I Asked Boost Collective If They’re Legit

Ronan, if you only had one minute to give music artists the best advice you possibly could, what would you say? One minute on the clock. >> I think for me, I'm a big music and visual guy to tie in. So, I think like artists, one thing they don't really do is like test enough. I think the music above everything else matters the most if you're going to get like the best streaming possible or if it's just going to go by the wayside. I think like in 2026 as as much as people were kind of doing like the waterfall technique and like release all the time and doing all this stuff, I think you can't beat the music, man. If you have a great track and it's got that hook and it's got something that really really just slams, you just got to test it and if it works, it works. Um, and then always trying to scale like other verticals. There's like streaming, all this other stuff. Make sure that you are prepared to be able to bring in as many people and capitalize off them in other verticals. Whether that's like live, whether that's getting on like a Jimmy Fallon show, whether that's whatever it is, social media, everything else. Merch, position yourself so that you are, you know, the best on all fronts. >> Heck yeah. Nailed it. [music and singing] >> Uh, great advice. And so, uh, it's It's interesting because you uh come from the uh you know marketing side specifically right from Boost Collective, right? So it's it's good to hear that um you know the the music still the most important part because I think a lot of the times in our our circles like a lot of people >> don't say that, right? And then and then artists kind of left feeling kind of just discouraged that the music doesn't matter. But like it, you know, you you guys have run a lot of campaigns over the years. Like I would have to imagine tens of thousands if not more. Uh, and like can you talk a little bit about like how much the music affects the quality of the campaigns you've run? Like for example, how much for how much more juice can you get out of like a slam in song versus how much harder is it for a mid song? >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I feel like everyone that maybe you've interviewed and obviously yourself you know best that you're working with a client and they give you something that and I think artists get stuck in this sort of like emotional zone where they've just created something and like they're very excited about it. They're attached to it. There was a certain kind of magic maybe within the studio. Um the session they bounced it, they put it out and then boom like cool like how do we get this out? they fall within like I don't know some sort of funnel. They're hitting by an ad like on on Instagram by us or you know they're watching something by you and they're trying stuff out and it's just not clicking. I think kind of with us obviously we have like the ad side, we have the playlisting side, we have all of that and we see it no matter what kind of like method you're using to send to your music. Maybe like even if you went out on the street and you put headphones on someone, like those videos and you're like, "Rate this song out of 10." If they're not trying to be nice to you and they're trying to be objective or objective, sorry, like they might kind of say, "Hey, man, like this ain't it or this is a four or five or something like that out of 10. Um, when you think it's something that's far greater, right?" So, I think as far as to get back to the question, as far as how much does quality affect streaming, if we're talking purely digital, I feel like it's, as you know, something good. You could probably hit it with like a pool, a sample pool of a,000, 5,000 people, whatever. And then think about if uh you only had, let's say, a few people that have to do the work to spread the word for you. If it's a four or five word on the street, they're probably not gonna word of mouth spread the song for you. They're not gonna And I feel like a word of mouth on the street being like, "Hey, like, bro, have you heard this song?" is like the same as you're in the same room as someone in the basement. You guys are gaming and the song comes on and like you're like, "Yo, what is that?" You're listening to your like your boy's playlist or your friend's playlist and they let you know, "Oh, bro, I heard that off like this ad, you know, on Instagram. I got it like I saved it 3 days ago. Cool." You know, it's stuff like that that really moves the needle that we don't think about when, you know, we're using marketers to market the music or you're doing it yourself. Um, the impact that like these people are actually real. You know, we're refreshing the the Spotify for artists every day. We see them as a number. We're like, why isn't it going more than 3,000 a day or 5,000 a day? It's like, bro, these people are real. So, it's like the music being the the root source of why someone should share it should be obviously the most important thing. So, I would say, you know, 1,000 spent on something bad versus 1,000 spent on something good, you're probably going to see 10, 20, 50x, 100x even. And then the longevity, the long-term component of uh the retention, you know, be as big as it possibly can be. Sorry for the ramble. >> No, no, absolutely. That was a great answer. Um, and and so for a lot of people here, I feel like they might know whose collective as the name, but I don't know if they know like anything about you. So, I think it'd be good just to have you give us kind of like a like a one to two minute backstory on like what is the story of Boost Collective? How did you get from >> uh random kid with playing with some Spotify playlist to like one of the biggest music marketing companies on the planet like I would probably say is an accurate statement. Uh so yeah tell us about that that journey. >> Thank you. Um it's interesting and funny. Um I always kind of like people are always asking that when we meet them. Uh and I felt like I was kind of like the youngest in the room for a while. 25 now. Uh I met my business partner Damian who we were both the co-founders of of Boost as it stands uh about I met him maybe like 10 years ago at this point and I think that's when obviously like the Soundcloud era was the most prevalent. So this was pre pre20 2016 I want to say. So Spotify was I feel like I was having a conversation actually with like this DJ and it's funny like to see some of these guys are a little more vets and they're like hey man like our SoundCloud still does super well for us and like you know like I remember back in the day like we didn't care about Spotify. People were like who what is this Spotify? >> U I'm just trying to get downloads on like hyped it or something on my my Soundcloud. >> Um so I think just you know to set the time frame like that's what was going on. it was very much a Soundcloud digital sort of um streaming economy and and whatnot. And then Spotify came and and kind of like you know became the prevalent platform. So when we were doing things it was all about like how do we get as many reposts as possible on a song. So a little backstory we were making Damian and I were making like house music EDM. This is when like the stuff in in the Netherlands was like super popping. that sound was really b big like the the Dutch sound. Um, so we were trying to be like Martin Garrick and stuff like that. We were we were like watching FL Studio and and Ableton tutorials on like stuff like that. Um, making stuff, putting it out, obviously, you know, like the the previous question, it was absolutely garbage. So, every marketing attempt we threw at it was getting nothing. You can spend as much as you want to. Um, but if if your product is is, you know, I always like to say like at Boost, we're marketing your product. Um, and if your product that you're giving us and we're trying to ship it out to people is um, especially, you know, all you need is 3 seconds and people can decide if they want to keep playing it. Um, it'll get skipped and it won't get the stream. So, you know, that's what we were trying to do. We were making EDM music. Uh we were in the same kind of like town outside of Toronto here in Canada. We met up at the local mall. We were like, you know, pretty young. Um and we just started kind of like doing it for people individually as