Split your album ad budget by date, not by platform. Weight it toward the pre-order, give every line one job, and spend whatever is left on release day.
Split a small album ad budget by date before you split it by platform. Set three flights: pre-order, out now and post-release. Put the most money before street date, give every line one job, and spend whatever is left on release day.
Below is how we ran it for The Band of Heathens, Todd Snider, KIMOCK and Hard Working Americans from 2016 to 2024, and the release where I can see what the pre-order money returned.
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In this post:
- Why the pre-order flight gets the biggest share
- How to give every line one job, and cut it when it stops doing that job
- Why your flights should follow your singles
- What the first $500 on Meta returned for Hayes & The Heathens
Why split by date before platform?
Because the date decides what a fan can do. Before street date they can pre-order. On release day they can stream and buy. After that, the push fades. Each flight gets a job that matches.
For The Band of Heathens' Duende, the pre-order opened about eight and a half weeks out. The plan had three flights, and most of the money went into the first one.
The out-now flight got most of the rest, and post-release got a small tail. On top of the album budget I recommended $100 per show for tour ads, kept separate so the tour never ate the record's money.
What job should each line have?
Inside Facebook, each line on Duende had one objective and one figure: post engagement, video views, website conversions, lead generation, website clicks and page likes. Each had a reason to exist:
- Boosted posts only when a post was already getting unusual engagement on its own and carried a link. That way we weren't paying to push posts nobody wanted.
- Lead ads ran in the pre-order to turn fans into subscribers, and offered non-fans a free download.
- Video views carried a free download offer, and everyone who engaged went into a new audience for later ads.
- Conversion ads used a carousel of bundles, aimed at fans, a lookalike of customers, site visitors and video viewers.
- Page likes ran hard until street week, then scaled back.
Google had two jobs. YouTube TrueView for shopping put the bundles next to the video, so a viewer could pre-order without leaving it. Display banners retargeted site visitors who didn't buy. Twitter ran lead cards with a free download and conversion cards for the store.
The plan named nine audiences: page fans, newsletter subscribers, store customers, site visitors from the last 180 days, a 1% lookalike, video viewers, affinity artists in key touring markets, Spotify related artists, and Texas music fans. Every ad matched the album style guide and its landing page. If the cost per action got too high, we paused the campaign or swapped the creative.
What to take from Duende:
- Most of the money went in before street date, while fans could still pre-order.
- Every line had a named job, so it could be cut when it stopped doing that job.
- List building ran inside the album budget, not after it.
Should your flights follow your singles?
For Todd Snider's Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 in 2019, they did. The label's budget ran in three flights, and each flight opened with a new instant-grat track on iTunes: the pre-order with "Just Like Overnight," then "Like a Force of Nature" with Jason Isbell, then "Talking Reality Television Blues" two weeks before street date.
Every paid ad drove to a smart link or straight to Apple Music, Amazon or Spotify, and the smart link got the biggest share. The plan gave each kind of spend a job and a reach estimate. I also wrote a cold, warm and hot plan for each single, the merch, streaming and out now. Cold means people who don't know the artist yet. Hot means fans and recent visitors.
A separate budget on Todd's side went to his own store. It grew a Messenger subscriber list, sorted by each fan's preferred music service, and ran conversion ads for the shop across the same three flights. It was a 2019 tactic, so check Meta's current Messenger rules before you copy it.
What does a wave plan look like on a small budget?
KIMOCK's Satellite City came out in 2017 on album waves that came to under $1,000. Every line had an objective, dates and a figure.
- Wave 1, before the announce: a fan club free download for lead generation the week before, then announce ads with the album cover and pre-order links, and the teaser video.
- Wave 2, through street date: a bundles ad with an animated vinyl GIF, a stream link for "Waiting For A Miracle," a last chance ad for release-day shipment, and the "Variation" video.
- Wave 3, after release: an out-now video with press quotes, and press links.
- Tour wave, per show: a teaser 30 days out, the event RSVP 25 days out and the ticket link in the last five days.
The tour schedule gets its own post: tour ads, show by show.
What should release day money go to?
Links to where people can listen or buy. On Duende's release day the lines went to views for the "All I'm Asking" video, clicks to iTunes and Amazon, a tour ad for the second leg and out-now conversions.
For The Band of Heathens' A Message From The People Revisited in 2018, the smart URL got the biggest share, then Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify and Google Display. The band's store, Google Search and YouTube got smaller lines. For Stranger in 2020, the street-week window ran ten days. Google split across YouTube, display remarketing, wider display and Gmail. Most of the Facebook money went to ads pointing to every retailer.
The biggest budget in these notes was Hard Working Americans' Rest In Chaos in 2016. My to-do list for that release had one rule I still use: spend all of the budget surplus on release day.
Does the pre-order money pay back?
My older notes record what we planned and spent, not the return on each line. The release where I can see the return is Hayes & The Heathens in 2024. Partway through the pre-order, I wrote to the band that the first $500 in Facebook and Instagram campaigns had returned 10 times its cost.
That is what weighting toward the pre-order looks like when it works. The only thing that stopped it was stock. Around release day I turned off some very profitable conversion ads because the vinyl sold out. Next time I'd add bundles to raise the order value and keep scaling.
Here is my contrarian take. Most budget advice starts with which platform to buy. Start with the calendar, and fund your own list inside it. On that same pre-order, the band's email list brought in a quarter of the store's sales, more than any other channel. That is why Duende ran lead ads and KIMOCK ran a fan club download before the announce. The full ad breakdown is in the Hayes & The Heathens album ad results.
How do you build your own budget?
- Set the flight dates before you pick platforms. Tie each flight to a single or an instant-grat track.
- Put the biggest share in the pre-order flight. On Duende it was 61%.
- Start list building before the announce. KIMOCK's fan club download ran the week before.
- Write every line as an objective, a figure and dates. If you can't name the line's job, cut it.
- Check line minimums. Spotify's help page says "Each sub-campaign requires a minimum budget of $100" for Marquee and Showcase.
- Pause anything whose cost per result runs high, and refresh the creative.
- Hold a release-day reserve. Spend it, plus anything left over, on street date.
- Budget tour ads per show, apart from the album.
- Order enough stock that a winning ad never has to stop.
Run each line under one of Meta's six objectives: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App Promotion or Sales. Jon Loomer's guide to Meta campaign objectives walks through them, and Meta's own page is Choosing Meta Ads Manager advertising objectives. Let the ad find the audience: make five to ten different ad ideas for each song and give each line its own creative. Twitter is now X.
Questions musicians ask
How much of an album ad budget should go to the pre-order?
The biggest share. On Duende, 61% ran in the pre-order flight.
Does pre-order ad spend pay back?
It did for Hayes & The Heathens. The first $500 on Facebook and Instagram during the pre-order returned 10 times its cost.
How small can an album ad budget be?
KIMOCK's album waves came to under $1,000 before the tour wave.
What should release day money go to?
Links to where people can buy or stream it, led by the smart link, plus anything left over from the earlier flights.
So how should you split yours?
- Split by date first: pre-order, out now, post-release, with the most in the pre-order.
- Give every line one job and dates, and cut it when it stops doing that job.
- Build the email list inside the budget, and spend what's left on release day.
A budget written as dated flights tells you what to cut and when. A budget written as platforms just gets spent.
For the paid ads side of a merch store, see Part 6 of our E-commerce Success Series.
