Classic question.

The honest answer: We can’t say for sure.

The exact number of streams you’ll get will vary depending on the audience you’re targeting and the strength of your song.

But, two things we can say: 1) Over time, it’s likely that you’ll get more than 3 streams for every dollar spent. If you can’t beat that within three months, then ads may not be your best option for Spotify growth.

2) The streams you’ll get will always feed Spotify good data, because they’ll be from engaged listeners who are legitimately interested in your music. (Not going to rewrite the whole “ads are good” spiel here, but just scroll up if you want a recap of why this is the case.)

Well, it depends what kind of results you’re talking about.

We’ll start to drive streams the first day the ads go live. You’ll start to see a bump in the first week. In most cases, results start to really pick up in the second month, when we have enough data to get consistent results – and then get even better from there.

Also, generally, the more you spend, the faster the process goes, because we can rack up data and optimize more quickly.

For sure.

But to be honest, you will get results. And most often, it’s wise to run things for at least a couple of months, so that campaigns can get optimized.

All that said, it’s still a fair question, and you’re free to cancel whenever you want.

Kind of. But not really.

Here’s the thing – Spotify’s algorithm tends to favor newer tracks, so you may see better ancillary results with a newer release. 

But ads can drive streams for any song, regardless of when it was released.

Honest answer? If you have the budget, you should do both.

Playlist pitching is the most cost-efficient way to get streams, but it carries inherent risk.

Ads are usually pricier (because you’re paying to get people from one platform to another), but they always provide engaged streams and good data.

If you have the budget, going with both options can give you the benefits of each while reducing risk – because even if you get on a bad playlist, your ads should feed Spotify enough good data that the damage won’t be too bad.

It’s kind of like investing. Having both ads (low-risk, steady growth) and playlisting (higher risk, high potential growth) in your portfolio is a nice balance.

Of course, let’s be real – most of us don’t have the budget to go heavy into both options.

So, if you have to pick one, it’s a matter of risk tolerance.

You need to have songs on Spotify, a Facebook page for your music, an Instagram account, and access to Meta Business Suite, ideally with a pre-existing dataset (pixel) and an ads manager.

If you don’t have one of these things, don’t worry – a bunch of artists come to us not quite sure what assets they’re working with. We’ll help you get things figured out and set up correctly so that you can run ads inside of your own account.

We can. As noted above, we prefer to run ads in your account, so that you have full control over your own data. But if for some reason (i.e., your account has been unjustly suspended) you want us to run ads in our ad account, we can do that, too.

Just mention that when you reach out.

We can. Once we’ve got your custom audience built, we can use it to show your music to people who’ve engaged with you before. That said, we’ve found the best results, from a streaming perspective, usually come from cold audiences.

I thought you might… this is kind of complicated stuff.

Shoot it over to jon at twostorymedia dot com.