boost. I think back in like 2017. Um helping them out, trying to get them reposted. there were these big like I don't know if you remember like these big repost networks and chains uh and stuff like that. >> So that was kind of how we started. Obviously, come Spotify, we had a website going. Um, trying to get people on playlist because that was like the big thing. Like editorials were everything when Spotify had all that power coming up and and that's how people listen to music. And there were playlists that just like would get as many streams as the editorials, which is hard to find now, I feel like. But um this was like super wild west era as we all know. Like 2016 to 2019 was I feel like very um anything goes. There's a lot of people doing a lot of things. Um this was like the rappers trying to get like the most streams possible and social proof their their page and stuff like that. So, we just hunted for those kind of curator connections that like owned playlist that were growing their their list through like ads and stuff like that and adding them to the network and trying to verify, hey, like is this person legitimate? Um, if we sell a package where we're going to pitch music to these people and like really try and get them heard, like are they going to be okay? So I think it was, you know, really trying to those years were really trying to figure out how to offer something because back in back then like it was I don't know like seven plus years or you know 5 to seven years ago this range like >> people there there weren't a lot of information out there like there is obviously like you've been around for a long time too and like we were watching your videos. We were watching like a few I forget some other people like I feel like Adam Ivy was big and like you know what I'm saying? Damen Keys was was doing his thing and all these guys were doing their thing. Um so I think yeah like in the space and promotion there was just like just get on playlist get on playlist and that kind of worked for us. we were able to build up uh a large kind of network and that's kind of how we got started. And then since then we've built a ton of things and and kind of like we're working with large artists, midsize labels, the independents um through a bunch of promotional means. But yeah, that's kind of a little bit on us and how things kind of got started. So >> wild. and and uh you guys have an interesting reputation online to say the least. Um, and so I I one thing like when I first met you, my one of my first questions I think was like, >> "Are you guys legit, you know, and I just like just asked you on that that meeting and you were like, "Oh, yeah." And I was like, "Okay, just just" And the reason is like >> I you know, I I've looked you up on on Google and you get these Reddit threads. And the thing is, I know as someone who runs a music marketing company and who's been involved with several others that you people if a campaign doesn't go someone's way, they get accused of being like a scam company. And I you guys have had no like you guys have had your fair share of those uh those people online. So, one, um, you know, just because I I feel like there's going to be people commenting that like I didn't think this company was legit and I've known you for a little while now and you guys are like one, you're real people. You have a physical office in Vancouver, I think. >> Toronto. Toronto. Yeah. >> Right. And um, you know, so that's like the first thing like you have a face to the company. You have multiple faces to the company. You and Damian then also like a bunch of other people on your team. Um, so like why do you think you guys have kind of got more of that online than some of some other companies? >> Yeah, it's a great question. I think mostly I would say just like the speed at which we really ramped over the last couple of years. Um, and then I think just because like we're young, man. I think like I said earlier, we talked before this. I think like our team has is super like obviously it's got a a large amount of people that are of all walks of lives and ages. Um but the people on the content side and and and whatnot have always been like I feel like younger um they speak to you know the a lot of like the youth the new artists that are coming up and stuff like that. Um, and I think just like in talking to, you know, some of the other people in the space, other people that are creators in the space, I think we're the the one company that just grew through purely ads and a lot of other companies grew through in the space grew from just like being around a long time and [snorts] having partnerships. Oh, like this dro is partnered with this platform and you can get a code or >> I looked it up on on Google and like this there's really only like three players and and like 10 years ago and for being around so long um they sort of just like had that um what would you call it like pioneers advantage or something like that, right? Um, so I think just like aggressively being in people's faces really does that to you. And all it takes is I mean we've we've worked with so many artists. Um, we're running so many ads and like we'll we'll be walking down the street with like Jabari who's in like our ads and people will recognize him and be like, "Yo, you're that guy from from Boost." Um, right. And I think it's just like when you or like when I'm talking to it's the funniest thing like I'll be talking to like a an executive or something at a record label or um someone who's independent even that has like a million monthly listeners like I'm good friends with like Matt Corman and he's he's like a big like independent like rapper or whatever and he was even like dude like I get your ads every single day like stop. You know what I mean? And I'm just like, I'm sorry, dude, but it like obviously, you know, that's that's how we've grown. So, I think it's just a mix of of those two things and and just kind of being relentless. Um, and and really kind of just like I feel like it's just comes with the scale that a lot of the other the other kind of companies really grew and took a really long time and like incredible, great for them. Um, and we've just always been very very loud, very good with the with the ad stuff, but I feel like, you know, lately and stuff like that, as we continue to broaden the kind of things that we're doing and like the people we're working with and the the services that we offer, it's like, you know, there's just so much going on. We we'll have 5,000 independent artists per month coming through. That's just like all it takes is is one person that's like afraid of something that obviously you've been super vocal about. It's just like say like a dro warning or something like that. They're saying Spotify told me to took it's like well actually you know like this isn't true or someone uses like I think the most common case will be like someone uses a random service and like something off Fiverr or something off there's a few there's a few there's a few we won't name names but you know they'll use that they'll use us they'll use someone else they'll promote boost a post on Instagram and and they have like six traffic sources coming and it's like when we're asking hey can you send us like who else you're working with they ever want to say who else they're working with and then when you do you're like hey man like >> you might want to flag you know this um this source which was from this company or this whatever and you know I think >> something similar recently as well like someone uh >> you know they sent us a very angry email that like hey my my song just got pulled from Spotify and they're like you're the only company I've hired and you're you're you like this is your fault, give me all my money back. And I was like like if that's the case, we will, but like I don't think that's the case, right? Like and so I'm I'm asking him like trying to figure out I'm looking at Spotify artist, but like we can't see the song anymore because it's been taken down. So we can't really see any stats. And we're asking him all this information because like you know the song was the campaign was run like three weeks prior. And so we're like, this timing doesn't make sense for it to be us because usually they flag it three months after when they're paying out. And then um additionally, like