Run every show as its own campaign with its own budget and deadline. Here's how we budgeted shows from 2015 to 2024 and the 30/25/5-day schedule from KIMOCK's 2017 tour.
Promote each show as its own campaign, with its own budget and its own deadline. From 2015 to 2024 I ran tour ads this way for Todd Snider, The Band of Heathens, KIMOCK and Jerry Joseph. An ad that says "on tour this fall" asks nobody in particular to do anything. An ad that names your town and your night does.
In this post:
- The three-ad schedule we ran for every show on a 2017 tour
- How to set a budget for each show and move it
- How to target a show ad and what the copy said
- How ticket reports and venues should steer the money
When should tour ads start for each show?
The cleanest version is the 2017 tour wave for KIMOCK's album Satellite City. The album came out with a release show, then a run of seven dates in early November. Each show got three ads.
Every ad put the city up front, like "KIMOCK in Albany, NY." The RSVP ad read "RSVP now and you could win 2 FREE tickets!" The ticket ad named the day: "KIMOCK this DAY OF WEEK! Come celebrate the release of our new album, Satellite City, out now."
The plan around the ads mattered as much. We sent promoters content and an event cover that plugged the album, put every date on Bandsintown and Songkick, and asked promoters if they'd put money toward the ads.
What to take from the schedule:
- Three ads, three jobs: tell them, get the RSVP, sell the ticket.
- The biggest single ad comes first, the ticket ad comes last.
- The RSVP list becomes the audience for the ticket ad.
How much should one show get in ad money?
The number moved with the year and the market. In 2016 my Band of Heathens album plan recommended $100 per show for tour marketing, on top of the album budget. For a six-show Heathens run in 2018 I quoted three ads per show, an RSVP ad, a video and a ticket ad, plus an email to the tour cities, and recommended at least $150 per show.
Inside one tour the numbers moved too. On Todd Snider's 2019 spring release tour, Austin got the most and Jackson, Mississippi got the least. On a fall 2024 Heathens leg most dates got the same amount, one got less, and one Texas date got far more.
The spread is the point. One flat number across a whole tour overspends in some towns and starves others. Set a number per date and expect to change it.
Who should a show ad target?
In 2015 I wrote Jerry Joseph's team a step-by-step for show ads:
- Find the top 20 pages his fans also liked.
- Make a video views ad.
- Target the city plus a 50-mile radius, with those 20 pages as interests.
- Set a lifetime budget, start it at 1am and run it at least five days.
- Point the button at the Facebook event with the display link "RSVP TO THIS SHOW."
The sample copy was one line: "Cleveland! Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons are coming to town on June 8. Come on."
For a show today, run a Sales campaign to the ticket page when the band sells its own tickets, with your pixel on it. When the venue sells them, send the ad to your own tour page with your pixel, not the Bandsintown link. Target the city radius with your own audiences: the email list, page and video engagers, site visitors and a lookalike. Let the ad's creative find the new fans. Use the "Fans also like" row on the artist's Spotify profile to decide which bands to mention in the copy. That row is built from shared listeners, as Hypebot reported from Spotify's data team. Jon Loomer's guide covers Meta's six objectives, and Meta's page is Choosing Meta Ads Manager advertising objectives.
On Todd's fall leg with Ramblin' Jack Elliott in October 2019, every city got its own version of one line: "[City] friends! Todd's new album is out and tickets are selling fast for the [venue] show with Ramblin' Jack Elliott. If you're in town on [date] then RSVP and grab your tickets now." Twelve dates, twelve ads.
How do you use the ticket report?
Promoters and managers send ticket counts. Use them to steer the budget. On Todd's 2019 fall leg, the promoter's report a week before the first show had the twelve dates anywhere from about 20% to about 62% sold. Same tour, same ads. That spread tells you where the next dollar goes.
In 2022 Todd's management sent a ticket report for the spring dates and asked for extra focus on the ones that were behind. Dates that sell on their own keep their base spend. The extra goes to the rest.
Here's where I disagree with most tour ad advice, which sets one budget per show at announce and leaves it. Ours were set that way too, before a single ticket report came in. Now I hold part of the tour budget back unassigned and spend it on the dates the reports say are behind, starting about two weeks out.
What should you post a day or two before the show?
My favorite tour idea in those notebooks was Todd's, from 2019. A day or two before each show, post to the people coming to that show and ask what they want to hear. Fans with tickets get a say in the set. Everyone else in town gets a reminder that the show is almost here, with a ticket link right under it.
It fit him. His 2022 tour was billed as Pickin', Grinnin', Tellin' Stories and Takin' Requests. We planned alternating templates for those posts, because with one per city there would be a lot of them. On the first night of the 2019 tour, the post told fans to get tickets and request a song.
What should you ask the venue?
In 2024, setting up ads for a Heathens show at an Austin brewery, the venue sent us their own plan. A press release to local media. Ten tickets to local radio for giveaways. Posts in Reddit, Slack and Discord groups. A Facebook event with us added as cohost. Then they asked what our team usually does.
Have that conversation for every date. When you cohost the venue's event instead of making your own, your ads and their posts send people to the same RSVP list.
If the tour runs alongside a release, the album budget and the tour budget should stay separate. Here's how we split album money: album release ad budget, flight by flight. And if you're growing the fans who'll buy those tickets, start with turning Spotify listeners into followers.
Questions musicians ask
How far ahead should tour ads start?
On the 2017 KIMOCK tour, 30 days before each show, with an RSVP ad at 25 days and a ticket ad in the last five days.
How much should I spend per show?
In 2018 I recommended at least $150 per show. Set a number for each date, hold some back, and move it with the ticket reports.
Should I make my own Facebook event or use the venue's?
Ask to be added as cohost on the venue's event. Then your ads and their posts build one RSVP list.
So how should you run your tour ads?
- Give every show its own three ads: teaser, RSVP, tickets.
- Set a budget per date and hold some back.
- Move money with the ticket reports, toward the dates that need it.
Every night on a tour is a different town with its own ask. Budget and write the ads that way.
See how we worked with Todd: our Todd Snider campaigns.
