The 7 Best Automated Ad Platforms for Musicians
If you just want the list, here it is: For some background, keep reading… If you’re an indie artist who’s thought about marketing your music over the past few years, you’ve probably stumbled across the concept of Meta ads. At this point, you might even be tired of hearing about it, because music marketing people […]
Why I Use Spotify Even Though They Do Bad Things
All right, fine: I’ll write about my ethical stance on Spotify. I don’t particularly want to; ethics is the sort of topic that inclines itself toward being preached rather than discussed, and I don’t fancy myself a good (or credible) preacher. Also, there are very few hills on which I’d be willing to die, and […]
Intellijend Review: I Spent $150, Here’s What Happened
I’m not the best person to review Intellijend. If you’re someone who is currently going, “Great but what the heck is Intellijend?” then here’s some quick context: Intellijend is a platform to help artists more easily run Meta ads for music streams. It’s just like the 306 other automated platforms that purport to do this […]
Are Playlisting Campaigns Worth It In 2025?
“Should I run a playlisting campaign?” I got this question last week from a client for whom we’re running ads. (Actually I get this question most weeks, which is why I’m going to answer it here.) This person’s campaign had been going pretty well, but they wanted to take things up a level, and they […]
AI Music Is Bad.
Here’s my hot take for today: It is a bad thing to use AI to make music. I’m preaching to the choir, probably. You’re nodding your head right now: “Yes, it is a bad thing. Music was so much better when it was made by humans, hand-stitched note by note like my gran’s afghan.” Well, […]
I spent $10,000 marketing my own music. Here’s what I learned.
One year ago, I released the first song on a three-song EP. My goal, plucked from thin air as a marketing exercise and vanity project, was to drive one million streams of the EP within the first year of its release. Well, one year later, the final results are in. The project is sitting at […]
SymphonyOS Review: My Results After Spending $100 on Automated Ads
I’ve been trying a bunch of automated advertising platforms recently. If you’re advertising your own music, you’re probably familiar with the sort of platforms I’m talking about. But in case you’re not, here’s the gist: Automated ad platforms take care of the complicated parts of advertising, so all that’s left for you to do is […]
You’re not missing out.
It’s pretty funny to meet people who’ve followed me online for a while. This happens to me most weeks now. I’ll have a call with someone who’s interested in hiring us to run ads, and on the first few minutes of the Zoom, they’ll say something like: “Wow, it’s so great to talk to you, […]
SubmitHub Meta Ads Review: I Spent $112, Here’s What Happened.
You may have heard me sing the praises of playlist building before. But at the risk of being redundant, here’s a quick rehash of the strategy: This works well because playlists are typically easier to advertise than individual songs; it’s relatively easy to get a fan of indie folk to listen to a playlist of […]
The 4 Keys to Blow Up Music Ad Campaigns
I think about Meta ads more often than is healthy. To be honest, I’m not sure thinking about Meta ads at all is healthy. I’m a grumpy old man; if I could wave a magic wand and make every sort of social media disappear, I’d do it quicker than you could say, “Go to your room, Mark […]