you know, like we didn't do anything weird, right? So like it we've never had an issue like this. Um, and then what ended up happening is like a few days go by and apparently the song got pulled for a cover license issue and his distributor just didn't they they fel like they told him the wrong reason or something like he asked Spotify support and Spotify said, "Oh, it got pulled for artificial streaming, but he asked his distributor and distributor said, "Oh, no, we pulled it because you didn't properly license the cover song." And then he just panicked and thought that we screwed him. And so then he, you know, he apologized and everything. It's all cool. But, you know, it it that kind of showed me how some of these things can happen, right? And like I've had other people just be unhappy with their campaign. Be like, "Oh, your service is a scam." It's like, "Well, your campaign didn't go well. We tried our best and our best wasn't good enough." But like to say it's a scam is just false, right? You know, like you you guys can't make every campaign be a slam dunk, right? But you have a certain amount of effort and work that you put into everything you do. Um, but you know, things go wrong and you try to do your best. Yeah, that's just like the beauty of music and music marketing. I think I always have like I think I've created like a mental checklist for kind of a release. It's like, okay, let's see before release. Like, are we testing this out? Maybe we we playlist it. Maybe we run some ads to it. We do a few things to just see how effective it is at like low cost. Um, and like I say, like everyone has a different, you know, place where they're coming from. To some people, you know, a $200 campaign is is a lot of money. And then to some other people like you know there are people that just they've got money dude and they're spending so much and like their results are just like mid yet they just keep coming back because like if we're being completely honest like this song that they they've you know either given us or whatever is just when you play it beside what it's trying to imitate you're like dude like you know but I think yeah it just all all depends on on what people value and and how emotionally you know attached like it, like I said earlier, I think it's artists are very emotional and there's nothing wrong with that. You you obviously want to stand behind your work um and be proud of it. And I think sometimes when when you think it's, you know, the best thing ever, but other people might not think it's the best thing ever, it that definitely hurts a little bit. And there's nothing wrong with it, you know. Um and then like I say before, like you and I, we're trying to, you know, we are trying to market someone else's product. So, like imagine if you use like um an iPhone that just died or something like that or like a phone that just randomly drained battery all the time and like did all this stuff like you know what I mean? Like imagine using the first iPhone today or something like that. Like if you're giving us a product that isn't up to par with you know the the the music that is making all this money and and getting all these eyes on it. Um, and it doesn't even have to be like like once again objectively people will say, "Bro, that song I can't I hate that song. That song sucks." Okay. Well, maybe it's really well written and it's an earworm and a lot of people actually like it, right? So, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you guys have been doing I mean, you mentioned how you started off with the reposting, but then playlist were kind of your bread and butter for a long time, which you still do a ton of. Um, but you also do ads now, and you've been doing ads for for a decent amount of time now. And um I mean I'm not talking about the ads you run to promote your company, but like you run it as a service for artists too. And where do you view the use of playlists versus ads? Like at what point like what types of artists should should use playlisting? What types of artists probably shouldn't do playlisting should do ads instead? And then how does like budget play into that decision? Yeah, I think honestly I love that question because I feel like on one end there is no definitive answer. It's really just like what's going on. Um, and I feel like playlists are were obviously used to be the end- all beall have now kind of like I feel like they're a great compliment if you can get a good placement or you know if something really fits. Um, especially there's just a lot of genres that work really well on playlisting and then there's a lot of genres that don't. Um, and then as well like let's say how much money you do have to play with. I think we can both agree if you only have like $50 but you really really want to try something like maybe ads aren't the best. You know what I mean? especially >> you're an agency, there's work, there's labor, there's people, there's building creative, there's like >> obviously and then of course the ad spend which is fueling everything. 50 ain't getting anyone too too far, but pitching out stuff and and and whatnot. 50 might actually go far on the right playlist and it's a great song and people aren't skipping it, right? So, I think like whereas playlisting may have been a little more active listening in years previous when they were sort of like, hey, like how do I find new music? I'm going to go on this playlist and just like seek it out. Um, and as like everyone who's kind of been around the block knows that a good playlist can kind of still bring, let's say, like playlist ads on on SFA side. Like if you have >> a playlist that's doing well and has a lot of good quality active traffic going to it, people are skimming through that, they they they're still hearing it. They're like, "Hey, like I actually like this one. I'm going to add it to my own playlist." Um rather than just saving it if they're a playlist person, they might just add it to another playlist is what, you know, usually we see. Whereas like yeah like direct traffic and something pops on Tik Tok or like people are going and just searching your stuff up and that's like you know own people's listeners own library source and and people saving it and all this stuff. Same with ads. Um, >> yeah, I think sorry for the, you know, jumbled question everywhere or answer everywhere, but I think, yeah, I feel like playlisting is is kind of in a spot right now where it really can complement um, whereas it used to be the cornerstone, it kind of complements >> the greater marketing mix now, if that makes sense. So on that note, like if someone has $1,000, 5,000, whatever example you want to give, how much would like, you know, and obviously going to be a little different for different types of artist on average, what percentage of that do you think you would recommend people allocate to ads versus playlisting versus other stuff, right? Like in the whole sphere of music marketing services. Yeah, I think I think now we're kind of getting into like maybe it's more of an artist dependent situation. Um, what kind of artist is is this, right? So, if it's like a if it's purely just like a digital play, like we're not too concerned with our our look or image yet. we're getting music out and we're just we're trying to find or if this is just a digital campaign I would say um maybe like a 7525 80 like 80 maybe 20 is a little bit too low um if we're playing with like a thousand but >> yeah I would say like 7030 to 75 25 maybe 75 being on on the ad side and 25% being on the playlisting side because >> once again like I think the upside potentially is really there. I think like obviously playlisting can definitely be very hit or miss depending on what the song is. Um but if you do land a placement like I've I've seen campaigns land a placement where like it's just this song for some reason is very reactive on a playlist >> and people are are enjoying that you know that experience and they're getting a lot of streams per day. think like we all know like I think um because we come from EDM world there's like a lot of EDM playlists that do a lot of like trade slots and there's these >> artists, producers, DJs and whatnot that like own their own playlist and some of their playlists are pulling like absurd numbers and if if you get on there like you pay someone $100 or $200 