I figured I’d share what I learned from this experience in case others find it useful.

1) You can make it profitable if people are really connecting with the music, you release routinely (every 4-6 weeks), and you reinvest everything you make. But be patient. Even with a really hot project, It will take at least 6-12 months to get to monthly return on ad spend.

2) Spotify’s algorithm works off repeat listeners. Whatever else you’ve heard about saves and playlist ads, it’s not actually how it works. You need Spotify’s algorithm to kick in to become profitable. If you’re running ads, below 2.0 on a song in the last 28 days won’t work, you ideally want above 2.3 once you’ve been running it for 2-4 weeks.

3) You want a really low Cost Per Click (Cost Per Result technically, running an engagement campaign) for this to work. Below 40 cents you’ll get some momentum but not profitable. Below 30 cents you’ve got a shot. Below 20-25 cents you’ve got something you should invest in and below 15 cents you’ve got something you can really push that’s hot. That’s for tier 1 countries, assuming a $50 a day budget just to have a benchmark. Lower budgets are easier to keep the cost per click low, and higher budgets will be higher cost per click, which is normal.

4) You HAVE TO release routinely, every 4-6 weeks tops. If you can do more often, that’s better. We eventually got up to every other week.

5) when you see a certain type of song working, do more of that. When you see a certain type of song not working, no matter how much you like it, do less of that.

6) remember that once you get a streaming catalog to a certain point, you can sell it or get advances - you don’t have to self fund forever.

7) the songs have to be so good they’re addictive. There are a million songs a week released. If they aren’t so good that the person can’t live without them, the listener will forget about the songs and won’t really become a fan. You need to make fans for this to work.

8) we started at $50 a day and scaled up to a few hundred a day and still made it profitable. Every time we jumped the budget, it took a few months for the revenue to catch up and become profitable again.

9) enjoy the ride and appreciate every win! Set short term goals and celebrate every milestone! It’s a long haul, make it fun!

Feel free to ask any questions, happy to try to help.

Most artist focus way too much on promotion and not nearly enough time on consistently entertaining their audience.

They might incessantly promote songs and shows, but that’s actually kills their brand. They become the “artist that is constantly asking me to do stuff for them” brand. Nobody likes that person.

Imagine it like this. When you first meet someone, you don’t trauma dump or try to sell them on something. That comes across as too much too soon (that’s promo too soon).

You lead with positivity, humor, and your own unique special sauce. (that’s marketing and rapport building)

The key is to be authentic, but put steroids on what makes you unique and entertaining. After all, art isn’t a oneway conversation.

While it’s important to promote, it’s even more important to build a strong brand with a foundational marketing strategy designed to built rapport and trust with listeners.

Most online services and YouTube gurus focus on promotion because it’s much easier to utilize templates. True marketing requires a customized approach, because each artist’s brand needs careful design and their fans are unique.

If you’re an artist thinking all you need to do is write “good” music and submit it to playlists, publications, and run Spotify ads…respectively you’re missing the whole point.

Fans love the music of course, but they come back because of the feeling your brand gives them. Not how much promo is done.

Beyonce makes women feel powerful. Bob Dylan makes fans feel self righteous.

This is why fans want personality as much, if not more than, songs. They smell an elongated transaction from a mile away and hate to be asked to do things all the time.

For the next 6-months, try focusing mainly on content that entertains your audience. People have seen the person strumming a guitar video a thousand times already. Think more about how they can get to know you, without making boring talking head videos. Show, don’t tell!

SIMPLE RULE

• Brand is trust... the shorthand promise in their mind: "if l engage with this, I'l feel...”

• Marketing is rapport building by delivering on the brand consistently.

• Promotion is an invite to go deeper...the thing we invite people to do.

A strategy should be 90% marketing and 10% promotion.

Get those in the right order, and things flow. Reverse them, and everything feels uphill.

As always, happy to answer questions below. Otherwise good luck! :)

As most of you know, later this week TikTok is set to be banned from the US markets. As one of the most influential sources of traffic for the music world, this is most certainly going to leave a mark. But don’t fret! I’m here to walk you through all of the next steps you need to take to carry over any momentum you have going on TikTok right now.

First Thing’s First: Inform your audience. Fans want to feel connected to the bands and brands they follow. They’re also going through this, so gal the time to make a video sharing how this is making you feel, the impact it’ll have on you, and some ways your fans can continue to support you (more on this later). People will value the authenticity far more than a post along the lines of “TikTok is getting banned, follow me somewhere else!”.

Next up, let’s figure out where you’re going. We’ll split this up into what you can do for yourself and what platforms you might want to consider moving to.

