Breaking An Artist: The Roadmap
An artist can make $100,000 per year on streaming alone by having:
40 songs at 2,000 streams/day
or
80 songs at 1,000 streams/day
That's achievable without going viral on TikTok, paying influencers, or pitching to third-party playlists. It requires:
Great Music + A Solid Artist Brand + Capital + Strategic Advertising
That's the formula.
Having worked with 150+ indie artists and labels and spent over $750,000 in ad spend, these goals are obtainable with an estimated investment between:
$40,000 - $160,000
This projection is based on a brand-new artist, releasing a song/project a month
here's the proof
MOSAÉ
From 500 to 192,000 Monthly Listeners in 18 months
Total Spend To Date: $10,700
Catalog Daily Streams
MATTEO COLE
From 0 to 90,000 Monthly Listeners in 10 weeks (4 songs)
Total Spend To Date: $7,400
19,134 Playlist Adds
29,144 Song Saves
19,134 Playlist Adds
879 Fan Emails/Forever Saves
9,240 Spotify Followers
The Best Part? It's Guarenteed (Kinda)
Test, Test, Scale
Here's the hack. ONLY SPEND ON WHAT WORKS
Before a song is even uploaded to distributors, you can test it. Spend $50-100 on ads to see what the conversion cost is. If it's strong ($0.10 - $0.15), that's a song you can scale with. The guesswork is taken out of the equation, and you have a winning song. If the conversions are expensive, then you know that song (or content) doesn't warrant a big budget.
Test multiple demos and several pieces of content until you find one with the right indicators.
Then we run a campaign.
Campaign Overview
I. Pre-Release
Optimizes For: Pre-Saves, Followers, Emails, Forever Saves,
Actual
Total Spend: $403
Proportional
Total Spend: $5,000
+ 27,903 pre saves
+ 27,903 Spotify Followers
+ 5,050 Fan Emails
+ 5,050 Forever Saves
Case Study: Born Again (Album)
II. Post-Release
Optimizes For: Saves, Playlist Adds
Resuls (30 Days)
Total Spend: $1,935
- Single accounts for 38% of streams
- Recouped 1/3 of ad spend in first month
- 6.6 streams/listener
+ 4,600 Instagram followers
Case Study: Born Again (Album)
III. Playlists
i. Artist's Catalog
ii. Mood/Genre
iii. Label/Branded
These aren't 3rd party playlists
They are artist/label-owned
Advertising playlists increase streams per listener, help promote old records, and build a connection to similar artists and subgenres within the Spotify algorithm. These playlists often out stream Editroials (seen below)
The Big Picture
A new listener isn't the end goal, it's just the first step.
A long-term ad strategy means you dictate how, when, and what your audience sees. A cold audience turns into a warm audience of hundreds of thousands and millions of people who have now engaged with your brand. Alongside streaming (awareness) campaigns, we're introducing retargeting efforts to bring listeners down the funnel to the next step of fan engagement.
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Email/SMS sign-ups
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Merch Sales
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Digital Sales (exclusive content/early access)
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Live Concerts
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Online Events
Get In Touch
Due to the volume of submissions, we can't get back to everyone. If you don't receive a response, our team has decided not to proceed with your project.