Advertising is a cornerstone of e-commerce, and as the online music production space grows, paid ads have become a valuable tool for music producers. The global online music production market is projected to reach $11.6 billion by 2027, driven by increasing demand for digital content and tools. This growth highlights the expanding opportunities—and competition—for producers to market their beats effectively. Yet, promoting beats online comes with its own set of challenges.

Beatstars Promo Feature

When BeatStars first launched its Promo feature, many producers—and even the developers—struggled to fully understand its potential. Early adopters found it difficult to navigate the interface, and the lack of comprehensive documentation left users unsure of how to optimize their campaigns.

For instance, understanding how to select effective keywords or set competitive bids proved challenging, leading to inconsistent results. Developers also faced hurdles in predicting user behavior and identifying which metrics mattered most to beat sellers. However, with a recent major update, the feature promises improved functionality and better results for beat sellers.

In this case study, I’ll explain how I set up and ran a BeatStars Promo campaign, the results I achieved, and the lessons I learned along the way. You’ll discover practical strategies, common pitfalls, and actionable insights that can help you navigate the platform more effectively. Whether you're testing the waters with your first campaign or looking to refine your approach, this guide will help you start with a more informed strategy.

Step 1: Setting Up the Campaign

Researching Keywords

Selecting the right keywords is the backbone of a successful BeatStars Promo campaign. Keywords play a pivotal role in digital advertising across all platforms, serving as the bridge between your content and your audience. They determine visibility, relevance, and ultimately, the success of your campaign by connecting your beats with potential buyers actively searching for similar styles. The goal is to find terms that strike a balance between high demand and low competition—a sweet spot that gives your beats the best chance to stand out.

To achieve this, I used the BeatStars Tag Analyzer, a third-party tool created by a member of the BeatStars community. It helps calculate the demand saturation of different keywords. (Note: This tool is not officially associated with BeatStars.)

An overview and practical use of the Demand Saturation formula to use for designing your BeatStars Promo campaign.

Here’s how to interpret the demand saturation formula:

• High percentage: Strong demand, lower competition—great opportunity.

• Low percentage: High competition or limited interest—harder to stand out.

This formula reflects my personal approach to interpreting the data, and others may have different strategies. For beginners, a simpler approach is to analyze top-selling tracks on BeatStars or observe high-performing producers on YouTube. If these producers consistently use certain keywords, it’s a good indicator of demand.

For this campaign, I chose these keywords based on their high-demand saturation:

• Cris MJ

• Quevedo

• Rauw Alejandro

Since BeatStars Promo only allows three keywords per campaign, I focused on popular artists within the reggaeton niche.

Targeting Locations

While I opted for a global audience due to limited data, I highly recommend tailoring your campaign to specific regions if you have access to sales insights. For example, reggaeton beats often perform well in South America and Iberian countries.

When selecting locations, it’s also helpful to consider regional economics. Regions with strong performance in your genre but less economic flexibility might result in lower conversions, especially for paid beats. Tailoring your targeting with this in mind can improve overall ROI.

Map showing regional popularity of Reggaeton/Latin Trap on Spotify from 7/14/2021 ~ 7/14/2022 provided by medium.com.

Step 2: Running the Campaign

Budget

ran my campaign for 7 days with a modest budget to test the new targeting features and gather insights.

• Daily Budget: $5

• Bid per 1k Impressions: $2

• Total Cost: $12.01

Key Metrics

• Impressions: ~6,000

• Plays from Ad: 411

• Total Plays: ~1,000

• Free Downloads: 3

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): 6.85%

• Download Conversion Rate: 0.7%

With a daily budget of $5, this campaign was designed to test the waters and gather initial insights. Scaling up to a few hundred or even thousands of dollars could produce significantly different results.

Here’s a total overview of the stats of the BeatStars Promo campaign.

Results Breakdown

Over 7 days, my campaign generated approximately 6,000 impressions and assumably 411 ad-driven plays. This gives us a CTR of 6.85% which is actually above average compared to typical digital ad benchmarks, where platforms like Facebook Ads often see CTRs between 1–3%.

