Running ads can feel a bit unclear at first. You launch, numbers start moving (or don’t), and you’re left wondering what’s actually happening behind the scenes. This SubmitHub Ads guide walks you through the full journey – from requesting a campaign, to what we do on our side, to what’s happening while your ads are live.
On SubmitHub, you’ve got two main entry points if you want to push your song:
👉 More control (Ads tool) - for songs, albums, EPs, playlists, radio shows, and more:
https://www.submithub.com/ads/create
or
👉 Easy Mode (Package via submissions) - for SONGS ONLY:
https://www.submithub.com/packages
Both get you to the same place (promoting your music) – they just take slightly different routes.
If you go with a package, the process is very straightforward.
You pick the sum you're ready to spend, and everything is handled for you. You add your song's link, and all else happens on our side – targeting, genres, visuals, ad texts, and ongoing adjustments. Nothing is needed from you :) These campaigns are intentionally set broader, aiming to get you the most numbers and algorithmic traction possible for the budget.
Our Easy Mode packages are also meant for those short on time, that do not want a hands-on approach, and for song promotion only.
Once your campaign is running, we keep optimizing it on our end. When your budget is close to running out, you’ll get an email. At that point, you can either let the campaign run for longer, with the top-up toggle on, or let it end by turning the top-up toggle to off.
You’re always kept in the loop: about the performance (once a week) AND about the end of the campaign + top-up options (3 days before it happens), so be mindful of the emails we send you. You can also, if you want to, edit your package ads under the Link (find it at https://www.submithub.com/links), including adding your own Visuals there.
If you prefer more control over the campaign, the genres, the targeting, and also to promote a playlist, an EP/LP, etc., you can set up and request an ad campaign yourself.
You’ll start by creating a Link page – either in one click (just by adding your Spotify /and/or other/ link), or by customizing it to match your preferences (background color, more streaming platforms’ buttons, adding or removing the social handles to it, etc.).
Then, you’ll define your targeting: genres, similar artists, and countries you prefer to target.
One thing to keep in mind here is the balance between reach and quality. Wider country targeting usually brings cheaper conversions (a lower cost per click = CPC), but sometimes, it can also mean a lower engagement (audiences changing their minds, or listening shortly, or not enough people saving the song). Narrower targeting can be more precise, but often comes at a higher cost, sometimes, much higher. Sometimes, you need to think about your priorities – and also, finding the right balance. Checking where your listeners come from the most (in your Spotify for Artists) and going for that and/or broadening that base might often make most sense.
Important: never go for the lowest possible daily spend (5 credits/day) and ONLY Tier 1, pickiest countries. Those Tier 1 countries are usually more expensive and very saturated, so with a budget lower than 10 credits per day, you gotta go wider. The higher the daily budget, the pickier you can get with your targeting.
This is one of the more important parts of the manual setup. You’ll be asked to select four videos from our database (powered by Pexels). There’s a search box, so you can simply type a vibe and pick what feels right. These choices help us understand the direction you’re going for.
We then take your selections and add one or two additional visuals on our side, based on experience, your artwork, and your choices. Each video gets paired with your music – either snippets of a track or different songs if you’re promoting a playlist or album – and multiple text overlays that we create.
This combination of snippets or songs gives Meta enough variation to test and learn what works best. We, over time, turn off videos that don’t work or don’t work well, and can add more videos to the pool if we see the need for it.
You can also upload your own visuals, either instead of or alongside ours.
If you do, it’s best to think in terms of variety. Ideally, you want 3 to 5 different videos – different moments, different moods, different visual approaches, and different parts of your track.
⚠️ If you only upload one or two very similar videos and they don’t perform well, Meta doesn’t have much to work with. That usually leads to higher costs or to the campaign getting a bit stuck. More variation gives the system room to test and find something that clicks with the audience. Sometimes, it’s actually something we would not expect to work as well, so really, try to go varied and different rather than keeping to one vibe only (if you want to keep the costs down)
You can also use our free Ads Studio tool (submithub.com/ads/studio) to quickly create simple visual variations, if needed.
Once everything is set, you load credits (or purchase them right there) and submit the campaign. That’s it. But even after loading credits, don’t forget to click on that green button Submit :) Otherwise, you’ll have to start over.
You’ll receive a confirmation email right away, and another one once the campaign goes live.
After submission, we review everything on our side: We refine targeting, add all the possible relevant and adjacent interests, prepare the visuals, and create multiple (5, to be exact) ad text variations for testing. If anything goes against Meta’s policies – for example, certain types of restricted (alcohol, political engagement, drugs, sex) content – we won’t launch the campaign – we'll cancel it, and your credits will be refunded. You will get an email if this happens (it's quite rare, though).
Otherwise, we check, prepare, and launch – and your ad campaign goes live ✅
Your ad campaign will also be assigned a tracking pixel (our own, genre-related; unfortunately, since the ads are running from our Business Manager, you cannot assign your own pixel), and a relevant Music Links page. Optionally, during setup, you can also connect your own pages, if you want the ads to run from your Facebook and Instagram pages, and get the occasional follow there.
Once live, you can monitor everything in real time under your Link page – general activity in Analytics, and ad-specific performance in the Ads tab, part Results.
You’ll see things like conversions, click-through rate, cost per result, a graphic of the performance’s evolution in time, and which countries, genders, ages are converting. On top of that, we send weekly updates so you don’t have to check everything manually.