What you can do for yourself: This is the perfect time to re-think your marketing strategy, especially if it was heavily dominated by TikTok. If there’s one thing that this is teaching us, it’s that it’s important to own the channels you use to stay in touch with your audience. There’s plenty of ways that you can stay in touch with your audience that AREN’T social media and can’t be taken away by a company. Look into setting up a website where you can have a blog, links to streaming services, a merch store, and tour schedules. Also, look into setting up email and SMS lists to be able to guarantee that the people who want to hear from you can hear from you no matter what. An honorable mention (since it relies on a company) is setting up a Discord channel. Discord channels allow your community to develop more passively without any input from you, because other people are making the connections for you.

What platform you should move to: Consistency is the greatest factor when it comes to content creation. If you’re able to produce longer form video easily and on a weekly basis, can maintain a somewhat higher video production level, and have any interest in ever doing livestreams, you should be prioritizing YouTube. It’s the one platform that covers short form, long form and live video all in one and lets you capitalize on the growth from all 3 on one channel. If you found success on TikTok more through your humor and don’t think you can sustain making longer form videos every week, Meta is going to be your best bet. Reels will fill the void for short form, brain rot content that people were going to on TikTok in a better way than YouTube will, so doubling down on your efforts here instead of spreading yourself too thin will probably be your best bet.

I’ll try to respond to some comments if anyone has questions/more specific use cases that need some more nuance, but don’t be afraid! Art will always prevail.

I released my debut single as an independent artist about 10 days ago (artist name: K. Mase) and I’m trying to get a sense of whether the early response is decent or if I’m missing obvious growth opportunities.

So far I’ve done very little promotion outside of the initial release posts. My social media following is pretty small, and I haven’t run any paid ads yet.

A few observations from the first ~10 days:

• Instagram and TikTok haven’t gained much traction yet • YouTube Shorts has been performing noticeably better • The track has landed on a handful of playlists and picked up a solid number of saves • Feedback on the record itself has been overwhelmingly positive (which is great, but also makes me wonder if I’m leaving exposure on the table)

At this point I’m trying to figure out what the smartest next step is to actually scale things from here - more Shorts? ads? influencer outreach? playlist pitching?

Would love honest feedback on: 1. Whether these early numbers look healthy for a first release 2. What you would prioritize next in terms of promotion 3. And genuine feedback on the song itself

Here’s the track title if anyone wants to give it a listen

“Levels Don’t Speak” - K.Mase

Appreciate any thoughts.

Heyyy, so this will be the second time we have done this, but it worked out wonderfully the first time, so here goes.

First things first, we are not exactly successful, we have 2300 monthlys on Spotify, 30k on insta, and 7k on Tik tok, and easily reach a few million people a month, but we have been at this awhile.

We don't charge anything to go through your socials and at the very least you will get a new monthly listener, because listening to your music is free and new music is the best thing about being in this industry.

We don't offer anything paid, at all, this is just to network and to tell people about the changes we wished that someone would have told us when we were starting out.

Again, we don't have some website where we charge you a bunch of money to develop a brand identity or something idiotic like that, we are in the trenches building a music career same as you, so please be patient if we don't get to you right away!

Edit: this post is specifically directed at people who have uploaded a few songs, have no listeners, and don’t think there’s anything they can do about that. The further along you get, the more external factors come in to play and the more advertising and networking becomes important. Before you get to that point, there is a lot you need to do on your own that almost nobody who comes here whining is doing.

Lots of people come post here frustrated that their music is not being heard, sometimes asking for advice but mostly lamenting that the algorithms are not favoring them as though this is completely out of their control.

The truth is that the algorithm is FAIR. It does not care about who your dad is, it does not care about how much money you spent on your album, it is not rolling dice to decide who gets to blow up today and who gets zero listeners.

The algorithms ONLY CARE ABOUT HOW USERS INTERACT WITH YOUR CONTENT. Do people listen to your song all the way through? Do people watch your whole tiktok? Do they save it, do they share it with their friends, do they leave a comment? This is all the algorithm cares about.

All of those things are fully in your control in one way or another. There is no luck, and they don't even really hide this data from you. You can go on your tiktok account right now, sort your videos by views, look at how long people stay on the video and when they scroll away.

If your music is not catching on, if your tiktok posts are not performing well, it's not because the algorithm doesn't like you. It's because the platforms USERS are not responding well to your content, so the algorithm is not pushing to more people.

Hard questions to ask yourself.

1. Is my music actually GOOD? Not just competent, not just did I work really hard on it, but is it GOOD? Is somebody going to hear it once and feel like they need to make sure they listen to it again later, or go to your profile and listen to your full album? If you are not making good music, absolutely nothing you do to market it is going to work. All marketing can do is put ears and eyeballs on your music. The music itself has to do the job of converting those views into fans.

2. If you believe your music is good and your posts and releases are still performing poorly, there is something wrong with how you are marketing your music, and the good news is that you CAN fix it! If you have good music and people who hear it become fans, you just need to do a better job of getting more people to hear it. You need to be scientific about this. Go study other artists who have blown up recently in your genre - what did they do? What do their tiktoks look like? Study the lighting, the angles, the part of the song they use, the text on the screen, how they funnel people to their Spotify, etc.

