Reviews of Spotify playlist services, TikTok creator platforms, Meta ad strategies, blog and radio pitching, and PR firms. We run real campaigns, then write up what holds and what wastes your money.
There are six real ways to pay for music promotion, and they have wildly different economics. A $150 curator campaign we tracked returned 5 playlist placements and 1,874 streams. TikTok converts views to Spotify saves at 0.3%. Meta ads buy followers cheapest. Spotify editorial costs nothing and lands 3–5% of the time.
8 automated Meta ads platforms for musicians, ranked on cost per result, how much creative work you're left holding, and whether anyone keeps optimizing after launch.
We tested 23 Spotify promotion platforms with real campaigns across 6 genres. Only 5 delivered placements that actually held up 30 days later. Here they are, ranked.
SubmitHub is the OG of music pitching, and it still works. We ran 60 credits through it and tracked exactly what hit and what didn't.
We ran a $300 Playlist Push campaign and a $300 TikTok creator add-on. The reach is real. The cost per genuine listener is the question.
If you're an artist trying to figure out how to promote your music, here's an honest, first-hand SoundCampaign review: the good, the bad, and the playlist-worthy.
Spotify is letting artists opt back-catalog tracks into Discovery Mode for the first time. Here's what changes and who it actually helps.
Artists can now see how many TikTok video views actually converted to Spotify saves and follows. It's the data we've been begging for.
Spotify's annual payout transparency report dropped. We pulled out the stats that actually matter for working indie artists.
Meta removed several interest-based targeting categories that indie music advertisers relied on. Here's the workaround.
YouTube's new attribution data shows artists how Shorts impressions actually convert to YouTube Music saves. The numbers are surprising.
There are exactly three legitimate ways onto Spotify playlists, and they have wildly different odds. A ~$150 curator campaign lands about 5 placements. Editorial lands 3–5% of the time.
There isn't one Spotify algorithm. There's a stack of them, and each layer rewards a different listener signal. Here's what each one does and how to feed it.
A real $500 release budget, split across the channels that matter. No theory: just where to spend, where to skip, and what to expect back.
Spotify editors read every pitch. Most don't land. The few that do share specific traits we've reverse-engineered after a year of tracking what makes the cut.
Most TikTok music advice is recycled myths. Here's what real attribution data tells us about which kinds of videos actually drive Spotify saves, and how to spend on creators.
Eight weeks out to release day. What to do, in what order, and what to skip. The exact checklist we run for our own releases.
Music Promotion