You can absolutely change stuff (like the age range, the countries targeted, etc.) during your campaign. You can also connect your pages later on, not just at the start (under the Link, Ads tab, part Status). Do remember, though, that any bigger change like that restarts the learning phase (more about it right after this part), so, basically, you make your ad start from scratch again with any such changes. That is why you shouldn’t change these things often. Do it only if the campaign is not performing, or there’s something important why you simply have to – and ideally, do all the bigger changes at once, not one, and then another in a couple of days.
One of the most important things to understand is that ads take time to settle.
The first week or two are usually slower. Costs per result are higher, and conversions are lower, or can be very jumpy. This isn’t something we can influence much, and it's also not a sign that something is wrong – it’s Meta learning, and it can take time. Imagine it like them trying the videos out and figuring out who and where (placements) respond best, which visuals work, and how to optimize delivery.
Most campaigns take around 40 days to reach a more stable and efficient state.
This is why ads work best as a longer-term strategy rather than something you judge after a few days. Canceling after 3 days and saying it “doesn’t work” doesn’t make any sense because of this – it really can take quite a bit of time, especially if your daily budget isn’t huge.
After a few days, you’ll be able to see the visual that is being shown the most. You’ll find it under the Link page, Ads tab, part Visuals. Clicking on the underlined this one opens up the preview.
Usually, Meta identifies a “winner” and starts prioritizing it. That’s why we avoid making changes too early, or don’t go for a long back and forth about the visual picks – interrupting this process can slow things down, and one never knows what resonates before it does. It's better to try multiple different variations and wait for what the audience prefers, rather than overthinking every little detail, from our experience.
If you want to add new visuals later, you can do so at any time. You can upload them under the Link, Ads tab, Visuals section (mp4 button). Keep it limited, though – 1 or 2 or max. 3 at a time after the campaign’s been launched – and give the system about a week before adding more. Uploading too many at once spreads the budget thin and makes testing less effective.
Guidelines for your own visuals: apart from keeping it varied (visually, and also, music snippets-wise) – here's a guide for ad content inspiration, btw – try to go for at least 8 seconds and under 30 seconds of length. The most preferred and usually the cheapest to convert format is Reels size (16:9), but you can also upload a 4:5 ratio, or a square. Don’t go for huge file sizes – Meta will downsize big files anyway, so a normal “HD” quality is enough.
If a campaign isn’t performing as expected, we step in and optimize.
This can include adjusting country targeting (if the cost per result is very high, usually Meta needs more countries = a wider targeting to find people that resonate with the ads), introducing new creatives, and/or turning off underperforming ads. There are also multiple settings in the Business Manager we try to tweak if none of that works.
These changes are made gradually, because every major adjustment resets the learning phase.
If we ever need something from you, we’ll reach out directly. Also, here's a guide with tweaks you can do on your own.
And if you need help?
If anything comes up, you can also:
If you need us, just email, ideally, with the link to your campaign, to tilly@submithub.com / jason@submithub.com – do so especially if you have any particular requirement or change(s) needed, or don’t know how to adjust something yourself.
Campaigns have auto top-up enabled by default, which means they continue smoothly once the initial budget runs out. This is the usual ad approach – most people want to run ads longer-term, as that is how they work best. Not stopping = not restarting the learning.
You can turn this off at any time if you’d prefer to let the campaign end. It can be done under your Link page, Ads tab, part Status. You can also manually add credits or stop the campaign there (red work Cancel) whenever you want. Any unused credits are returned to your account once the campaign is cancelled.
Pausing (which keeps the budget in, ready for you to restart when you want to) is also an option, but keep in mind that if a campaign is paused or stopped for more than a day or two, restarting it will trigger a new learning phase.
🚨 One more - IMPORTANT - thing about your daily spend and its changing: You can change your daily budget anytime under your Link → Ads tab → Status section, too. However, any budget change greater than 20% within a week will restart the learning phase. So, if you want to increase or decrease your daily spend, you’ll need to do it gradually. Adjust by less than 20% at a time, in any given 7-day period.
For example, if your daily budget is 8 credits, reduce it by 1 credit (to 7), then wait 7-10 days before making another change. After that, you can lower it again by 1 credit (to 6), wait another 7-10 days, and so on.
Even small changes can reset the learning if done too quickly. For instance, lowering by 1 credit and then again the same or the next day will restart the learning and reset your campaign’s progress. So if your campaign is performing well, it’s best to avoid making rapid or big changes.
Ads aren’t instant – but they can be very impactful when given the right setup and enough time.
The most important thing is to keep expectations realistic, especially in the first few days. You need to give the system time to learn, provide enough variation for testing (if you’re using your own videos), and avoid making too many and/or too early changes.
After a few days, start monitoring. Spotify reports numbers with a delay, and doesn’t show “ad streams,” so… you’ll need to look at overall streams, which countries are driving them, and how things compare to your past releases and also to the Ads performance. Also check Radio plays (if they’re higher than usual, that’s a good sign), as well as your song’s popularity score (if you’re promoting a track), and whether the followers are growing (if promoting a playlist, or your artist profile).
Once things start to click, ads can become a steady source of streams, saves, follows, and algorithmic traction, and a great algo booster – or a solid way to grow a playlist. Just, don’t expect that to happen in a miraculous way, it’s a slow and steady (and not particularly cheap) way :)