Once you've gathered this data, it's time to experiment. Record yourself performing your song. Record yourself lip syncing to your song. Do it outside. Do it in your studio. Do it in your laundry room. Do it in your car. Try some high angles. Try some low angles. Have someone hold the camera. Put the camera on a tripod. Colored lights. Regular lights. No lights. How can you make the background more interesting? How can you dress more interesting? How can you move in a way that catches peoples attention? Try posting different parts of your song.

If one of your posts does better than the others, that isn't luck - something about that post was better. Figure out what it was and do more of it.

I have not perfected any of this, this rant is directed at me as much as it is at you - the main point I want to get across is that YOU are in control of your success or failure and the algorithm is just a mirror. All it does is tell you whether the real humans on the other end of the line are picking up what you're putting down.

We talked to some local groups and they wanted a fortune. The playlist promotion websites are a joke. She submitted her songs and got a half-assed rejection letter. There goes that money. One website essentially markets a 30% approval rate. Or others are definitely spamming their accounts.

I think the playlist idea is great, but it’s definitely not in the artist’s favor. I told her I should build something better.

We’ve been using Playlist Push for almost 5 years. We’ve had some great success with it, but also, lots of disappointment.

Fine, let’s say it’s the music’s fault. But things have changed significantly over the last few years.

We have a song from almost a year ago that got onto 18 playlists, a record for us.

As of this posting, here’s the stream numbers from those playlists for that song on Spotify: 4612. One year. And here’s the stream count outside of those playlists (i.e., our own playlists, Spotify-generated playlists, our followers): 20,458.

The most astonishing part: the Playlist Push playlists have an (allegedly) combined following of 370,375 people. Yet, 4612 streams. Hmmmm.

Two suspicions:

1. Most of these playlists have an inflated, non-existent following.
2. Playlist Push gets an insane amount of submissions, so songs no longer have a fair chance of reasonable exposure, in that most listeners won't scroll thru 100 or more songs of a playlist filled with unknown artists.

This all worked better years ago. Now we find, it’s just a very-expensive way to get 30-50 mini-reviews for a song.

But what alternatives are there? We’ve tried (and been disappointed by): MembersMedia, PromoSoundGroup, PollyPromo, YouGrow, MediaMister, PlaylistOwl. Etc. 

Ultimately, It’s almost impossible to promote one’s music in the current era; too many artists trying to squeeze thru too few doors.

We’re open to ideas! But realize that, without the resources of a label, and/or an insane budget (plus some all-important luck), it’s rough sailing out here.

EDIT: I reached out to Playlist Push, and they heard my concerns. Not a magic fix, but, for me, they're still the best option for chasing playlisters & streams. It's just... there's SO much content out here. The 'music business' is a tough game, but it is what it is 🤷

DM for tips and advice. Had to grind for this view. Was sick and tired of being hungry. Had to strategize and really be about this chicken. So I locked in, and you can lock in to. See above referenced results.

Results first :)

My strategy is kinda simple but i’ll tell you anyways because I see a lot of people are dumb in marketing your music.

I just create hundreds of ads a month, I’ll probably create around 200-400 ads a month.

Post 6-9 a day on tiktok across 2-3 accounts.

The winning ads I run ads for them in meta ads. No, I don’t do “promote tiktok” or “boost reel”, that’s just a waste of money lol.

Btw, I got tired of making 200-400 ads a month and having a team for it so I started building something for that.

Ask me anything you want!

Hi. I’m Adam and I run a small artist development company that builds careers for music artists. This is not a promo post, I’m trying to give you free information. Here’s some background so you know I’m not full of garbage. Nobody we work with is mainstream famous; all our successful independent clients have full time livings on music and generate millions of views and thousands of followers and $$$ a month. We have been in business for almost five years and we have 100ish clients.

I am not sharing links on this post as the moderation will take the post down if I do.

This is information we have collected over the last five years of holding these meetings with artists and holding introductory consultations with potential clientele. It’s also information that’s been measured against repeated long term follow up- IE I will reach back out and check in with people I spoke to years ago. We track careers. Inside and outside our client list.

Here’s the two most common traits of failing artists:

1- they are chronic overthinkers, obsessed with doing everything right, and are terrified of the unknown. This results in an extreme risk aversion and low self esteem. They also view other people as threats.

Self protection as the highest priority.

Most of them invent reasons that feel legitimate (work being busy, kids being needy, spouse, economy, election season, a different business idea, etc etc) up to and including telling themselves they don’t actually want a career.

Deflection and excuses and ego about. This is anti-growth. Not surprising these types of artists go nowhere. Very difficult for us to help as well since there’s no investment in helping themselves.

