Why Views are a Better Music Marketing Objective than Clicks
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Andy Bromley
Account Manager at Wavo
Wavo Blog: This series shares information that’s most relevant to music marketers around the globe.
“Marketers are unable to track a fan’s journey through a landing page and onto a streaming platform.”
Context
With social ads it can often be difficult to measure how a campaign may (or may not) have contributed towards the charting or sales of a project. That’s because directly attributing streams or other business outcomes to a social ad campaign often isn’t possible, as marketers are unable to track a fan’s journey through a landing page and onto a streaming platform. Plus, Clicks are expensive to create compared to advertising directly on streaming platforms like Spotify. So should Clicks really be the focus of anyone’s recorded music social campaigns? For years Wavo has boldly bucked the digital marketing industry trend and broadly rejected a Clicks goal. I think this strategy continues to reign supreme as much as ever.
Google research has revealed that views play a key role in raising brand awareness, consideration, favorability and purchase intent. These variables, over time, help artists build their brand and encourage a strong fan base that will buy merch, attend shows, and stream music.
In 2022 we executed a case study which directly compared Clicks and Views marketing objectives and considered which social media advertising objective creates the most value to music marketers. In this experiment, we A/B tested campaigns on Snapchat, Facebook/ Instagram and TikTok that ran with unique campaign objectives but shared the same creatives, budget, location, and flight dates.
Results
We looked at three KPI’s for this experiment. The first is Cost per Linkfire Clickthrough, which we describe as a ‘qualified click’. A Linkfire Clickthrough describes the action of a user who clicks from a social ad to a landing page, and then from a landing page through to their preferred streaming service. The second metric is Cost per Mille, which describes the Cost to serve 1,000 Impressions. Finally, we measured the Cost per View, which refers to how much it costs to serve a user a view of our ad.
“The real value we’re creating with social ads is awareness.”
For FB/IG/IGS
Looking at the Cost per Linkfire Clickthrough, you can see that Clicks campaigns drive Linkfire Clickthrough metrics 4.5x more cost-effectively than Views campaigns. On the other side of the coin, however, we can also see that Views campaigns drive more impressions & Thruplays per dollar, creating Thruplays almost 6x more cost-effectively than Click campaigns.
Now, this isn’t a very surprising fact given that advertising platforms auto-optimize every campaign towards its goal, so it makes sense that Views campaigns drive more views, and clicks campaigns drive more clicks. Let’s zoom in a little closer and consider the value that these Clicks and Views generate.
When analyzing the results from this case study, it’s important to consider cost per result. The average Cost per Linkfire Clickthrough was $2.54 for Clicks campaigns. So we know it costs over $2.50 to get a user to click through to a DSP, such as Spotify or Apple Music, and after a fan enters a DSP we still can’t be sure they’ll go through with streaming 30 seconds of the song. Alternatively, we can drive directly attributable streams for a tiny fraction of the cost by advertising directly on Spotify.
I recommend a strategy that leans into a Views objectives rather than Clicks. Let’s focus on the real value that we are driving, not 2.54$ ‘probable’ streams that lead to fragment of a cent in revenue. The real value we’re creating with social ads is awareness, consideration, favorability and purchase intent. With a Views goal on FB/IG/IGS we’re creating many times the 15 second ThruPlays as well as serving more ads, reaching more people, and driving more awareness.
Snapchat
As displayed on the graph, Clicks campaigns drive 35% more impressions per dollar, and feature a slightly cheaper Cost per Linkfire Clickthrough, while Views campaigns drive twice as many views as Clicks campaigns.
Therefore, the opportunity cost of driving slightly more Linkfire Clickthroughs with a Clicks goal is foregoing twice the amount of views you would receive if you ran a Views goal. Furthermore, the cost of driving one person to Clickthrough to Spotify on Snapchat is nearly $3. $3 isn’t an appropriate amount to pay for a stream, so let’s focus on the awareness we’re creating within the platform.
TikTok
On TikTok, Clicks campaigns once again create Linkfire Clickthroughs more cost-effectively than View campaigns, yet not cost effectively enough for us to want to center this action in our campaign. Following the trends on other platforms, a TikTok Views campaign is able to create twice the views per dollar and serve more than twice the impressions per dollar when compared to a Clicks campaign.
“I recommend a strategy that leans into a Views objectives rather than Clicks.”
Key Takeaways
I recommend that my clients continue running campaigns with Views goals across social platforms. If my clients have business objectives to do with charting, streaming, or sales I recommend advertising on platforms like Spotify where these results are directly attributable and cost efficient. For social platforms, which create awareness effectively, let’s play to those strengths and select a Views goal.
Written by Andy Bromley, Account Manger at Wavo
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