and like they're acting as like your agent and they're pitching it out and they're find trying to get you placements and they're like hey consider consider this and you get on something like that, that could be an additional like 2,000 stream baseline, right, a day. Um whereas as we know ads are going to be if you're aggressive with it or if you like to add by like you know like I do or someone who's you know really trying to I think make the most of the current moment and build momentum as fast as possible you're going to see line go up if you're really if you if you've got something your ad's killing your song's killing everything the reaction the how Spotify is rewarding you algorithmically like it's going to go up crazy and then like maybe it just like really plummets. But sometimes if you have we've worked a few campaigns where like sometimes you have some some playlisting that's helping out and it's just keeping a a baseline there as well. Um it seems to like help the overall retention especially long term. It's just like you know there's so many different answers and and aces and like nobody really knows bro you know what I mean? It's just >> o overall that's generally the guidance I give where it's it's most of the money goes to ads and there's a smaller chunk for playlisting just to keep the the overall like quality metrics like stream per listener save rates playside rates on the higher side. >> So I'll usually tell people you know the same kind of 80 80% even 90 because it really depends on the budget. the budget's five grand, um, 10% of that is plenty for, >> yeah, playlisting. But if the budget's one grand, you you're probably not going to find a playlisting company that'll do a playlist service for 100 bucks. Well, then then again, you guys constantly surprise me. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> With some of the the the bottom like the lower end of your your package sizes. Um, what how do you guys ensure that the playlisting side of what you do stays safe? Like that that's I think a big concern for everyone who's dabbling in playlisting for the first time or or is using it to try to scale up a song is how do I know if I do this that you're one like if they're playlist that you have that you're not bought in them. too that if their playlist where it's a network thing that the that you properly vetted the other people's playlist to know that they're not botting. Um what's your process with that? >> Great question. Great question. I think like the big thing for us is just tracking that activity. So I think there's a lot of great tools in the space where I always say, "How do I know you're not doing this? How do I know you're not doing that?" I'm like, well, you can check kind of as well, right? And I think it's gotten or in my experience where it was just so easy for someone to be able to sort of make it appear as though a list that they owned was doing well and consistently every day growing at around the same amount. And I think like it's hard to tell because you can have someone that is growing their list through through ads and they're spending the exact same amount every day. Your conversion cost is similar every single day. So it's bringing like pretty much the same amount of followers every day, you know, plus minus whatever it is, whatever variance that is. Um, but I think like in my experience, you can just totally, you know, tell you'll know a list will be around for a month. it'll just be up to some absurd number. It'll fall. Um, crazy looking gaps. And I think Spotify really has done a great job of kind of cleaning that up. Three years ago, four years ago, rampant, man. Like, and I know a big thing was like artists would get on something legit that we'd be able to get them and then [clears throat] they would get kind of like placed on something without them even wanting it, you know, on like there were those services that were just like stalking playlists and adding people on mass, you know. Um, >> that was a really big problem for for a while and I think it's mostly gone away. I don't know if it's the Spotify did it or >> or or if it just like it got >> so hard for those people to make money that they just gave up on their own. But for anyone watching doesn't know what we're talking about like these there's this company um probably several that would just add artists >> randomly it seemed to their playlist they were botting and then uh the artist would see it in Spotify artist click on the playlist and then there would be a link to go buy more services and um then you know of course you go to that link or you send the email and they'd be like oh yeah we'll we'll give you another 100,000 streams for like 50 bucks and then um I got one of them to send me their PayPal address and I get to see like which company it was behind the scenes. So >> that's hilarious. That's it's wild, man. I think Yeah, like there's tools that are just really good. Like I think Spot on Track we've been using for like forever. Um just tracks you just you can paste a link in and kind of save a list and then you can come back every day and see what's going on. Um artist tools, a great one. Shout out Aaron over there. He's building it. He's he's a legend. that that's the one we use as well as artist tools. >> We just did a partnership with them and we've got something cool I think coming out for next month with them. But yeah, like I think like there's so many great tools just through like API now that artists can use and take advantage of to see what's going on. Um, but yeah, like obviously I think it's a it's something that artists don't have to worry about as much as they did three years ago where like I said like even three four years ago it was a wild west. We um the coolest thing we we attended the if anyone's familiar with MFA >> kind of like I think it's a really good sort of like movement and and sort of like I want to say a collective of people that are from Dro Kid, Touncor, Tulos um I think even some maybe one of the majors is is a part of it Spotify themselves and we've had great conversations with like obviously see a lot of the dros people working there um made great connections there people asked Spotify directly who you know handled stuff that's obviously all about fighting fraud um >> and just getting their take on it so yeah like a big thing we did was like we hosted like a round table I think it was like in February or something um like of this year I could be wrong with the date but yeah it was all about like how do you stay safe in the sort of playlisting space, um the general promotion space cuz I think we were like the only promotion company that was like attending um that event. But yeah, it's all it's all cool. It's all about like sharing data and seeing how you know we can prevent stuff like that. So yeah, how does Spotify feel about your playlisting services and not really just you, but like playlisting services in general, right? Because like historically their terms of service say that uh you know they they oppose people being able to pay to get on playlist and and historically also the way that people get around it is um well you're not paying us to get on your playlist. You're paying us for consideration. We're going to send you these different people entities that own these other playlist and then anyone can say yes or no. And so there's this kind of abstraction layer. Um, but like going to the Music Fights Fraud Alliance as a company that offers that service, um, and them probably knowing that, you know, even though you guys aren't doing it, a lot of the botting activity happens through Sketchy Playlist. Um, did you did you have any like interesting conversations while you were there with anyone from either like Spotify or or distributor or anything like that? >> Yeah. No, for sure. I think the big thing that we our message and and whenever we've had conversations with whoever it is going to be that's not in promotion is really like artists deserve a way to promote their music number one artists number two are going to promote their music and are going to try things and I feel like artists shouldn't be shamed in trying things obviously you know what I that thing that they're trying needs to be legitimate and and they're not the intention is not like I'm trying to steal money from the royalty pool or whatever like