If this is your rethink your life and who you have chosen to be. The solution is becoming an action-taker and learning to enjoy failure.

2- they have no idea what the value proposition of their art is. Here’s how the conversation looks:

Me - “What does your art do for the life of the person hearing it? How does it tangibly influence their decisions and impact their daily decision making?”

Artist - “they feel less alone and related to, the music is authentic and creative”

Me - “you are defining what art is, every artist I worked with in the last five years said something like this to me before we took them as a client- this is not a unique value proposition”

You job is to serve people with your storytelling and art. That’s what people pay for. If you cannot clearly define how this happens you don’t know what you’re selling. If you can’t tell someone what you’re selling you aren’t going to sell it.

Usually artists who don’t believe in themselves and have low self esteem ego protective behavior do not know the answer to this question because it demands they think of others instead of themselves. They don’t know how to do that well.

They also don’t believe they have what it takes so saying “I can change your life” feels untenable because they can’t even change their own life.

Out of over 10,000 calls these are the most common problems I run into. At literally every level of the game.

The solution is the same for both: start thinking about how you want your life to impact others, and do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Then act like it. Even if it isn’t perfect. Use every tool you can to make the lives of others better through your art and storytelling.

Content, songs, shows, community etc.

If you can do that well, then when you ask for compensation, the yes is a no brainer for your audience and now you’re getting paid.

Hope this helped.

Hi I’m Adam and I run an artist development company. We serve 100 or so clients and we meet with them weekly to track progress and teach new skills. One of our major focus areas is content and since we have our clients make like 10-20 pieces of TikTok content per week we have a lot of data on what works.

Here’s the two universal indicators that content won’t go viral.

1: you’re terrible at hooks. Really, really strong content can be absolutely obliterated by a bad hook. You get two seconds for someone to judge your content before they swipe. Better make it count.

2: (this is the most common issue)

You literally think everything is about you and the point of your content is for people to see you.

It’s not.

The point of content is to create connection and deliver value. It is to generously share our creative energy and life experience with strangers who will be made better by it.

“But my art does that and they need to watch the content to see the art!!!” literally this is like saying “I know I’m a selfish boyfriend/girlfriend but they need to marry me to know I’m a great partner!”

Nobody is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Everything you do needs to be about joyfully giving and serving others. Content is the first place this starts because it’s where the relationship begins.

If your heart isn’t here, it’s going to be impossible to go viral because you’re gonna come across as self serving and self protective. This is egoic and nobody wants to be around it.

Think biggest friends and family audience in the world. Content should be connective, real, fun, meaningful, rewarding. Just like being friends with someone.

If your audience knows they’re going to get that from you they’ll do anything you say. Listen to songs, go to shows, buy merch etc etc.

It’s the best way to build the biggest and most loyal friends and family audience in the world.

Go be real. Share yourself fully.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been experimenting with music marketing for about 3 years, mostly trying to understand what actually drives sustainable Spotify growth (not just short-term stream spikes). I wanted to share a real campaign breakdown from my latest release, “No Good At Love,” in case it helps others.

Background (What Didn’t Work at First)

Early on, I focused heavily on playlisting (Groover, SubmitHub, etc.), usually spending around $200 per track. It worked in the short term — streams would spike — but once the playlists expired, streams dropped sharply.

What I later realized:

• Playlist traffic often comes with high skip rates
• Low saves
• Low streams per listener

My first album eventually seemed to get de-prioritized by Spotify’s algorithm, which I believe was due to weak engagement signals.

From everything I’ve studied and tested, Spotify seems to care far more about:

• Save rate
• Streams per listener
• Return behavior (library plays, catalog exploration)

In short: does the song keep people on the platform and bring them back?

Shift in Strategy (What Started Working)

Last year, I began running Meta ads using a standard conversion setup (similar to Andrew Southworth’s approach). This finally started driving organic Spotify traffic, not just paid streams.

However, a problem remained:

The Fix: Playlist-First Funnel

Instead of sending ads to a single track, I created a playlist of my own music:

• Newest release at the top
• Older releases stacked underneath

I tested this from March–December 2025 at ~$5/day and noticed:

• Older songs began receiving Spotify Radio
• Occasional Discover Weekly
• More consistent catalog traffic

This convinced me that playlist-first ads are key for long-term growth.

2026 Strategy (Higher Quality + Consistency)

This year I decided to treat my music like a serious business:

• Professional production
• Professional mixing & mastering
• Co-writes when needed
• Collabs / co-releases
• Professional cover art

The goal: remove quality as a limiting factor.

I produced 12 tracks and planned a 4-week release cycle.

