Do Ads Work For Musicians?

Thank you for this! I’ve had to watch it over, go back at some key elements just to try and grasp better. Fan subsidized acquisition, how can you “liquidate” the costs of, lets say, 2500$ in ads spent, assuming your promoting your Singles and don’t have an album for sale💿? Thanks again 😊

I just want to make music and get paid even if I make 3 songs a year

In my first regional US tour (South + East Coast) the overhead was high but I did make a profit and learned how lucrative touring CAN be. It showed me that with the right tools, strategy and teammates, touring can be incredibly profitable and has SO MANY ancillary benefits outside of just selling tickets (selling merch, building new fans, writing new songs, forming new relationships with other artists in other cities, creating buzz, radio shows in touring cities, new content etc.) This video makes me miss it!!!

I've always believed that ads worked for musicians. Currently going through the process of using social media ads to work for my music.

Well said and well argued. And of course it comes with a boatload of work and learning.. why would anyone think it should be easy?

I think the reason people think "ads don't work" is that they don't have any idea how to do it right. It's not an automatic, obviously.

Ads don't work when you don't know how to use them... :D

Realistically I've probably built my entire career on Facebook ads!

They definitely work for me!

Great info! And entertaining as always

I love what Circa has to say! Deffo worth sub!

Love a good rant from Circ 🤣

Still trying to figure out how to crack the advertising code with sales, but we are hopeful!

Spoiler alert: .......yes. They work. 🔥

excellent

Did not watch your whole video (sorry). But its working for me at least, doesnt matter what other people say. It works, thats it. (fb ads)

I want to see this debate so bad cause we all know who this is referring to and this debate is needed cause the truth is both are right its just that the labels do a lot of the stuck full stake is taking about behind the scenes like ads to make the stuff that the other dude whom we all knows he's talking about with that spot on impression at the beginning look organic to form a brand...

Ads don’t work for musicians period !

Fab advice - thanks :)

But how though?? How does an artist that should be completely consumed with creating music, writing songs, branding, image, creating an entire universe and story, characters around their music and songs, graphic design... ect... have the time to figure all of this stuff out and implement it aswell while working multiple jobs to pay the bills and struggle to afford to get the next song mixed and mastered for hundreds if not almost $1000 per song?? Jesus... I have a headache just watching this...

Bro we know exactly who you're roasting in the intro 😂

Finally a voice of reason... Thank. you

some great stories in here, good motivation to keep going with the ads

I've gotten really good at using ads to drive streams but am pretty lost with how to drive actual non-stream revenue. Where should I start?

Bro your dope I taught myself how to run ads recently so I'm going to do the best I can I am avoiding record labels

I want to do this as a rapper

Preach 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🔥💃🏾 so glad you’re saying what most ppl won’t say about the music industry.

⚡️🔱👿⚡️🌊🗺️⚡️🫡

This was awesome! I do have a question. I'm a Christin artist and now that FB/Google has taken away the ability to target Christians it's been difficult hitting the right market.
Any suggestions on this? Thanks!

I got the opening reference too, very well done!
I think the issue I have with a lot of the education resources online is that they're all contradictory, confusing, overwhelming.. and because they themselves are ALSO content creators they only ever feed you enough information in their videos to remain confused and looking for the next video of theirs to watch on the topic.
The issue with the "X doesn't work" video, and worse, those ones like the one you parody because those videos also put fear into you "your streams will be hurt by doing it because Spotify will down rank you"!!!!!!!
The issue is here, is that they don't offer an alternative, it's just fear, fear, fear, bashing and then you're at the end of the video, no alternative solutions and you find yourself scrolling through their video list trying to figure out what to do next.
The really nice thing about Indeprenuer and the side channels/podcast etc. Is that you've found a way to explain things simply and clearly and lay out what needs to be done, I have learnt so much from your academy already and it's elevated what I'm doing!

Motivated me

A lot of this I knew but now I’m taking this to another level

Indie market deity! Recommended to my group 💯

Lessons with examples....nice! but what if you are a Producer with 8 Albums looking for a publishing deal?

This hurts to know it's possible to be successful with facebook when all my attempts have been failures.

Great video. The information as well as the editing. Whoever is editing these videos is brilliant.

Bruhhh. That direct callout at the beginning 😅

I got to #24 in the Official UK Albums Chart in May 2021 due to running Facebook ads alongside staying in touch with my email list. If I hadn't stumbled across Indepreneur in early 2020 this wouldn't have happened! I'm pretty keen on you lot :)

Things were going well organically before I started using this stuff, but nothing like this. I have a new album coming out in 3 weeks and it's very likely to go top 40. I do enjoy seeing my name bumping up against the major labels and imagining their puzzled faces 😂

PS I only mention the chart thing because it's proof of sales, I couldn't give a toss about any other industry facing stuff.

Does ManyChat messenger marketing still work if the notify window is now limited to 24hrs?

As an artist who has recently gotten to the point of doing music full time, It’s been on my mind lately, that if I followed Jesse Cannons advice my band probably would have broke up years ago

Lolol from the first 10 seconds I knew this was going to be dope and I was really hoping to see your response to some of these...*ahem*...other....people...that I'm sure all of us here in the comments have probably encountered.

I swear to God just yersterday I told myself 'Ads DONT WORK for musicians' hahah Incredible video once again guys thank you

Very nice video, this is probably the best one I saw from you so far.
Keeping the attention is the hardest part of it. Do you have a video about it? Thanks!

Musformation channel has a lot of really great info that I don't see other places, but when it comes to FB IG ads he's clueless for some reason. 🤷🏾‍♂️

Brilliant video! More bands and artists need to see this. As a business coach and artist, the one thing I have learned is that the music industry is just like any other industry - standard business rules apply!!

killer

Loved this and the shots fired intro! haha In JC's defense, his audience is supposed to be helping you get to your first 10,000 fans and his point (as I understood it) of not using fb ads is to not mess up your your early analytics with random traffic so it is organic. That way you better understand your real target audience. But he does get harsh on fb ads in general sometimes so I do see where it could be taken in a negative way. lol On that note, I've been a massive fan of this channel for years and I appreciate these videos on ads here and methods for growth!

Love this (and the references) 🧙‍♂

Yes, I got the opening reference and laughed out loud! Circa, you are very good at this and should continue to make content for your company. I believe this is how I found you in the beginning talking about Facebook ads three years ago. Very knowledgeable and trustworthy.