Cost per conversion is useful. It shows how expensive it was to move someone from your landing page to the streaming platform. BUT! It doesn’t show what they did afterward. And it doesn’t always speak of value.
A $0.20 conversion that results in no, or very little, meaningful listening may be less valuable than a $0.60 (or even $1.30) conversion from someone who:
Spotify’s own audience research strongly distinguishes between programmed listeners and more intentional listeners who actively seek out an artist. One highly engaged “super listener” can generate far more listening and long-term value than many passive listeners.
So don’t ask only:
How cheaply did I get people to Spotify?
Also ask:
Did they care once they arrived?
Two campaigns sending listeners to exactly the same type of destination can perform completely differently. A lot depends on multiple factors:
Some countries are much more expensive to advertise in than others.
A campaign focused only on the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and a few Western European markets will generally cost more than a broad international campaign (it can also get exhausted = slow down, or get more expensive over time, sooner).
That does not make broad targeting automatically better (or worse, for that matter).
Cheaper regions may bring more conversions but sometimes lower engagement. More expensive audiences may produce fewer clicks but stronger saves, follows, or repeat listeners.
Not saying one or the other is a fixed rule, though – you need to actually check where your existing listeners already come from, and whether the listenership from the ads (the most converting countries especially) at least kind of corresponds with what you see under the song’s ‘Top countries for this song’ on Spotify
You shouldn’t be afraid to test other countries, especially those where your genre has an audience (googling, asking ChatGPT, researching other artists in your niche, and playlists you already are on, are just some of the ways to find out what those are).
Spotify notes that artist discovery is highly global, with much of it happening outside an artist’s home country. Often, “cheaper” countries like Mexico and Brazil can trigger algorithms in “more expensive” countries, especially the US and the UK.
The best country mix is usually a balance between:
One thing you can also try is a couple of separate ad campaigns (or, if you’re running your own ads, differently set Ad Sets are also a possibility) targeted at different countries, each allocated its own budget.
Comparing results, seeing where and what worked, and giving a part of the budget for the pickier but more engaged (potentially) countries as well as the more affordable, but sometimes less engaged ones to see what the resulting listenership will actually look like, may make a lot of sense, especially if you’re in the testing-and-seeing mode, getting to know where and how your music resonates.
For this reason, we also implemented value rules and limited Facebook and cheaper countries’ conversions so that the more expensive ones also have a chance.
Some genres are extremely competitive.
From what we’re seeing, lofi/study beats, house, and relaxing/sleeping/calm neoclassical music are some of the most saturated ones at the moment.
But, in any case, at different times, we regularly see particularly high competition around areas such as:
A very broad title like Best Pop Music may compete with thousands, even tens of thousands of similar (and also promoted) playlists. From our experience, and especially in the above-mentioned themes and genres, a more distinctive angle can help. Some examples could be:
You don’t have to be ridiculous or over-niche for the sake of it. You just need to give people a clearer reason to choose your thing over everything else - find a trend (YES, DO YOUR RESEARCH), a subculture, a vibe that is in demand but not oversaturated, instead of just naming a genre or a mood.
Some songs reveal themselves slowly. That can be beautiful, but difficult for an eight-second ad. A song with an immediate vocal, striking lyric, unusual production moment, or recognizable emotional hook often has an easier time grabbing attention.
This doesn’t mean you should rewrite your music for ads - absolutely not trying to say that. It means you should carefully choose the snippet - and NOT just one. Putting all your eggs in one basket means that if the basket (ehrm, snippet) wasn’t the one people actually vibed with that much, you kind of killed your ad (or made it very expensive).
And from what we’ve seen… Sometimes the best ad moment isn’t the chorus. It might be:
What we’re trying to say is… especially if running your own ads, or only your own visuals, and before you know what worked... go for AT LEAST 3-5 videos with DIFFERENT music snippets, and, ideally, a bit of a different vibe to each, too. Maybe try one in black and white… another with just noise over the artwork, or some basic animation done with a filter (more about how HERE). Or just different parts of your music video if you have one, and complete that with something completely different, maybe just that artwork, or you over the video vibing to the music.
Even when the music is strong, people still see the campaign before they fully hear the song. There’s no way around that.
And so, what they see, what they feel even before really hearing the full thing is the artwork (also on the landing page, and on Spotify / another streaming platform), the colors, the artist profile and imagery, and, based only on the ad, the video style, and the Link landing page. All that affects whether someone continues and what they expect (or not) from the music.
For a song campaign, this can matter even more because the artwork and artist profile help the listener decide whether the whole project feels worth exploring. Make sure to take that into account even before you run ads for your music, and keep the cover art, if not anything else, simple, not overly AI-ish, or in any way hard to relate to for the intended audience.
One more thing… consistency of the journey is important. So, the artwork used in the video, on the landing page, and then on Spotify, should match. Different visuals or frequent changing of the visuals may cause confusion (“wait, I didn’t click on anything having this as the pic”), and we’ve seen over and over again that confusion makes the drop-off, or changing of the audience’s mind, bigger.
A generic stock video absolutely might work, especially if the vibe is right for the song’s style and the audience’s lifestyle. Sometimes (we see it quite often, actually) it even becomes the winning creative, even over really high-quality videos. To answer why is usually hard, but sometimes, simplicity is more relatable… and people click on ads they can relate to, imagine themselves in, because what’s depicted is something they do, know, or enjoy.
BUT! Personal, on-brand content often gives people more to connect with, especially for song and artist campaigns.
And that might include:
Pro tip: If possible, try several genuinely different videos and vibes, rather than five versions of nearly the same one.
One more thing…
Meta recommends avoiding frequent and/or major changes while campaigns are learning, and limited budgets or constant edits or swapping out the video creatives can prevent stable optimization. So… Give each batch enough time and budget to produce useful information - ideally 8-12 credits per day at least (at the start), if running the ad campaign with us… and give it at least a week before even evaluating the results.
The annoying answer is: the one that actually brings you valuable listeners.
A low conversion cost (8-20 cents) is great, but only if those people stick around. A higher one (80 cents to 1.50 USD) may be completely worth it if the listeners save, follow, return, explore more of your music, and help trigger further discovery. A really high one (2 USD or more) only makes sense if you’re either going extremely niche or narrow (like, in one or a couple of super demanding city/cities), or those conversions are bringing you so much value (like, playing most of your catalogue, following, returning) that they’re simply worth it.
Use cost per result as a guide, not the final verdict. Test different audiences, countries, snippets, advertising strategies, and creatives, then look beyond Meta and see what actually happened to your music.
Because ultimately, the goal isn’t to get the cheapest click to Spotify. It’s to find listeners who care once they get there.