Campaign Breakdown: “No Good At Love”

Release date: Jan 15, 2026
Meta ads: Conversion campaign to a smart link (Spotify primary)

Day 6 (Pre-Release Radar)

Right before Spotify’s Friday algorithm update:

• 916 streams
• 424 listeners
• 2.18 streams per listener
• 177 saves (~42% save rate)
• 137 playlist adds
• 13% algorithmic traffic

This was the key checkpoint I was aiming for:

Day 7 (Post-Release Radar Push)

The very next day:

• 1,405 streams
• 794 listeners
• 1.77 streams per listener
• 205 saves
• 166 playlist adds
• 37% algorithmic traffic

Spotify clearly expanded testing — and the song held up after exposure.

Day 12 (Current Data)

Now 12 days post-release:

• 2,588 streams
• 1,369 listeners
• 1.89 streams per listener
• 276 saves (~20.2% save rate)
• 224 playlist adds
• 46% algorithmic traffic

Algorithmic sources included:

• Release Radar: 837 streams
• Radio: 272 streams

Importantly, streams per listener increased after algorithmic exposure, which suggests the song retained replay value.

Geography (Unexpected Signal)

Top countries:

1. Germany – 750 streams
2. USA – 559
3. UK – 242
4. Brazil – 148
5. Canada – 129

Germany was not directly targeted in my ads, which suggests Spotify identified it as a strong market for this style (emotional pop) and expanded there algorithmically.

Ad Spend Breakdown

Most spend was front-loaded:

• $150/day × 2 days
• $85/day × 2 days
• $50/day × 2 days
• Then stabilized at $30/day

At this point, algorithmic streams now exceed paid traffic, so ads are mainly reinforcing momentum rather than carrying the song.

Key Takeaways

1. Saves and replay matter more than raw stream count
2. Playlist-first ads help prevent older songs from dying
3. Front-loading ad spend can help trigger algorithmic testing
4. Algorithmic traffic compounds when engagement holds
5. Spotify may identify markets you didn’t target if signals are strong

This release sets me up well for my next drop, where I’ll be directing ads to a playlist with this song in the #2 position to keep the snowball rolling.

I’ll likely check back in after ~30 days with a longer-term update.

Side note: I have been posting on IG, TikTok, and YouTube twice a week, but social performance hasn’t been strong yet — most traction is coming directly from Spotify + ads.

Hope this helps someone trying to cut through the noise. Happy to answer questions or hear other perspectives.

fame itself works like an exponential force of attention. Listening to a song by someone with 600 instagram followers doesn’t feel the same as listening to one by an artist with thousands of flashy likes and comments, the listener’s level of attention shifts completely.

Fame makes people pay more attention, and honestly, it makes sense in these capitalistic times. If someone posts a photo with Billie Eilish, they know they’ll get attention and likes, simply because they’re associated with her. It’s economically beneficial for the audience, too. talking about famous people increases their chances of getting attention.

benefits of living in India. I can market my album with meta ads and cpc is AWESOME. 1-3INR per conversion (0.05USD approx)

I understand Indian streams pay less but I make music in hindi and live in India.

Feeling happy

Hey there! Me again. I talk a lot here about scaling content creation and account strategy but have lately been getting a lot of questions (and seeing posts on here) about view restrictions and shadowbans.

Context: I went from 1-30K monthly listeners on Spotify by running the multiple account strategy with a combination of b-roll, performance clips, and lyric pages. At this point I have spoken to or helped hundreds of artists run this strategy and am very familiar with all the pitfalls associated with doing so.

So without further ado:

WHAT IS A TIKTOK SHADOWBAN?

A shadowban is when your account suddenly starts getting significantly less views (sub 100) on TikTok because the algorithm has detected suspicious or low quality activity - your content is no longer being shown to the broader public and is localized specifically to your followers.

WHAT CAUSES A SHADOWBAN AND HOW DO I PREVENT IT?

Typically shadowbans are caused by some combination of the following factors:

IF I GET SHADOWBANNED IS MY ACCOUNT COOKED?

It depends but largely no - shadowbans usually go away within a few days if the issues are addressed and you keep posting content consistently. Sometimes a single post will be shadowbanned and the next one will be totally fine. That said, if you've been posting for a week or so and everything is still restricted it might be time to evaluate your content more holistically or start a new account.

Happy to answer any questions as always!

Edit: Downvoters? Really?

Dudes here is a video of me opening someone's ad in Instagram from mobile (Android) and very clearly their landing page. The Spotify link doesn't load the Spotify app, it loads in the FB browser and it has the Open Spotify button at the top right that redirects you to the app store page for Spotify.

Here are two video examples, all that used landing pages, and all that do not load the Spotify app but instead redirect the user to the app store download page for Spotify.

Video 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YGRrls9ekyMokNye6wGVOWTvYPpVJ6pN/view?usp=drive_link

Video 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YFLXy6n4DPJ8M-2tve2xClEYpafd9K3-/view?usp=sharing

People saying this works have never actually tested it. It does not work! Anyone running these ads is wasting their money advertising the download page for Spotify, not their own music.

