The music industry has turned digital. Whether we like it or not, the days of relying on radio and television promotion are over. Our world revolves around the internet, and the global marketplace has evolved into social media and e-commerce. In order to properly market your product, you must enter cyberspace, utilizing the communication channels that now dominate the lives of the majority. Using Google ads has become perhaps the most successful method of promotion on the internet. Below are 4 tips to help you get started with promoting your music to the world.
Step 1: Develop Specific Goals for Each Ad
You should have a specific goal in mind for each ad that you create. In this case, the goal will most likely be to promote the recording artist and the album being released. Think about what you want the purpose of your ads to be, then write out 2-3 goals you would like to accomplish by running them. Identify your target audience, which is the main population you believe will be purchasing your album, and keep them in mind as you set your objectives. Consider appropriate keywords and hashtags for your campaign; these will come in handy in the following steps.
Step 2: Design Multiple Ads
As an artist, you have access to several options for designing ads. Perhaps the most effective ones include both audio and visual elements. An outline of some of these potential elements can be found in the article, “Using Music to Market Music.” Since Google now owns YouTube, video commercials can be included within each campaign, showing up as either in-stream or video discovery. In-stream ads show up during YouTube videos, and can either be skippable or un-skippable. Video discovery ads show up as thumbnail images next to related YouTube videos and search results. There are also bumper ads, outstream ads and masthead ads; however, for your first campaign, it is recommended that you focus on in-stream and video discovery. It is important that you figure out a way to catch the attention of viewers within the first 5 seconds, to ensure that they keep watching and that they do not skip or close the video during your ad. Keeping this in mind, create 2, 3 or even 4 variations of your ads. This will come in handy when it comes time to review analytics and compare each one as a separate campaign.
Step 3: Create a Google Ad Account
Once your goals have been set and your ads have been designed, it’s time to set up your campaigns. Set up one campaign per ad, and within each campaign include both an in-stream and video discovery ad. The following steps can serve as a guide in creating each campaign:
- Go to http://ads.google.com and create an account, if you don’t already have one.
- Choose a campaign name and type. You will need to do this separately, for each ad.
- Select the location for your ad. Do you want it to be seen in specific countries? In specific states? You can add or omit areas depending on your target market.
- Set a Budget. I would suggest setting a low budget at first, of maybe $10-20 per campaign and $0.01 per click. Once you compare each ad you can run campaigns using the most successful ad(s), putting more money behind them.
- Set a time period. How long do you want your ad to be shown? If the album release is on a specific date, and you mention it within the ad, consider setting a campaign that ends on the day of the release. It is recommended that each campaign be set for a short period of time at first, so that each ad can be compared with the best ad(s) chosen for longer campaigns, during the final step.
- Add a description and keywords for your ad. This is where those keywords and hashtags come in handy. Include the artist name, the album, singles, the genre, and other information related to the music you are advertising. Make sure that, somewhere in the description, you include your ownership of the rights to the music being played.
- Publish your campaign. Once you’ve filled in all the necessary information, it’s time to publish your campaign. Depending on the content, it may take some time for each ad to be approved by Google. If you run into any trouble, reach out to their customer service directly.
- Follow this same process for each ad that you’ve created, the recommended structure can be seen in the diagram below. Congratulations, you’ve successfully published ads on Google!
Step 4: Compare Results Between Campaigns
As soon as the campaigns go public, you can start tracking their progress. You will be able to see everything, including the number of overall views, the views among certain demographics by age, gender, or location, the duration of watch time, how much of an ad people viewed before skipping or closing, and a myriad of other analytical information pertaining to each campaign. Once the campaigns are complete, it is time for testing. Compare the results in each category. Consider a chi-square test, where you compare the view to impressions in order to determine if the difference in views is statistically relevant or a result of differences within the ads themselves. (www.socscistatistics.com/tests/chisquare2) Not only can you view the progress within your Google Ad account, but you can also access useful numbers and graphs, which are available on your YouTube Studio account. Once you determine which ads were the most successful, consider running longer campaigns using the more favorable ads. Following this process should result in a successful ad campaign, reaping positive results that will meet or exceed all of the goals you set in step 1.