less than 5,000 a month, and those who already have more than that should find this a waste of money. But hey I’m just a spectator. I don’t have my music on Spotify, only a podcast. This video was interesting nevertheless. It sounds like it “might” be a good thing for new artists trying to establish a fanbase, but too bad it’s not available to them. At least from what it sounds like.

[@NORBZMUSIC]

I put in $1000 it said it could only spend $280 or something, no parameters, tried widening them, turned out not to be worth it and it's expensive per listener compared to advertising on most SM platforms, and the algo likes that more as you're bringing in outside traffic not just recirculating existing listeners. Just my .02

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Are you sure this was Showcase you ran and not Marquee? Showcase can be used for both new people and retargeting, but mostly for new people. I agree that it isn't replacing social media ads, but my experience was actually pretty good with Showcase.

[@NORBZMUSIC]

@@AndrewSouthworth Oops you might be right, I think it was Marquee, however I can't see the two being drastically different in outreach. If it worked for you even if not as good as SM campaigns then props, it all helps.

[@Dihmarko]

Bringing in outside traffic doesn't help Spotify if they're already paying subscribers, showcase is straight profit for Spotify and I think they'll reward you for it.

[@JordanSoulman]

Hey Andrew, thank you so much for another great video. I'm currently running a showcase campaign and it's only spending 1 dollar per day....When I launched the campaign it said it was likely to spend the whole budget but I doubt it is gonna happen at this point. Any ideas as to why this might be happening? It is not a small country.

[@russellbach5615]

It doesn’t even give me the opportunity to? It keeps saying ineligible

[@cruxxxmusic]

Alrighty, i would rather stick with my 10 monthly listeners haha

[@BautistaEsandi]

Try targeting Argentina! It's the cheapest country.

[@RachelMintz]

Sounds crazy expensive to combine all tools. An investor certainly would be nice. Is running all the campaigns simultaneously even remotely sustainable? I guess if daddy pays for it or you have a high paying job and enjoy your luxury hobby OR you're already a bigger artists with financial backing.

[@makinoutmakinout2056]

Why is not saying how many streams he did he just says listeners but tbh I think this tool is useful especially for your first day when releasing a song you can actually get some type of streams instead of 5 to 0

[@speedcrawlmusic]

Has that like button been behaving better lately? 👍

[@AndrewSouthworth]

It never does, it still needs to be slapped 😂

[@Pinecreekacademy]

Yeah it def seems like just a money grab from Spotify

[@NathanMorrisMusic]

No. The answer was 'no'.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Depends on what you’re going for! Ads overall are much more effective but I still find myself using these Spotify tools in conjunction with ads when the artist has a larger budget. It just allows you to reach people you might otherwise never be able to reach on socials.

[@stestetsonmusic]

So let’s pay them a percentage of a cent then charge them 30-50 cents per listener on an ad campaign Why on earth would anyone bother using this feature. We promote the life out of KZbin with all our links and our Spotify has had better results than these campaigns your running on Spotify direct

[@AndrewSouthworth]

It's a nice supplement, but it's nowhere near as effective as Meta conversion ads overall.

[@dibblemusic]

That looks horrible.

[@LiveThroughDeath]

Hi, love your content.. Do streams gained from ‘release radar’ and ‘discover weekly’ count towards the song’s popularity score on music stax? And furthermore, what about those who hear the song on those algorithmic playlist once, save it, then stream it the next day, surely those streams would then count towards the song’s popularity score, as the stream no longer came directly from an algorithmic playlist but from listener’s own playlist.. Any info/advice you have would be greatly appreciated ❤️