However, the download conversion rate of 0.7% fell short of expectations. This could reflect a mismatch between the beat and the audience attracted by my chosen keywords. While the keywords had strong demand saturation, their popularity scores (total search volume) were relatively low, meaning fewer potential listeners were searching for these styles of beats.

Sales and Leads

The campaign’s primary goal was to generate leads through free downloads, but with only 3 downloads, the results suggest that either the beat didn’t fully resonate with listeners or my targeting needed improvement.

Note: BeatStars Promo currently doesn’t provide direct attribution for sales. This means it’s challenging to track whether a sale originated from the ad campaign, which could influence the perceived success of your efforts.

This bar chart shows the amount of impressions per top countries for this BeatStars Promo campaign.

Lessons Learned

Going into the campaign ‘try-out’ I knew I’d face a set of challenges along the way and potentially not get the most optimal result as this was meant to just test the waters of the newly improved BeatStars Promo feature. However, trying my best to use my knowledge from other advertisement platforms and applying it in this situation did allow me to set up a strategy that, if optimized, can get you reasonable results on your Promo campaigns.

To summarize the case study, I went ahead and listed the 4 most important lessons I’ve learned from running this BeatStars Promo campaign in the hopes of helping you optimize your own campaigns and get the best results right off the bat:

1. Align Keywords with Your Beat Style

The mismatch between my beat’s style and the audience searching for the selected keywords likely contributed to the low conversion rate. In hindsight, I could have either:

• Created a beat tailored to the chosen keywords, or

• Selected keywords better suited to the beat’s existing style.

This is a good rule of thumb that applies across industries and should be kept in mind before starting any kind of advertisement campaign: Design a product for the audience, or find the right audience for the product.

2. Prioritize Popularity Over Demand Saturation Alone

While high demand saturation is important, it’s equally critical to ensure the keywords you choose are widely searched. A highly optimized keyword with low popularity won’t bring in much traffic.

While this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the Demand Saturation formula, having a preference for keywords with the highest popularity rating, in general, will most likely get you better results in terms of reach and conversion.

3. Leverage Regional Targeting When Possible

If you have data on where your beats are selling or streaming well, use it to narrow your audience. For reggaeton, focusing on South America and Spain might have increased my chances of success. However, as mentioned before, also take a note of the economic states of the regions you select and your own prices. If the prices you offer are not aligned with the region you’re selecting, this might result in a very low conversion rate of sales. If your beats appeal more to a region where their valuta performs much lower than your own, you might want to consider lowering your prices reasonably.

4. Test with a Small Budget First

The low cost of entry for BeatStars Promo allowed me to experiment without much financial risk. Testing campaigns on a smaller scale is a great way to gather insights before scaling up. In other industries, this type of up-front investment is quite common and many companies will run campaigns for thousands of dollars just to test out their initial keywords. Luckily, the costs for a minimal BeatStars Promo campaign are quite low, which makes it more accessible to run a simple test campaign and optimize your keywords and locations before investing more.

Final Thoughts

BeatStars Promo is a promising tool, but like any ad platform, success depends on the research and strategy behind your campaigns. Key takeaways include the importance of aligning keywords with your beat style, prioritizing widely searched keywords over just demand saturation, leveraging regional targeting for better ROI, and starting with a small budget to test and refine your strategy.

By keeping these principles in mind, you can maximize the potential of your campaigns and achieve better results. While my first attempt yielded modest results, it provided valuable insights into how to better align targeting and content.

This case study reflects an early-stage experiment with a modest budget, designed to explore BeatStars Promo’s potential. As more producers share their results, we’ll gain a clearer picture of what works best. For now, focus on aligning beats with audience preferences and refining your strategy based on performance.

If you’re considering running a BeatStars Promo campaign, start small, focus on understanding your audience, and don’t be afraid to experiment. With patience and optimization, these campaigns can become an effective way to grow your audience and boost sales.

Ready to start your own campaign? Learn more inside the HEATE Academy!