that. Um, >> but the two things I think really go hand in hand. I think artists deserve to promote their music and they're going to do whatever it takes to try and promote their music, right? Like so when we're having those conversations, I think coming from that angle really opened the sort of like thought processes and stuff like that um sparked a lot of interest. I feel like those people are are are kind of like, you know what, like yeah, we realize and we recognize that artists are going to promote their music no matter what. Like how else do you get heard if you're not, you know, having a team of help? The biggest artists in the world have a team of help. um or people that help them. So, it's kind of more like a it's kind of like a a discussion back and forth with, you know, here's what we're seeing and then they can say, "Okay, well, here's our problem. Here's what we're seeing." And how do we sort of like meet in the middle and make sure that everyone's happy and that, you know, we're creating a space in the music industry right now where, you know, artists are safe and no one's really stepping on anyone's toes. um and hurting the ability to be able to promote music in like once again like a safe legitimate um way pretty much. >> Yeah. I mean uh the reality is that as you said like artists are going to promote and the biggest everyone thing from like the smallest artist to the biggest artist in the world you do run playlisting and I was very kind of anti-playing for quite a while as you might know and what what kind of like broke the camel's back so to speak was when Spotify introduced uh showcase marquee and discovery mode cuz I was like, "Okay, so Poliola is cool if you're doing it right." And so that that was when I kind of changed my perspective a bit. It's like they're against like paying to to get your music like played in certain playlists and whatever. Um, but they will let you trade royalties in exchange for getting added to extra playlist. And it seemed very hypocritical for me which that's when like you know my agency started offering playlisting services as well and it's the same thing like we have curators who say no to tracks like it's not a guaranteed thing right um but even before I was very against even like the the pitching thing like I I used to tell people like do only do the submit hub or the playlist push or the gubber thing or bust and then after that I was like well if Spotify is going to allow And every big artist I know is running playlisting, too. Like Billy Isish runs playlisting campaign. I know people who have run playlist campaigns for Billy Isish and a bunch of other big artists. And like you I'm sure you can go on your page and you probably have a list of all the artists and labels you you guys have worked with over the years. >> Um it's freaking everyone that is doing it. And that, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone should do it. Still very much like gung-ho on ads, but I don't know. For me, that was what what kind of changed my mind on on people running like bulk I call it like bulk playlisting campaigns. >> Right. >> Right. I mean, super fair, man. I think you bring up great points and I feel like every time I'm at Indie Week, because we met at Indie Week. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> yeah, there's always someone at a DSP who works at DSP who's like, "You should try the marketing tools at ours." like and people are it's almost like there's like a planted asker in the in the audience who's like how do artists promote their music? Well, let me tell you let me tell you right now you should use our service to promote. So, it's like, you know, um >> I just think there should be more options for artists because without the competition, you know, like you're at the mercy of just one person um who can control, you know what I mean? They can control what results you would get. like it it's almost like behind the scenes at a DSP like if they've got the magic red button that you're paying for um who's to say that you know you're not getting this or that or you just never know. So I just I just think like I'm like I said I think I'm really big on artists just being allowed to have a way to promote music how they would like to promote music so long as it doesn't you know what I mean like raise alarms and hurt anybody else really. So >> yeah, now where I draw the line is like if it's real people >> that's you know I don't I don't mess with anything botted but if it's if it's real people listening to the music like in my book it's fair game. >> Um now on a kind of related note I guess you probably are aware like Spotify on September 1st massively changed their Spotify or their their uh their SEO ranking system. Um, and I'm guessing you heard of this at least, right? Like a lot of playlists starting around September 1 started seeing the organic growth just plummet. >> Um, and it was a certain type of playlist. It seems like a lot of playlists that were affected were >> movie soundtrack playlist, game soundtrack playlists, or like more generic keywords or like, hey, this is a Drake playlist, but one out of every five songs is actually some other artist squeezed in there for promotional purposes. And those players seem to have been hit the hardest. But have you seen this in your network? >> Oh man. Uh yeah. I think I think what I was going to touch on earlier honestly was in in the just came to me now like in the um when you asked me like, "Hey, what songs or what what kind of artists should use to choose a playlist over an ad?" That's kind of what I was going to tell you. But I was going to say, you know, there's actually a lot of people that might make more stuff that's like an ambient experience, more experienced based audio, whether that's something that's like orchestral or whatever it might be like a piano, something like that that as you know, you can run ad to it. You can get $5 per conversion on it and it's the fastest way to like just light money on fire. Um, in in a lot of cases there's you can run ad to a playlist which is like promoting a vibe that has that kind of audio in in the in the ad and start growing that playlist and you can put a 100 songs in there and then boom, you're getting like a 100 streams um for just like one person that's coming. So like maybe it's still a little more expensive to bring people to that playlist, but you're able to support um a lot of artists music on there, right? Um, but as far as yeah, like the decline, I just I don't think like really a lot of too many lists that we deal with um in our network really got affected too much. But I do know there were some really massive lists that either got even like privated or hidden or throttled or something like that. Um, and it's probably a bad day, a bad week, a bad month for whoever, you know, uh, own those. And I I feel really sorry for them. >> Uh, but yeah, like you just never know, right? Um, you just always got to pivot and adapt to what's going on. Yeah, I've seen some that are down like, you know, 50% or actually some where like they're gaining a follow the thousand followers day organically just plummet to losing 10 followers a day overnight starting September 1st. So like some cases have been pretty dramatic. In other cases it's been more subtle like a 50% drop which is still like crazy. But >> um yeah, some people I know their like someone I know their streams doubled after that because essentially like some people lost rankings which means other people gained rankings. Um, so it seems like for the most part it was the more >> manipulative playlist, the ones that would try to like almost like kind of trick you in some way like, hey, this is a Guardians of the Galaxy theme playlist and then you go in there and like only twothirds of the music is actually from Guardians of the Galaxy and the rest is whatever people paid to get in there, >> right? So, I also heard like I I talked I talked with this guy Austin who I uploaded a video with a couple weeks ago whose playlist network was like dramatically affected. Like he has a label and he promotes all this stuff through these massive like lists that he has. Um now I think he mentioned that a lot of his approach was like building playlists through SEO. So like they would run ads but the primary goal was to win keywords and then basically stop running