Original post:

Okay so I commented on a recent thread someone made about using FB Meta Ads to promote a song on Spotify and I pointed out FB has made it so all links open in their internal browser, which means links to Spotify might go to your web page for your song / artist profile / playlist etc however if anyone tries to hit the Open app button, it takes them to a link to open the App stores to download the Spotify app (even if its already installed) and does not auto open the link in their actual Spotify app.

This means they cannot favorite your song, follow you or add songs to playlists, etc while using a Facebook app.

The poster replied that only targeting Instagram ensures the links to a Spotify song opens in the app. Well I just tested this and confirmed that no, opening any link from Instagram also opens FB's craptastic internal browser and will never open the Spotify app either. It just opens the app store download page for the Spotify app.

So I don't see how anyone is getting any real traffic from using Facebook (Meta) ads regardless of whether its on Instagram or not.

This also applies to using any URL redirecting as well, because no matter what it's going to send you to that Spotify web browser page that will never open the Spotify app, only ever directing users to the Spotify app download page in an app store.

This seems to be a combination of FB's internal browser (which never stays logged in to anything) and Spotify themselves directing people to the app store links based on your mobile device. So it's unavoidable. All you end up doing is paying to advertise the Spotify app.

tl:dr FB / IG ads are useless for promoting Spotify links, no matter what anyone is claiming. Test it yourself, it will never open the Spotify app up meaning people have to take the time to close FB / IG and then look up your music manually in the Spotify app.

All you're doing is paying to promote the Spotify app download page, not your own music.

As another piece of advice, links in a YouTube video description and comments will not load on mobile devices at all, so pinning a comment to the top of your music videos on your YT channel only helps you when people are watching from a browser. However linking to Spotify songs / artist profile / albums in your main channel links area will indeed open the Spotify app up. This is kind of frustrating though considering YT promotion is another cheap way to rack up lots of streams, if only the links would load on mobile.

These platforms are so different than how they used to be. They are clamping down on ways for people to leave their platforms, making their ad systems less and less useful in the process.

Update:

I've done a test ad over the past few days. Out of 1,393 link clicks from the FB ad, the HyperFollow landing page got 1,052 visitors.

And exactly 0 listens to the song.

Other test ads promoting playlists resulted in the same thing. 0 favorites despite thousands of clicks to the landing page.

And guess what? The FB ads themselves have hundreds of 'likes', and even comments from people digging the songs, as these are video ads playing music being advertised.

So, as I cannot repeat the claimed successes of people using FB / IG ads methods they claim results in Spotify traffic to their songs, I'm going to say people claiming they are getting tons of success from Facebook ads are blatantly lying (not terribly surprising considering almost everyone claiming these results are offering paid promotion services).

And the reason is obviously because of how FB sends the traffic to Spotify page that doesn't open the app and people's reluctance to login to their Spotify account through the FB browser, mostly because of the enormous button at the top of the page directing people to the app stores instead.

Too many artists can't build relationships with their fans because they promote more than they build relationships. Before you start pushing your music out to the world, artists must have a clear understanding of these three pillars:

1) BRANDING: (spans a career)
Your vibe/personality. It sets you apart and is the emotional connection that makes fans remember you over the span of the project or your career. Share content that reinforces your identity—your vibe, visuals, and values. Accounts for 10–20% of content.

Post idea: A post that shows your values and what makes you unique, like fashion style.
Metrics: engagement time, likes, saves, shares

2) MARKETING: (spans months - years)
Your long-term strategy. Connects with fans and nurtures those relationships consistently. Focus on relationship-building through storytelling, behind-the-scenes updates, and consistent engagement. This is where trust grows. Accounts for 60–70% of content.

Post Idea: A behind-the-scenes look at writing or recording a new song, with text overlays sharing your thoughts during the process.
Metrics: engagement time, likes, saves, shares

3) PROMOTION: (spans days - weeks)
The push. It’s about making noise to inspire action, but noise without trust is just spam. Highlight new releases, tours, or merch. Harness the trust you’ve built through marketing to drive action, not just attention. Accounts for 20–30% of content.

Post Idea: Announcing your new single or concert tickets with a clickable link.
Metrics: clicks

Hope this helps!
:)

Hi. I’m Adam and I am here to tell you exactly how to go full time as a creator. Organically. Without spending money on ads or stupid ass botted promo shit.

All my knowledge comes from running the best independent artist development company in the game. I’ve been at this for six years. I don’t work with famous people and I don’t have huge industry creds. I have some of those people working for me, but I came from nothing, nowhere Ohio and I’m not an industry guy.

I do have over 100 clients, many of whom make a solid living ($50k-$100kyr) as an artist. Many of whom I’ve built from zero. Most of whom go viral every week and reach millions per month. I also have worked with a handful of small indie labels.

This isn’t a self promo, and I’m not gonna drop links to anything of mine in this post. If someone wants to verify who I am they can send me a message. I’m here to help and that’s it.

