Facebook Ads For Spotify Streams EXPOSED

Using Facebook ads for Spotify streams is probably the most common music marketing tool on Youtube. The problem is, it's all a scam.

Ready to make REAL progress in your music career? You need these tools:

[AndrewSouthworth]

I'm assuming i'm one of the 'evil YouTubers' you're talking about, so you probably won't listen to anything I have to say, but there are so many things wrong with your video. Apologies for the very long comment:

1. Anyone claiming that you will definitely make your money back from Spotify campaigns is straight up lying to you. You CAN make your money back, but I go out of my way to say that most songs will lose money. Ideally the songs that profit will profit enough to compensate for some of the losses, but the real value is the audience you're building. This is top of funnel fan acquisition.

2. The data you get from ad campaigns for Spotify is directly traceable. You should never take Meta's word for it. You get your meta conversion data, compare it to your landing page data, and then compare that to your Spotify for Artists data. If at any point the data doesn't make sense you should re-evaluate what you're doing and improve it. It's not as traceable as an email list growth campaign or merch campaign, but it is very obvious when these campaigns work and when they don't, unless you're a massive artist already.

3. It doesn't sound like you understand how bots work. Yes there are bots on social media, and on Spotify, but these are two independent services scammers run. The bots on IG don't magically have Spotify accounts they can jump to. If you're getting streams from your ads, they're real people. Also, the United States is the #2 biggest source of bot traffic in the world (look it up), so targeting just North America will not solve any bot problems, but using a conversion landing page will (assuming everything else is setup correctly).

4. The vast majority of streams you get from a Spotify conversion campaign happen AFTER the campaign is over. If you get 10k streams during a 1 month campaign typically 6 months out you'll have 20k and 12 months out you'll have 30k - all with no additional ad spend and with zero algorithmic playlists. I've shown this in dozens of case study videos over the years. If this didn't happen for you, you did something wrong.

5. You showed a screenshot from DistroKid analytics as 'proof' that this didn't work for you, and that it was all fake. Why didn't you show real time Spotify for Artists data? Why did you think it was fake? This type of data is crucial to actually knowing if your results were valid or not. Similarly you didn't really show any data for why your merch campaigns are actually working either. Not saying you're hiding anything but it gave me scam vibes with how little you show.

6. I'm a huge fan of artists running merch campaigns and email list growth campaigns and tour campaigns. These are not exclusive campaigns you can run, you can do them all. Some artists find certain things work better for them and i'm all for that discovery process. I did a 3 part video series on my free plus shipping and handling funnel a couple years back.

7. Related to that, not all artists want to become an e-commerce store. I've talked to so many artists about promoting merch and setting up funnels, and a lot of them just straight up have no interest in going down that path. Also for some artists it's a complete dead-end path. It really depends on the specific genre and demographic of that artist. For some artists the merch path makes the most sense and for others the streaming focus makes the most sense.

8. You said you had nothing to sell the viewer, but then at the end you directed us to the two affiliate links in your description. You're getting paid to promote these products. There is nothing wrong with getting paid but it really made me feel like there was an angle to this video, especially when you verbally said you have no skin in the game (when you do).

Now again, I don't know if you were going after me specifically with this video. But even if you weren't, you're still attacking one aspect of what I teach on my channel. Maybe these Spotify ads just aren't a good fit for your band, or maybe you did something wrong, but I can point to thousands of artists i've worked with that get great results from these Spotify campaigns. Several have gone from zero to pursuing music full time as a result of running these campaigns. For many more people, this was one piece of the puzzle that got their music project off the ground and opened the door to more opportunities.

[DawgTreyna]

The problem with marketing music is that most people try to market bad songs.

[CursalMusic]

Top 5 ways to succeed with music:
1. Live Gig / Shows
2. Make music in a genre is trending / pushed by algorithm
3. Focus on High Quality Mix / Master / Composition for all tracks, for example don't upload tracks that peak at -2 LUFS raw when its obvious that genre has more louder masters for example don't make EDM and master it at -14 LUFs, go more agressive for example -6 or -8 and let it turn your peaks down, but make your peaks louder than 0 because that's also standard.
3(2). Understand limits of tonal balance for example you can clip and have no issues if you have a lot of trebble and highs, but too much bass will distort a master if pushed too hard
4. Don't expect to succeed as a rapper if you just go in for studio sessions and are an amateur and buy beats online, lets be real unless you spend time honing a craft its super unlikely you will find success with only one or two skills, most successful artists are multitalented.
5. Don't give up and don't waste money on paying for courses, just sift through free resources and avoid stupid ads about "Do you want high quality streams, well we can get you on X playlists and your music will blow up" Playlists are BS, you need to make quality music and the algorithm will do the work for you it just takes time and playlists are full of bots 99% of time unless its organic user made ones.

