Should you run ads on older songs?
Running ads on older songs can still be effective, as there’s no strict algorithmic advantage limited to a song’s first few days. While new releases benefit from initial fan engagement and playlist pushes, older tracks can find fresh audiences through targeted campaigns.
By Andrew Southworth
Hey friends!
I’ve seen people wondering if its worth promoting songs that aren’t brand new.
I saw someone in particular even claim that ‘the first 3 days are all that matters to the algorithm’. And i’ve people spend crazy amounts of money on ads in those first few days, when your campaign is at it’s worst performance (ads get better over time).
The short answer is, yes you can run ads on older songs. In my experience there isn’t anything magical about the first 3 days of a song’s life. Or even the first 7 days, or the first 28 days.
That being said, you should still aim to promote your songs starting on release day. Let me explain…
Why new songs have an advantage
New songs do have an advantage.
Your existing fans are going to see you talk about the song on socials, and your email list and go check it out when its brand new
The algorithms on the DSPs are going to push it on their ‘new music’ playlists like Spotify’s Release Radar
Most of your marketing around a song is going to be concentrated earlier in the song’s life, like the first few weeks
All of this happens when your song is new. When your song is older none of these things are happening, so your ad campaign has to do all the heavy lifting, which makes it harder to hit algorithmic playlists.
Everything we’ve seen about the Spotify algorithm implies that it’s all about streaming velocity and streaming accuracy.
When I say streaming velocity, I just mean how many streams you’re getting per time period. But specifically per 28 day window. The more streams you get in a 28 day window the more algorithmic traction you see.
When I say streaming accuracy, I mean how ‘correlated’ are your streams. Do the people listening have similar favorite artists in common? Are they listening to the whole song and saving your song and adding it to playlists because they’re a great fit for your song?
Why would you promote older songs?
If new songs have an advantage, why would you ever promote an older song? There are a few reasons:
You have an older song thats always performed really well in ads, or social media content. That song is still new to most of the planet, so keep using it to find new fans.
You have older songs you believe in but never tried promoting, and want to see how it performs.
Old songs are still new to people who haven’t heard them yet. What you’re really after is a winning song. Not every song you release will perform well, so when you find one that works you should milk it for all its worth.
Let’s say you just released a new song and it’s performing $0.90 per conversion in Tier 1 / 2 countries, but your last song was doing $0.20 in Tier 1 countries. Thats a HUGE difference. Assuming you’ve fully tested your new song, tested different creatives, parts of the song and audiences, very likely the best move is to pivot the rest of your planned budget back into that older song.
That older song is going to grow your fanbase much faster than that newer song.
Should you promote OLD songs?
So far i’ve really been using ‘old songs’ to mean songs older than 28 day. But what if you have a song thats 1 year old, or 10 years old?
Welp, my answer is really the same. A winning song is a winning song, and you might be sitting on a few golden tracks. The only way you know how they’ll perform is by testing them.
If you’re sitting on a bunch of untested material I like to run a ‘multi-song test campaign’. Basically just make a handful of videos for each song, throw them all in one big campaign and see what wins. That way you don’t need to spend all the time and money testing each individual song by itself.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
My courses. Spotify Growth Machine teaches you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music on Spotify. YouTube Growth Machine teaches you how to grow a YouTube channel organically and how to use YouTube ads. Fan Growth Machine teaches you how to build a website, online store and grow your email list.
My ad agency Southworth Media specializes in running Meta conversion ads to promote your music on streaming platforms, email list growth, tour promotion and more.
Website / Store / Funnels. MusicFunnels and FanFunnels are the best all-in-one platforms for music artists to make a website, online store, sales funnels, build a mailing list and more!
1-on-1 consulting. You can book 1-hour calls with myself or my team here.
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