OKAY. Here is how this works. This is a long fucking post.

1- you need to know what this is actually about- what you’re selling, and how to sell it if you want to make money.

You do not need a label to give you an advance and most likely you wouldn’t know what to do with it if that happened anyway.

You are selling YOURSELF. You are not selling the music. There are 100,000 songs that go on Spotify per day last I checked. People don’t need more songs.

What people do need is art, stories, and RELATIONSHIPS with people that make their life better. You need to know how your music and your story creates actual value for other people- in ways they aren’t getting it right now. Art is storytelling. Nobody cares what plugin or DAW or instrument or recording technique you used (except for other musicians) but they do care how it makes them feel and how those feelings create TANGIBLE IMPROVEMENT in their life.

This needs to be unique. “I want people to feel less alone because my music is relatable” is not a value prop. Everyone says that. Less alone in what? Relatable in what way? How is that any different than what they already listen to? Ask “what do I mean by this” 50 times until you’re at the bottom layer.

If you can’t get real and vulnerable with yourself this won’t work and you’ll have no value prop.

2- Content is for creating relationships, not for making asks.

The reason nobody listens to your song after you make 74629384 TikTok posts saying “hey my song is out please stream it!” Is because you are doing the social media equivalent of running up to people with a CD player and asking them if they want to hear you.

They don’t. It’s annoying. You are beginning your relationship by making an ask. This is bad people skills.

Showing people who don’t know your song how you made it also makes no sense. Have you ever bought an industrial pressure cooker? No? Wanna see how we make them anyway? Maybe you’ll buy one! Yeah, not gonna happen. This is what you’re doing.

Your content should be about two things:

What you LOVE to create on TikTok / Reels / Shorts

What tangible value people get by watching it and why they need that value, right now.

That’s it.

You need to make videos the same way you make songs. Get experimental. Get weird. Get vulnerable. Have a shit ton of fun. Post everything. You need reps. You need to exercise this muscle over and over. You need to make so much content so quickly that nobody can ignore you. This is the only way to get good at it.

If you promote videos you are promoting content that doesn’t perform organically which means it’s bad content. The algorithm is designed to push good content; people who work for my company used to work at TikTok. I didn’t make this up.

Promote stuff that’s already viral to make it more viral. Only way this works well for you.

The goal of content is to make people love being around you. Think biggest friends and family audience in the world. This is the deepest level of connection you can forge with an audience and it’s the type of connection that will make them buy.

3- you need systems and processes and structure.

Two types of systems: personal management and business management. I’m gonna start with personal.

You need to take care of your body and your time and your energy and your mind. You need to stop being addicted to substances. You need to be in the gym. You need good nutrition and hydration. You need rest and consistent sleep. Cut toxic people out. Kill your ego. Be at your best and ready to learn, act, implement, and move regardless of risk.

This is a competitive industry and you need every advantage.

You have to be consistent at all of this. Simple.

Business systems are also simple.

Once you know who you are, what you’re offering, and how to go viral, you’re going to reverse engineer it and practice doing it again and again. Congrats, you now have an awareness process. You know you have a good process when you can generate tens of thousands of followers per month.

You’re gonna take whatever generated awareness and retool it to convert for engagements and asks. Buy my merch, listen to my song, join my discord, whatever. There needs to be paid asks at this point.

Then you’re gonna reverse engineer that and do it again and again.

Once you get a little money coming in from this you’re going to look at how long it takes, identify weak points, and make it more efficient to convert more quickly. This is where you start delegating. Or removing tasks that don’t work.

Rinse and repeat until you’re at $50k-$60k … once you go past that all your processes will break and you’ll have to design them again.

It’s incredibly time consuming and energy intensive to do this but I’ve seen it done and I’ve made it happen for a bunch of my people.

Labels come with a lot of the tools to build this stuff baked in but whether or not they actually give a shit about using them is another matter.

There are a million tiny supplemental posts I could make about all of this, very very basic overview here.

Let me know if this was helpful.

If you spend any time on social media, you’ve seen them: high-budget snippets from Lil Uzi Vert, lo-fi clips from Laufey, or heritage content from the George Harrison estate.

The common assumption is that these are just "digital billboards" thrown up by major labels. But when you look at the technical side, where the buttons actually lead you see a very specific strategy designed to manipulate the modern algorithm.

Here is how the biggest names in music are using Meta Ads right now.

1. The "Ghost Curator" Play (The Spotify Secret) The most surprising trend in 2026? Even Spotify doesn’t just rely on its own app. They use Meta to find listeners, but they don't always do it under their own brand name. This is icing on the key given Spotify was recently running a series of leads campaigns on Meta, promoting their Native Spotify Ads platform.. claiming it's the best place to advertise music for artists (obviously not)..

