In recent years, as I’ve spent more time in the studio mixing and mastering music and less on stage, I’ve turned to paid ads to get my music heard. The beauty of paid marketing is its ability to precisely target listeners who are likely to resonate with your sound.
From Shotgun Blast to Precision Strike
Traditionally, independent artists relied on radio, live shows, and press to promote their music – a bit of a “shotgun blast” approach. Now, social media and “the algorithm” play a major role in getting your music heard. Organic social reach is still important but it still feels like casting a wide net.
Targeted ads, specifically on YouTube and Meta (Facebook/Instagram), offer a more precise way to reach potential fans. I’ve seen consistent streams and follower growth for my new project (Doxkyn) this year using these platforms. (If you’re curious, check out resources from folks like John Gold, Andrew Southworth, Tom DuPree, and Color Theory for expert advice on using paid ads in your music marketing.)
Get Trendy with Google Trends
One invaluable tool I’ve discovered for geo-targeting my ads is Google Trends. This free platform reveals the popularity of search terms over time and across various locations. From a music marketing perspective it can providing insights into:
- Trending Topics: What’s hot right now?
- Search Volume: How often are people looking for specific genres or artists?
- Geographic Interest: Where is your music genre most popular?
- Related Queries: What else are people searching for alongside your genre?
- Seasonal Trends: Does interest fluctuate throughout the year?
Putting it into Practice
To illustrate, I used my Doxkyn track “Did You Call” as a guinea pig. Using SubmitHub’s “What’s My Genre” tool, I identified three strong categories: Synthwave, Synth-pop, and Darkwave.
Next, I plugged these genres into Google Trends, filtering by “Music/Audio.” (You can also filter by YouTube searches.)
The graph shows that Synthwave, Synth-pop, and Darkwave have fairly even interest. By switching to the “Interest by Region” tab and focusing on the least popular category (Chillwave), I got a good spread of where all genres were relatively popular.
Based on this information, I could target the top 5 – 10 countries in the list with some paid ads in Meta and/or YouTube with the expectation that they would probably engage well with the song.
In fact, having run some ads for about half a month the top performing countries have been Belarus, United States and Sweden. I chose these based on previous performance of ads for other songs but you can see from the list that all 3 countries were in the top 10. It also makes me think I should try ads for this song in Japan.
The Takeaway
Like anything with music marketing, you never know what might work until you’ve tried it. In his sense Google Trends is a valuable tool for exploring the geographical targeting for your paid ads. It helped me get my initial YouTube and Facebook ads in the right ballpark, and I highly recommend it as a free tool for any musician exploring paid promotion. By understanding where your music resonates most, you can make informed decisions and hopefully see better results from your ad campaigns.
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