How we launched a co-headline album from Hayes Carll and The Band of Heathens: an artist-owned Shopify site, video ads, Spotify campaigns, and a limited vinyl that sold out.
In this post:
- Why we built the album its own Shopify site instead of a link page
- The site details that made it feel like a real release: Seated tour dates, an announcement bar and a "Before/After Listening" slider
- The video and ad plan, phase by phase
- What sold, including a holiday bundle that nearly sold out its run of 100
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Why give one album its own site?
Hayes Carll and The Band of Heathens each have their own fans. A record with both names on it needed one place that belonged to neither, where a Hayes fan and a Heathens fan land on the same page and buy the same record.
So the album got hayesandheathens.com, built on Shopify. It carries the band photo, a short bio, the music videos, the tour dates and the merch. The store feeds Google Merchant Center, the Facebook and Instagram shop, YouTube and Spotify, so the vinyl shows up wherever fans already are. We had it live about two weeks after the art arrived. The manager's reply to the first look: "Everyone is loving the website!"
How did we build the store around the record?
We used a paid Shopify theme as the starting point. Then we made the video, products and tour dates feel like parts of the same record. The theme was Flawless, which cost us about $100 in 2024. It gave us a video hero and clean product grids.
- An announcement bar. It scrolls the news at the top of every page. When the second pressing landed it read "Translucent Orange Vinyl!" without anyone touching the homepage.
- A short menu. Home, Merch, Listen, Tour, Bio and a Shop button. Nothing a fan has to figure out.
- A "Before/After Listening" slider on the product pages. Drag it and the band goes from posed to laughing. It's a joke, and it's the thing people remember.
- Tour dates from Seated. I couldn't embed the combined Hayes & The Heathens dates with Bandsintown, so I set them up on Seated. Its widget takes custom CSS, so the dates match the site instead of looking pasted in, and the VIP ticket links sit right next to each show.
Every new subscriber from the store's pop-up went into the band's email list, tagged Hayes & The Heathens. By mid-September that pop-up and the customer list had added 376 subscribers.
Where did the videos come from?
For the first single I suggested a looping video and offered to cut it myself. The band had studio clips that weren't used: boot stomping, big smiles, slide guitar. I edited them to the album's brown and tan look, and it became the official video for "Any Other Way."
The band also had studio footage of the whole group singing "Nobody Dies From Weed." Putting the record's audio under it gave us another video, another post and another ad from footage that was already on a hard drive.
How did we run the ads?
We started small and let the numbers set the budget. By September 17 the first $500 on Facebook and Instagram was showing a 10x return on ad spend (ROAS). That is the sales the ads were credited with, not profit. It is what I took to the manager when we planned the rest.
- Pre-order. Facebook and Instagram ads to the vinyl, Google display ads in the tour cities, and YouTube ads for the "Any Other Way" video and the merch.
- Single. Separate Spotify Marquee campaigns for "Any Other Way" on Hayes Carll's account and on The Band of Heathens' account, so each act's listeners met the other.
- Release. A Spotify Showcase for the full album, and Meta ads shifted to streams and vinyl for a wider Americana audience.
When you set up Spotify Marquee or Showcase, pick the goal first, then the audience. Marquee needs at least 5,000 monthly listeners in the market you target, and each campaign starts at $100. Choose accelerated delivery if you want the spend on release week.
Meta clicks to Spotify cost about a third as much as Marquee clicks in this campaign. That is a traffic-cost comparison, not a cost-per-listener comparison.
What did it do?
The whiskey smoke vinyl sold out around release day, and I switched off conversion ads that were still making money because there was nothing left to sell. In the month around release The Band of Heathens added 50,000 monthly Spotify listeners and passed 855,000. The album passed 500,000 streams and landed on Spotify's All New Country playlist. I told the band it was off to a much stronger start than their past releases. I put that down to running several Spotify campaigns, the All New Country add and, of course, working with Hayes.
In GA4's pre-order report, email accounted for 12% of visits and 24% of recorded revenue. It was the largest attributed revenue channel in that report. GA4 credits each sale to the channel of the visit it happened in, so this does not measure everything the ads did to bring people back.
Cut.
What happened after the sellout?
The band pressed a second color, translucent orange, and we built a holiday bundle around it: the new vinyl, a 3-inch wood ornament with the band's insignia, and a 12-by-12 holiday print signed by everyone. One hundred bundles. The plan was to price it at $40. That felt low to me with the holiday focus and the autograph, and I expected demand from fans who missed the first pressing. We set it at $49.99. I named it the Rockin' Holiday Bundle.
It sold 92 of the 100. It went live with seven signed test pressings, announced by email and social at the same hour.
What would I do differently?
- Bundle from day one. We launched with everything sold on its own. A bundle can raise what each order is worth, so the same stock can support more ad spend.
- Plan the second pressing before the first sells out. The holiday bundle showed the demand was still there.
- Get the artists' friends on record early. I asked for one-line quotes from musician friends with their own audiences, so we could run ads to their fans. Start that before the announce.
Questions musicians ask
Should a side project or co-headline album get its own website?
Yes, if it has its own record and merch. One address that belongs to both acts gives both fan bases a place to land, and you can still send each act's own site to it with a pop-up.
Is Seated better than Bandsintown for tour dates?
For this launch it was. Bandsintown wouldn't embed the combined act's dates, and Seated's widget takes custom CSS and holds VIP links next to each show.
Is a paid Shopify theme worth it for a band?
Ours cost about $100 in 2024 and gave us the video hero, the announcement bar and the slider. Check the current price and version in the Shopify theme store before you buy. It's a one-time cost on a site that sells for the whole album cycle.
The short version
- Give the album its own Shopify home and connect it to every place fans shop and listen.
- Small details carry a release: a styled tour widget, an announcement bar, one joke worth sharing.
- Build the list, start the ads small, and plan bundles and the second pressing before you need them.
The site, the videos, the list, the store and the tour dates all pointed at the same record, and the vinyl sold out. Next time the bundle and the second pressing will be ready before the first box ships. See more of our band website design work, how the last chance to pre-order email fits in, and how bundles give fans more ways to buy.