The Strategy: We found an account called indiedailyuk running ads for the Fresh Folk editorial playlist. This account has zero posts and almost no followers. It’s a "mock" account.

The Goal: Even the giants know that a recommendation from a "Curator" feels more authentic than a corporate ad. They are driving traffic from Meta to boost their own internal playlists, proving that off-platform traffic is still the #1 signal for the Spotify algorithm to trigger editorial growth.

Destination Strategy: Where is the traffic going?

In 2026, the "Listen Now" button isn't a one-way street. Depending on the artist's goal, the destination changes completely. We've identified three main routes:

Some ads never leave the app. Instead of sending you to Spotify, they send you to the song’s audio page within Instagram or Facebook.

• The Goal: These artists (especially Uzi and Sleep Token) aren't chasing a $0.003 stream. They want you to use the sound in your own Reels or Stories. By paying for traffic to their internal audio library, they are trying to trigger a viral trend from the inside out.

Other artists use a "bridge" page (Hypeddit, FeatureFM, or Linktree) to capture your data before you ever hit Spotify.

• The Goal: Laufey and Hozier want the Pixel data. If you click through their landing page, they now "own" you as a data point. They can retarget you for tour tickets or merch later, long after you’ve finished streaming the song.

Occasionally, you will see a direct link to a music video, as seen with The Gorillaz linking directly to YouTube. This is usually reserved for visual-heavy brands where the "World Building" of the video is more important than a single stream.

• The Strategy: A-Trak and Elton John are using "studio-native" footage.
• The Logic: If a user watches 10 seconds of a studio "Walrus Moment," Meta's algorithm automatically tags them as a "music enthusiast" and finds more people just like them. The video is the targeting.

4. Cross-Platform & Merch Funnels

Finally, the biggest labels are using Meta and Reddit to drive high-margin revenue that covers the cost of the streaming ads.

• The Goal: Interscope uses Reddit to sell physical merch for Billie Eilish. Ed Sheeran's team is running ads specifically for platform exclusives like Amazon Music.
• The Lesson: Diversify. The pros are hitting every platform (Reddit, Amazon, Meta) and every revenue stream (Merch, Streams, UGC).

If you're still just "boosting" posts and hoping for the best, you're playing a 2018 game in a 2026 world..

Full Writeup : available on site (link removed to adhere to subreddit rules)

Good news guys, apparently if you spend more money you can potentially get more promotion. S tier recommendation from meta ads 😂

Artists, Managers, and Labels that understand how influence and parasocial relationships function at both a psychological and economic level are the players who will win in 2026.

Since the beginning of the 20’s, hundreds of thousands of new songs have been hitting Spotify every single week.

Millions of social media posts are uploaded every single day.

There has never been more noise on the market.

If we look at this in basic economic terms- supply has never been higher. It’s also never been easier or cheaper to cut high quality records- or put yourself out there in the market on social media. This homogenizes every release, every artist, every new song into more noise.

There is not a high demand for more noise.

Two things BREAK this paradigm- and successful artists and teams are executing with these principles in mind.

1 - The relationship impact (influence) the artist exerts over the audience is the actual product.

Influence has tangible impact. It is substantially easier to market and sell tangibles vs intangibles.

If it is clear that an artist makes art that is relevant for xyz reason, and it will change my life in xyz way, then its easier for the artist to sell that art. Life changing experiences are tangible. Ask anyone who’s ever seen Tony Robbins talk.

Most artists are selling on intangible emotion. “Listen to this if you’re going through heartbreak!”Poor value prop. What does this do for my life? No way to know. Scroll.

You can’t sell a feeling or a vibe easily. Building gap is basically impossible. Even if you do form connections with an audience, buy in on emotional resonance is low- you are going to get shallow conversions if any.

If we sell and market on the impact and influence of the artist, it is more likely we drive deep conversions because real life change is really tangible. We can get people to exchange time, money, and energy for something that measurably improves their life. Influence can and does serve this function well.

2 - the carrier wave for this influence is depth, vulnerability, and real connection.

The people really winning right now understand that the job description of an artist is not making music. The job description is being seen.

The best way to be seen is to be fully seen. Artists who are embracing their truest selves, telling real stories, being completely truthful, creative, open, and raw, form stronger connections than artists who try to hide behind the music.

Many artists won’t share more of themselves than just the art they make- because they “want to be about the music” but the critical miss here is that music isn’t about music. Music is about people and stories. Events. Experience.

Events and what we learn from those events change lives. Stories that feel real and art that feels real changes lives.

If we optimize our artists’ careers towards that deep connection and impact, our ARTISTS’ lives will change.

This is how we are building everything for our clients in 2026.

Physical media: CDs, cassette, vinyl

Online streaming: Bandcamp

Gaining new listeners: Non-commercial radio stations

Gaining new genuine fans: play more live shows

Pretty simple, let me know if you'd like me to dive deeper into any topic.