Four steps to strategically improve artist campaigns on Meta
This four-step approach is a great starting point for those looking to approach advertising on the Meta platform more strategically.
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Four steps to strategically improve artist campaigns on Meta
Purchasing advertisements on Instagram and Facebook is a popular tactic to promote music, events, and more. Use this four-step approach to create better campaigns on the Meta platform.
Why it matters
Programmatic ads, and specifically Meta Ads, are very easy to set up without knowing how advertising works. Tactics like this are cash cows for Meta. Artists and industry executives spend a lot of money advertising on Instagram and Facebook. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to set up a proper advertising campaign is crucial for every industry professional working with Meta Ads.
How it works
This four-step approach is a great starting point for those looking to approach advertising on the Meta platform more strategically:
Step 1: Create the advertisements with Meta’s Ad Mockup tool.
Music promotion is more about branding than marketing. By definition, artist brands are creative brands. When marketing artists, always start with the creative aspect of the campaign by designing the actual advertisement in Meta’s Ad Mockup tool.
Think about what people see and how they interact with the advertisement, and create the perfect ad.
Go deeper: Create multiple ad variants. Use dedicated landing pages.
Step 2: Set up the audiences in Meta’s Audiences tool.
Music marketing is about entertaining actual people. So now that the ad’s creative has been defined, continue with creating the target audience(s) for the campaign in Meta’s Audiences Tool.
Set up an acquisition audience, like one consisting of people who’ve shown interest in brands related to the artist's brand.
Or create a retained audience of people who’ve already interacted with the artist's brand using parameters such as video viewers, profile engagement, and more.
Go deeper: Create a lookalike audience. Set up a Pixel to target website visitors. Import a newsletter database (and keep privacy legislation in mind).
Step 3: Execute the campaign in Meta’s Ads Manager.
Next, set up the campaign in Meta’s Ads Manager.
Define the campaign’s objective and its place in the fan funnel. Does the campaign need to reach a broad audience or does it need to generate clicks or sales within a specific retained audience?
Set up the Ad Sets, using one Audience from the previous step per Ad Set. Also, define the campaign’s run time and budget.
Set up the Ad using the Mockup from step 1. If necessary, use multiple Ads per Ad Set.
Go deeper: Learn about fan funnels. Use Meta’s advanced tools such as conversion optimisations and bidding strategies.
Step 4: Set a reminder to check the campaign every day.
Use Todoist or another to-do list app to set up a daily recurring reminder to test, learn, and iterate the campaign.
Add to the reminder a direct hyperlink to the campaign in Meta’s Ads Manager to minimise my daily efforts.
Go deeper: Define the one metric to measure the campaign’s success. Create a customised data report and automatically receive daily reports by email.
Yes, but..
For marketing professionals, this is extremely basic. Still, in my experience, this knowledge is lacking with people who regularly purchase ads on the Meta platform but aren’t marketers.
Take action now
Follow the four-step approach to set up a new artist campaign.
Further reading
How to improve social media ads with mockups (The Fanbase Builder)
Target existing fans with Facebook Ads in 30 minutes, by Charlie Biles (Artist Lockdown Challenge)
Create a basic acquisition campaign with Facebook Ads in 30 minutes (Artist Lockdown Challenge)