Facebook Ads can be a powerful tool to reach new fans, grow your audience, and sell your music online. But how do you create effective and engaging ads that stand out from the crowd? In this article, you will learn how to use Facebook Ads to promote your music in six steps.
Before you start creating your ads, you need to have a clear goal in mind. What do you want to achieve with your ads? Do you want to increase your streams, downloads, or sales? Do you want to grow your email list, social media followers, or website traffic? Do you want to promote a specific song, album, or event? Having a specific and measurable goal will help you design your ads, target your audience, and track your results.
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Facebook Ads offer different formats to suit your goal and budget. You can choose from image, video, carousel, collection, or instant experience ads. Each format has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your content and message. For example, image ads are simple and cheap, but may not capture attention as much as video ads. Video ads are more engaging and dynamic, but require more production and editing. Carousel ads allow you to showcase multiple images or videos in one ad, which can be useful for highlighting different aspects of your music. Collection ads let you feature a video or image with a catalog of products, which can be handy for selling your merchandise. Instant experience ads are full-screen, interactive ads that load quickly and provide a rich user experience, but are more complex and expensive to create.
The most important factor when deciding which formats or placements to select is understanding the user experience. For example, 'sound on' is a typical user action with Instagram/FB Reels while it isn't with something like FB/IG Feed. If you want to exploit feed placements, you can try hardcoding the lyrics into the creative to try and entice the user to turn sound on. As a general rule, more placements equals more opportunities for the best possible cost per result. The industry standard placements for music are FB/IG Reels, Instagram Stories and FB/IG Feed.
The posting cycle at our record label is tailored to the target audience's habits, following a specific format: we start with a video (Post 1) to capture attention with dynamic content. Next, we use a carousel (Post 2) to explore various aspects of a theme or project. The third post focuses on social vision, highlighting values or causes associated with the artist. The fourth involves an element of the artist's career, such as milestones or achievements. This cycle repeats, maintaining engagement and content variety.
Once you have chosen your format, you need to create your content. This is the most important part of your ad, as it will determine how your audience will perceive and respond to your music. Your content should be relevant, attractive, and compelling. It should showcase your music in a way that reflects your style, personality, and value proposition. It should also include a clear and catchy headline, a concise and persuasive text, and a strong call to action. Your call to action should tell your audience what you want them to do next, such as listen, download, buy, or subscribe.
One thing I've found helpful with any campaign is including multiple variations of video assets. Typically, creative performance has the most impact on a conversion or any measurable outcome. In some cases, for larger campaigns, creative is truly the targeting. Things to optimize for are quartile views (consumption), cost per conversion or link click.
After you have created your content, you need to target your audience. This is the process of selecting who will see your ads based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and preferences. Targeting your audience will help you reach the right people who are likely to be interested in your music and take action. You can use Facebook's tools to create custom audiences, lookalike audiences, or core audiences. Custom audiences are based on your existing contacts, such as your email list, website visitors, or app users. Lookalike audiences are based on people who are similar to your custom audiences, such as your fans or customers. Core audiences are based on Facebook's data, such as age, gender, location, language, or hobbies.
We use the empathy map to define the target audience for our artists, a tool that allows us to dive deep into the needs and desires of potential listeners. This process involves identifying who these people are, what they value, their daily challenges, and how music can positively influence their lives. By understanding the audience's emotions and motivations, we can create more effective marketing strategies, develop content that resonates with them, and ultimately build a solid and engaged fan base. The empathy map is crucial for connecting authentically with the audience and ensuring our music reaches those who are most likely to become loyal supporters.
Typically, for conversion based objectives (e.g merch, ticket sales) utilizing first party data lists, custom audiences based on IG, FB engagements and followers are best for converting an audience into purchasers. For discovery leaning campaigns, as broad as you can make an audience group, while still being relevant will give you the best possible cost per result. As a bonus, utilize the 'narrow' function and a DSP (Apple Music or Spotify) to limit drop-off and drive directly to an artists album, playlist or single. Note: every time to add an intermediary like a splash page (linktree etc) you have drop-off. Remember, a click isn't a stream. A click, plus 30 seconds of song consumption is ??
Before you launch your ads, you need to set your budget and schedule. This is the process of deciding how much you want to spend and how long you want to run your ads. You can choose between a daily budget or a lifetime budget, depending on your goal and strategy. A daily budget is the amount you are willing to spend per day, while a lifetime budget is the amount you are willing to spend for the duration of your campaign. You can also choose between standard delivery or accelerated delivery, depending on how fast you want to reach your audience. Standard delivery will distribute your ads evenly throughout the day, while accelerated delivery will show your ads as quickly as possible.
The longer the duration of the campaign at a reduced spend per day will give you the best possible cost per result. There is an important caveat, you have to plan your budget to get out of the 'learning phase' for an ad set. To do this, calculate an average cost per action or conversation and make sure you have enough budget to reach the minimum threshold within the first 48 hours.
After you launch your ads, you need to monitor and optimize your performance. This is the process of measuring and improving your results based on your goal and metrics. You can use Facebook's tools to track and analyze your ad performance, such as impressions, reach, clicks, conversions, or revenue. You can also use Facebook's tools to test and optimize your ads, such as split testing, dynamic creative, or automatic placements. Split testing allows you to compare different versions of your ads to see which one performs better. Dynamic creative allows you to combine different elements of your ads, such as images, videos, headlines, or texts, and let Facebook optimize the best combination for each audience. Automatic placements allow you to let Facebook choose the best places to show your ads, such as Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Audience Network.
Start with a small budget, around $5 per day on multiple creatives. Leave it a few days and see which works at low spend. Turn off the poor converting ads. Then, gradually increase the budget for the performing ad. Remember to keep testing similar creatives to the performing ones.
Facebook remains the world's most accessed social network, boasting over 2 billion active users. For artists, especially targeting the audience aged 25 and above, being active on Facebook is crucial. This platform allows for a direct connection with fans through various formats like posts, live videos, and stories, enabling artists to share behind-the-scenes content, upcoming events, and new releases. Engaging with this demographic on Facebook can lead to increased visibility, fostering a community of loyal followers. Artists can leverage Facebook's robust analytics tools to understand their audience better and tailor their content accordingly, maximizing their reach and impact.