ads so that the playlist could grow organically. And um I think you guys might have even come up in that. And he I think he might have mentioned that you guys were less affected because a lot of the the playlist in your network are more reliant on a constant stream of of ad traffic getting sent to them and not necessarily just SEO. I don't know. >> That's a thing. >> I think I think Yeah, it's I mean correct 100%. I think how I like to build business in general is you know how can I how can I have something that is as controllable as possible right so if I'm relying on you know and everyone's relying on certain platforms and companies but if I'm relying on a feature of a company um or in this case Spotify to recommend me to people for free almost because either I've like I think with SEO playlist and I've never really dabbled in it is once again for that reason it's just like so uncontrollable. Um, we've had lists that just like it's like, "Wo, like this is surging." And once again, you'll have someone who's like, "Bots, man. You you guys like like look at this list that I'm on. Like I'm I'm getting all these streams and like the the the follower count's going crazy." And then like two weeks later, like it falls out of the this the search engine results and it's low and it looks terrible on a graph. Um, but yeah, I think just like in general, we do like building pretty much everything to be as controllable as it can. And I I feel like with ads, a great ad, a great product, a great visual, a great experience, >> um, that's as frictionless as possible is going to be >> as controllable as possible and as hopefully as efficient as you possibly can get it consistently. So, >> yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so when it comes to you guys running ads, what are some of the things that you've learned that make the biggest impact? For for example, like some different creative strategies that you've tried, or like how many videos do you test per song, different parts of the song, different visual aesthetics, different hooks? Um, what do you look for when it comes to like stats in in the ad campaigns, either like cost per conversion or like the specific Spotify metrics? just got a feel for, you know, how how you guys approach like running meta ad campaigns for music. >> Yeah. Um it's a good question. I think everyone has their own methodology is what I've learned. So, in talking to and I know you work with um Spiration Music, right? Yeah. Is he a Yeah. Um, I I just love talking to people that are seeing great results from, you know what I mean, from ads and and pushing people to music, just promo in general. But everyone's got, one thing I learned, everyone has a different methodology on what to look for, when to scale, when to kill things like kill ads, um, and whatnot. So, I suppose for me, um, I'll just highlight one or two things. I think I've moved past cost per conversion. And I think that's going to be super super controversial. Controversial. Jeez. Um, but I think I've moved past cost per conversion because I was just talking about how I like things that are controllable sometimes. You know what I mean? Like this component called momentum is there and either you're not prepared for the momentum that's that's building every single day on a song um and there's almost no way to chase down a lower cost per conversion at scale sometimes I think like the biggest thing when it is when you're when you're running ads at like the high level and you're spending a ridiculous amount of money per day on something that's big you're working with a label large artist that's the territory where no one really talks about and I think that's the ter the territory rather I can't speak today um that is so is difficult to navigate and to communicate with a client because they're going to ask you all day what's CPC at what's you know what's your conversion what's the conversion cost at today like they're they're very you know they want to be auditing everything and that's fine um and you might say bro it's um it's like 40 cents and they're like what? But I'm like, dude, but the song is at four or five stream listener, right? The sort by your sources of streams, your like autoplay, your mixes, your basically your algo line continues to surge with what we're spending. Um, we have a lot of manpower obviously on our our staff that can help us continuously add new creative to the mix. sometimes like when you have something that's at $600 a day or $1,000 a day or $1,500 a day to a song, it's just man, you're going to spend more. You're you're you're going to have a higher conversion cost. So, I think like I like to play now more on just like the reaction. So, of I say, of course, we're going to get you the like the lowest conversion cost that we possibly can. And cool. when you're testing at $10 a day. Yeah. Like of of course you might score as low as like 10 cents, 7 cents, whatever. But that number is going to go up when you scale. And >> is Spotify going to reward you when you are at scale? Because that's when you know stuff gets real when you're risking when you're you're you're like all in on red, you know what I mean? And you're like, let's let's I don't know, bro. like every day you're getting this and like if the number keeps going up um or the number's staying whatever and it's kind of like a dance. You're dancing with Spotify and Spotify is challenging you and you're you're like like little Mac bro and you're like punching Mike Tyson and and and Punch Out >> and [snorts] like you sustain three bad days and then the weekend comes. like who's in the ring that's like really down to stay in the ring, bro. And just keep throwing it and and up it. It's like, oh, our conversion cost is at 55 today and we're down on Sunday. Like, let's go more. You know what I mean? Because, you know, that's that's my favorite territory. And then the next day you get that like insane Monday reward and you shoot the heck up and then like the the the client or like whoever it is or if you've signed it, it's the best feeling ever. You know what I mean? So, I think, sorry to ramble, but look past the conversion costs. Really try, and I think this only comes with being able to spend a lot. Um, it doesn't even have to be on one song, but just like having so many hats in the ring and seeing how different songs react um is almost more of a better guidance sort of like lever for you than, you know, just tracking ad metrics. Yeah, I I I agree actually. I mean, I actually did a Threads post today kind of like this coincidentally. Like I said, uh cheap conversions on your streaming ads don't automatically mean things are going well. Um you know, and then there's a bunch of other texts and I've had 40 cent cost per conversion campaigns that beat 10-centent cost per conversion campaigns because of and part of it's like >> because of one things can go wrong with your campaign. you're like basically wasting percentage of your traffic. Or it can just be like one song has like a five streams per listener and the other one has a two. One song has a 80% save rate, one has a 40% save rate and then one is getting pumped hard in Spotify algorithm and the other one gets no love from the algorithm. So it's not definitely not all about cost per conversion. That's just like the first part of it. But like what you actually care about is what's happening on the streaming platform, which is essentially what we >> the scaling problem is real as well. Like >> trying to take a song from $25 a day up to like 300, you know, let's say you got 15 cents a conversion at $25 a day, which is a fantastic result. And by the time you get to 300, if you're if you're at 30 cents a conversion, you did well, right? Even though your cost doubled, like that's a controlled scale. Sometimes when you scale up that high, your cost like quadruple and that's what you're trying to avoid. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's so all over the place. And like I said, like you could some campaigns like you and I'm sure you've had those. The best campaigns, man, you get one video and just stays stable and low for a ridiculous amount of spend. I think one thing I want to one gem I want to drop is I don't know if you already talked about this is opportunity costs and just timing. I think I think spreading it out for a really long time is not the way to really get the reaction and the result that you're probably gunning for. Um, and there's an opportunity cost to letting ads sit and have another day of, you know, time in the game. So, I think one day, and I know I know you know better than anyone, you may have a day where you're crushing it and you're at like super low cost per conversion. I don't know, we just talked about not caring about cost per conversion, but like it still matters. Um, and then the next day you're triple >> and then the next day like you come down a little bit and it just doesn't quite go back to what it was. And I think capitalizing on those days where it's good even though people are going to say don't touch it, man. Don't touch it. I think there's and I mean in my experience, dude, like you could double triple budget, especially if you're at low and it's you're still early in the day. Like it's not going to go up too much. And then, you know, I think like Yeah, like when you're on top, know when to turn up the heat and then know when to take the chips off the table. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. I I often describe uh like that campaigns are a part that's more like a science like building a campaign and structuring it and publishing it. It's kind of like a science. And then even getting your song in the algorithm in the first place, it's kind of like a science. You can just hit a certain amount of streams in a certain amount of time with good engagement and you'll you'll get your song in the algorithm. the but once you start getting into scaling things up um either scaling your spending on meta or trying to kind of gain the Spotify algorithm like what if I like kind of try to get my budget up to $400 a day uh and then see what happens the next Monday spike or what happens with radio in my opinion that's where it turns into an art and a little bit of black magic like you're almost playing chicken with the algorithm so you it does at that point it comes to like well let's let's try tripling our budget for this week and then next week we're going to look at it and see what happens And then like if it >> if the algorithm found positive, it's like cool, let's sustain it and see what happens. And like maybe next week we'll double it again. >> And then like if nothing happened like well cool, we spent three times as much money but the algorithm did nothing. So let's back off and then do that for a week and then we'll evaluate again next week and then oh the algorithm stayed just as high with half the budget and the song's doing just as good. Well, why are we burning more money if we're not going to get more traction? And it's it's very much like a game of chicken. Like a blackmagic art form game of chicken. >> Yeah, it is. It is. And it's like you just never know, man. You just never know. Or like you'll do something and and then you see the results of that like a month later um and whatnot, right? So yeah, I just think s gets real, bro, when you're spending big big, you know, spends per day. And another thing would also just be like it just depends where the song is at. If it's the worst time to work on a song, man, is when it's declining cuz you're going to burn so much cash trying to stabilize it. >> And maybe it's not meant to be stabilized. And then maybe that client's going to be very upset >> that you burn their their budget. And you know, like if you're at big streaming per day and then on release week and you're just like you're at like 35,000 streams a day and it's fluctuating and then it's coming down, you're at 17. We've done like top I've done campaigns for artists that are currently in the top 250 in the world where that problems happen like like especially that that was like an early learning lesson on the scale side of the ad game is like it's also just like from a marketer perspective. How do you um get a good response from your client and make sure that they don't feel like you just jipped them? Because but at the same time, it's like how do you tell them that like, bro, like you're just losing so much momentum right now and it almost doesn't matter and maybe we should revisit this next month when you're stable. Um, you know, it's tricky. Yeah, we've definitely been hired to run campaigns like when the song is on its free fall and uh >> it's hard because the you know the client's wondering like what like since I've hired you my numbers have gone down. It's like well like the algorithm was falling. You're kicked off this editorial here. It looked like you ran a playlisting campaign that ended three weeks ago and then like we're just trying to catch up to where you were. >> Yeah. Uh, and it's a hard convers and it does it looks like you're not doing anything, but it's like, "Hey, man, if you didn't do this, you would be way way lower, but like it's it's >> sometimes it's it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't." Um, sometimes you're just you're trying to, you know, sometimes the best solution is just to move on to the next song. >> Agreed. >> One thing I wanted to at least briefly talk about is is you guys have a music distributor, which is unique in that I believe it's free. Am I correct with that? >> Um, yeah. So, it's not free. It's uh there's a membership, but if you buy like a if you get a promotion package, whatever it is, don't fact check me on this. Um, >> okay. >> I'm a little removed from it. I think like we may have changed the offer, but I think yeah, like um I do know for sure it it is a it is a paid sort of thing and I think Okay. >> Yeah. What artists are really liking about it is obviously like >> it is a little more hands-on. Um >> we like to we always like to say like we like to fight for the artists that are that are on that dist like that distribution platform, all that stuff. But it's pretty cool. I love to talk about it. >> Yeah. What what have you learned just from running a a music dro platform? You know, like there's all the stuff about Drok Kid out, you know, that's been happening over the last year, but more more recently, right? They're they're they've been booting a bunch of songs due to their ongoing lawsuit with UMG and um you know, there's been plenty of drama over the years with them. But like I've learned that music distribution is is is hard in the way that like it's it's a kind of a commodity. It's a thing that like there's a million companies that do it and so like there's there's the margins are tight. It's like you know it's like running like a restaurant where like you're making like a couple percentage points profit kind of a thing. Um so I kind of feel for them when I see that and sometimes you know it's like you still judge them because like what the are you guys doing? But but like I don't know what what have you learned through running a music distribution platform? What what are the things that like artists should know? what are the things that um are maybe like more difficult that people didn't realize etc. >> Yeah, I think I mean if you're looking to start it I mean like starting it there. I think if you're looking to start a music distribution service maybe rethink that in 2026. It's a lot of work man. It's like, you know, you can't just make something that like is is in the red ocean like in in marketing terms or in business terms, right? Like if you launch this right now, do we really need it? Right? We've had ours for a few years and we've changed the the model of the the distribution and and sort of like we've brought it now. We've kind of seeing now the opening where Yeah. like there's a lot of artists that have a lot of things that are are or have a lot of issues with whoever they're currently using. Um and I think we we just wanted to be since we we have that big promotion lens and which you know we look at the industry uh through we wanted to make a platform that was a little more friendly towards those people and a little more understanding towards the people that you know are actually trying to get numbers because to once I I won't name names but to some of these large you know distribution companies. I think they do a great job technically at putting, you know, what you're paying for, putting your music out on a store by whatever date that you set. That's great. Um, but that's the business model. It's cheap, which is why you should not like almost really, and