SoundCloud has a massive audience just waiting for artists like you to share your content with. To help you out, they offer various advertising tools to help you gain more exposure. In this post, we’ll break some of them down for you so you can make the most of your efforts. Here’s the rundown…

How To Advertise on SoundCloud as an Independent Musician

Promote

Promote is a self-serve tool on SoundCloud that lets you choose targeting options (like age, gender, location, device or genre) to get your music in front of the audience you want on their Stream and mobile homepage. Targeting a release can benefit you in many ways. For example, if you’d like to build the hype for your new song in an upcoming city on your tour route before the day comes.

To do this, all you have to do is: 

• Name your promotion
• Select one of your public, monetizing tracks
• Decide if you want to use Simple or Advanced targeting
• Pick a budget for how much you’d like to spend
• Select your start and end date for the promotion
• Choose the audience you want to reach
• Check availability and add to your cart.

Easy as that.

Audio Ads

SoundCloud also offers audio ads that play between songs on the platform. Audio ads allow you to deliver a short message to listeners, capturing their attention and generating awareness for your music. These ads can be an effective way to introduce new releases, upcoming shows, or build brand recognition.

Collaboration and Cross-Promotion

Collaborating with other artists on SoundCloud is a powerful method for expanding your reach. Seek out musicians in complementary genres or with similar fan bases and propose collaborations. By cross-promoting each other’s work, you can tap into new audiences and gain exposure. This can in the form of featuring on each other’s tracks, remixing, or even joint marketing efforts.

Don’t stop there…

It’s important to recognize that although the tools SoundCloud has to offer are great on their own, you’ll need to implement a strategic approach that involves proper marketing on all the platforms your music frequents to truly maximize your advertising efforts.

This means you need a call-to-action on your other social profiles that pushes people to check out your SoundCloud. It also means providing links to your website and upcoming events, directing listeners to take specific actions like buying tickets to your shows, streaming a specific song, or even sharing your song with their audience. All of this increases the chances of converting these viewers into future dedicated fans and supporters.

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📚 Sharpen your SoundCloud skills…

8 Ways To Grow Your SoundCloud Community

How to Improve Your Discoverability on SoundCloud

How to Use SoundCloud as a Marketing Tool

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… and don’t forget data!

Once you’ve started any kind of campaign, it’s crucial that you monitor its performance. Metrics like impressions, click-through rates, engagement and conversions can all help you make informed decisions on how to either adjust your current strategy or try something new in the future. To find insights like these, head over to your Insights Overview page on desktop.

Keep in mind, great advertising doesn’t happen overnight. It takes some trial and error to find what works best for you as an artist, but my utilizing all the tools available to you, you can ensure your music has the best chance it can have of reaching new heights.

Good luck!