The music advertising landscape is constantly changing—so what works in 2024?

Are conversion campaigns still king for promoting your songs or your playlist?

Do traffic ads even work anymore?

Which one should you use?

I have personally run both of these campaign types for years, and the short answer is: it depends.

So let’s talk about the specifics of traffic and conversion campaigns and cover which campaign type you should use, why you should use it, and when.

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Traffic vs. conversions

To kick this off, let’s review the primary differences between traffic and conversion campaigns.

With a traffic campaign, setup is very basic and, as a result, easy.

A novice advertiser can create a traffic campaign quite quickly, allowing them to advertise and see results without investing too much time.

That’s exactly why we offer the Spotify Traffic Accelerator —it’s a simple course to get you up and running with ads quickly.

Of course, ease does come with a price.

This type of campaign can be easily “botted” by fake accounts that drive up clicks without generating results if you’re not careful to advertise in only a handful of country options.

But more on that later.

On the flip side, conversions are more complex to set up, but they also generate more reliable results.

Where a traffic campaign has a direct link to the destination in the ad, a conversion campaign includes a link to a landing page with destination options on it.

When a user clicks the ad, they hit the landing page and then select the destination of their choice.

When they click that button, the advertiser's pixel, which is installed on the landing page, sends a signal back to the ad platform that signifies success.

This little piece of code means a person has to click both the link in the ad and the button on the landing page for the process to work.

It’s more difficult to program a bot to do something like that, which makes this campaign type a lot safer to use.

It’s just that it’s more complex to set up, especially if you’re new to advertising.

Fortunately, we dig into every detail of creating conversion ads inside the Spotify Artist Accelerator.

If you think you want to run conversion ads (and you don’t mind the slightly dated ad interface—thanks for the constant updates, Meta) then this is the course for you.

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When to use traffic

I always recommend first-time advertisers start with a traffic campaign to send people offsite to something like Spotify or other DSPs.

This is for a couple of reasons.

First, a traffic campaign is easier to set up and implement than a conversion campaign.

When you’re navigating an ad platform for the first time, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, so keeping it simple is the name of the game.

And second, if you’re rocking a new, unused ad account, starting with a traffic campaign is a good way to stay in Meta’s good graces and not get your ad account incorrectly restricted.

Sounds ridiculous, but it happens more than you’d think.

New accounts come under more scrutiny than those that are established, so warming your way up to something more complex like a conversion campaign is a common best practice.

Even if you plan to move to conversions later, starting with traffic is a good idea.

If your traffic campaign comes out of the gate swinging, even better.

You can always keep it running.

A few tips on running a traffic campaign.

First, only target these 13 countries.

Anything outside of those countries will open you up to sketchy clicks and bot traffic, so it’s best to just avoid all that.

And second, always use the direct link to your destination (e.g. your artist profile or song link on Spotify), not a landing page.

Using a landing page with a traffic campaign is an unnecessary step and will hurt your results.

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When to use conversions

There’s no doubt a conversion campaign is the more complex of the two, but if you have more in-depth advertising goals, this is what you want to use.

When sending traffic to Spotify or other DSPs, a conversion campaign allows you to take a more global approach to country targeting.

You’re not limited to that set of 13 “safe” countries you need to stick to with a traffic campaign.

It also comes with the benefit of including multiple options on a landing page so users can easily choose their platform of choice instead of only ending up on Spotify.

On top of that, outside of promoting your music, understanding how to set up conversion campaigns allows you to expand into additional ad goals like leads and sales.

You can use ads to earn email addresses from your followers in exchange for a lead magnet like a free download, or you can even create a campaign to sell merch or physical copies of your music.

The objectives and specifics are a little different for each of these, but the core mechanics are the same, which is why pixel-based (i.e. conversion) campaign knowledge is so valuable.

Any seasoned advertiser will tell you that conversion campaigns are the end goal.

They certainly are for me.

In fact, our goal is to run conversion campaigns for all of our artists with DuPree X.

It’s the campaign type we rely on for global targeting, growth across multiple DSPs, and reliable results in a multitude of ways.

Of course, there are always artists who perform better with traffic ads, which is why we keep that open as an option too.

Successful advertising almost always comes down to effective troubleshooting.

So the more tricks you can have in your bag, the better.

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