it's sad to say, expect too much help, support. It's just a tool, right? It's a cheap tool to get your music out on platforms and get started. I feel like it's a great place to get started. But and on the one end, I I feel for them. I feel I feel for those dro platforms that they are dealing with a lot of people that are in and in speaking to them like they are dealing with a lot of people that are bad actors and trying to game the system and uploading copyrighted material and like you said earlier um invalid licenses. It's you know it's an ongoing fight. >> Yeah. Um, >> but yeah, I think like on our side, we know, like I said, we believe strongly that artists deserve to promote their music, are going to promote their music. And so, we kind of made it our um ethos, I suppose, for the the the DRO platform that we understand that artists are going to try and do these things. So, how do we kind of help them best navigate that? Um, that comes with support. We've got an incredible lead um head of distribution for that platform. Um we've helped artists that have gotten DMCA strikes that have landed on, you know, a bad sort of service. Help them navigate, hey, how do we stop this, you know, in the future? Um so that Spotify isn't mad at you. Um you know, how do there's so many things like, okay, cool. like this this person used or sampled whatever and now UMG is very upset or whoever is very upset. It's like, okay, like let's go to bat for you. Um, and help you kind of get to a place where it's like, okay, we need to rebuild this um give you the steps that you need. We need to rebuild this production so that your music actually can survive on this. And I think artists that are larger are a little bit worried right now in all honesty that and I know artists that are missing payments for three months um that are getting songs removed that are like weird stuff's happening and I think that's where we're trying to position >> the the booth collective kind of like offering for distribution is like >> keeping it a little more tailored towards artists that want to build a lot of momentum in motion and just kind of helping and going to bat for them. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. A lot of a lot of dros are take a very like pull it first mentality anytime something goes wrong where you know if um for example if there's like an artificial streaming report from Spotify um like they just instantly yank it instead of talking with their customer or like passing on that fee to them which you know some people don't want the fee passed on them either but the reality is Spotify dings you $10 for every artificial streaming strike you get and um a Dro kid will just kick you off if anything happens like immediately. And uh you know I don't know what the right answer is there but it's kind of one example of how a lot of these self-s served distros are set up in that they they don't want to deal with it. They would just rather just have it instantly kick the song away regardless of what the person actually did. Um yeah it's it's tricky. It's a balance cuz it's like I think like I said those those big distributors their income is just coming from you using them as a tool and they see it as if you misuse the tool. Um it's almost like we're kind of just on the software side. We don't have a large support staff. Um we know for a fact that a lot of them don't have a large support staff. And I almost see it as like you know what that it's I kind of I I really do see their point of view. Um, obviously from a business perspective, but then again, as an artist perspective, if you're a very serious artist, maybe you should, you know, look for a place or a home in which those people are there to help you with where you're at. Um, because we know that you're going to get a lot of people listening to the music. We we've had artists that have moved from from on mass distributors, right, that um have large fan bases and it only takes maybe maybe they got targeted on one song. >> Yeah. And maybe that's only, you know, it's being the alarm bell got uh sounded because maybe this is one of their lesser popular releases and all it takes would be, you know, someone attacking that song and, you know, 10% is artificial. So they're saying and boom, like problem is being caused. Um, and then all their music is hostage. You never know. There's a lot of things, right? Uh, but yeah, I think that's where we're trying to position what we're trying to do. Cool, man. Well, what are you most excited about? Like what's what's the next big thing for Boost Collective? What's the hottest thing you guys have going on right now? >> Yeah. Um, I'm excited for Black Friday. I think for all of us like in the game, that's the time when artists are like I mean, it's just everyone's looking to, you know what I mean, push things. I think the summer was really hot. Uh, summer's always really a great time for artists. um and deals that are out there on promo. But yeah, we will have a spicy deal on Black Friday for anyone who's looking to push their stuff and go all in. Um once again, I love the kind of like breakdown of the marketing mix, go in on some ads, add a little bit of playlisting, see where things go, test a lot of the music. I think now will be the time before the year ends um before all the Christmas music goes crazy on December 25th. Um you know to really give it the all at the end of the year. Get that um Spotify rap number looking juicy. You know what I mean? Be proud of it. But >> yeah, I think that's what we're excited about. Um and then >> sorry for rambling, bro. I feel like I'm talking a lot. Um >> that's why you're here. You're here to talk. [laughter] >> I think like Yeah. Yeah, like we do a lot on the software side. So I think like obviously this distribution we have the V2 version of it. We we're calling it internally. It'll be out any day now. Uh so if artists want to check it out, obviously I would encourage them to check it out. And then yeah, like just more on more tools for artists are coming. Lots of great stuff is uh is coming, man. I'm super excited about it. So yeah, got to stay tuned. >> You guys go ham on on holiday sales as well. Uh, it's kind of like >> almost like the the most extreme. I feel like you guys do all all the tropes like we're doing like these giveaways and we're doing like this buy one get one free and if you get this there's this package thing and then you know it's uh I feel like you guys are a great example if anyone's looking for like to learn about sales online. Uh you you guys are good ones to watch for that. >> Appreciate that. you do all the tax and I mean that as a good thing. I know a lot of people like will talk about these stuff negatively, but like >> um I I appreciate the game. And so I I I watch what you guys do in your store. I'm like, "Ah, That's a good idea. >> That's a really good sales idea, you know. Um and then you guys are really good on the tech side, too." Like you sent me um >> I think it was for your ad campaign reporting. you guys have this really sleek dashboard that like makes it really >> really easy for artists to understand how their campaign's actually doing which again another thing I was like oh man that's a great idea I wish I thought of the first >> yeah yeah I think we were the first first ones to kind of like put out there estimated attribution um so really just like we run so many campaigns and we've we've got a pretty good lockdown now on how to interpret data, how to read it. Um, and then it's really just pattern recognition. I think the more you know, you work on on ads, ad campaigns, stuff like that as well. I'm sure you've seen trends um, and what happens when you spend this much and what the reaction looks like. And then I think it's just like we we built a good model that's kind of AI supported that is looking at that data. um >> kind of trying to estimate, hey, this is what we believe you're getting per day. This is what we believe you probably will get over the next 12 months, four different scenarios um based on it's got to be thousands of campaigns at this point. Uh the data from them. So, it's cool. It's cool. It's getting better. It's not perfect, but it's getting better. So, obviously, we're excited about that, too. >> Sick. Well, >> yeah, man. Ronin, thanks for coming on. >> Thank you. Really appreciate it, man.