[samuelesalvel]

I think that what we really miss is someone that authentically says that growing on music is not matter of getting hundreds of thousands of streams in one month, but actually putting a constant, endless effort of showing your project to the world for years and years. Always remember that who makes great numbers are always the exceptions, not the norm.
And the money you put on ads you should consider as already lost. I don't mean they're useless, but they're lost. Thinking of having your ad money back with streams is a high unrealistic expectation.
Getting 1-2 genuine followers per day constantly on socials (and/or spotify) for me is much more valuable than gaining thousands of streams in one week, that turns to zero the next month because I stopped my ads.

[Ray-Angel]

Hey dude, I've been a long time for your return. Thanks for all you do.

[Haveafewwords]

My problem with these 'gurus' is that they don't have any reviews for their so called agencies and so all we have to go on is the numbers they show on their channels. Obviously they only promote the huge successes and what we will never know is the number of failed campaigns in comparison. If they were doing good work it would be in their interest to get reviews from their customers so that's a huge red flag

@AndrewSouthworth for example doesn't tell us that his agency Forbid only take on a campaign for a minimum of $3K and they take a whopping 40% fee. So there are videos of his where he claims the band made a profit but fails to deduct his massive fee in the calculations therefore telling a blatant lie. It makes me sick when I see musicians trying to fake numbers to other musicians. Where is the sense of solidarity?

[ChicagoStyles]

yall talking about Andrew Southworth? real talk, a lot of what he talks about makes sense and has worked.

[n.f.w]

what are the countries to avoid when running conversion campaigns? If i'm targeting mostly western and european countries like australia, new zealand, america, canada, UK, France, Spain, Denmark etc etc would i see a lot of bots?

[alexibykovski]

Never ever bought a course. But also never ever had a conversion campaign that led to streams stopping after campaign is over.
Also 10k monthly is not even close to "giant". And if it dropped to where it was when the campaign is over - either your targeting is off or your music is not that good.
So it all sounds like bs on one bs to sell another bs 🤔

[YEOTTI]

Yes and no, ive gotten success from couple ad campaigns before.

[BigSpoonGaming]

I see Sonic Adventure 2 in the background. That game is epic! The next sonic movie is supposed to be taking inspiration from that game

[DannyMEA]

Interesting. One part that was not quite true though was streams dying after you shut off the ads. I had a song that was still building in discover weekly for a couple of months after I stopped running the ads. Personal experience right dur.

[traumlucke]

i remember in an older video you said you did one on one stuff, are you still doing that? if so i would be interested

[smileynoreally]

I'm preparing yo release a new single and I would like yo go all in on Ads, why? Because I want to increase my Instagram followers and streams so that I can attract a manager and the festivals in my niche which are exploding at the moment (conscious, high Vibes, hippie, positive affirmations music scene)

I don't have any interest in selling physical merch because of my regard for the environment and desire to create more material things that liter the earth.

If not ads then what do you sugguest? I'm looking to invest simply to grow my numbers not to make the money back on streams.

[Dihmarko]

I'm assuming you're still running ads to generate to generate awareness for your band, and then retargeting them with merch ads? Also, I think it's a lot easier for a metal band to sell merch than say a rapper because rock fans pride themselves with being the first ones on to something, Hiphop is a lot more trendy. I don't think I've ever seen someone wearing a shirt from an unsigned rapper ever.

[tracydyson]

The infomercial style marketing has ruined marketing in general. A lot of the music industry/marketing is to just throw it at the wall to see what sticks. Being scammed is the nature of all when you are looking for fame instead of building a solid musical business foundation for a career in music. The sad thing is that, most of all, these videos in these styles are fake, and the idea of the courses came from the pet rock ideology. Everything is a product, even the air we breathe, and we can sell it on the internet to make money. Success is your own choosing on what you want to sell, for people to buy, and deception is included in the price when you buy it.

[CursalMusic]

Simple fix: turn off audience networking = no more bots

[CANTstpWoNTstp]

its only a trap if you see it like a trap

[kookit-junior]

you're just a musician.you dont know much about music marketing, so you giving advice as a non professional says it all.

[HayterwaveMedia]

Havent done a campaign yet or bought a course, but i dont expect a campain to be profitable, but i also dont expect the streams to stop after the campaign, that just sounds like bad music or the wrong audience listening. I hughly doubt facebook ads are flooded woth bots like that. Ill come back in a year after i try these campaigns myself