ReverbNation Expands PROMOTE IT Ad Platform To Premium Music Sites

Digital advertising campaigns can get complicated,
especially for musicians who would rather (and rightfully so) focus more of
their time and energy on being creative. Launched just over a year ago,
ReverbNation’s PROMOTE IT platform
simplified things for musicians by adding a layer of analytics to Facebook
advertising for artists, labels and promoters. Recognizing that there’s more to
life than Facebook however, ReverbNation has chosen to broaden the platform to extend beyond
Facebook and allow users to utilize display ads targeting sites like MTV,
Pitchfork, Billboard, YouTube, Pandora, and more.

ReverbNation introduces this expansion of PROMOTE IT as “Major Artist Marketing on
an Indie Budget” and feels that now any indie artist can get the same marketing treatment as a
major artist by targeting a band’s ads to some of the top music websites on the
web. All the user has to do is create a customized ad and ReverbNation will then
target it towards sites that will best fit that particular genre or artist. The
ads come with matching landing pages and dynamic reporting so that users know
where their ads have appeared.

ReverbNation does this by sending ad requests out to digital
advertising aggregators that will then pick the appropriate sites – similar to
how Google AdSense works. Affiliated sites include MTV, Spinner, Amazon,
AllMusic, Hype Machine, Pandora, Pitchfork, PureVolume, Songza, Billboard,
Yahoo, and more.

Click image to enlarge:

While Facebook will naturally continue playing an important
role in the PROMOTE IT platform, it’s
worth noting that these layered Facebook campaigns operate differently than a standard campaign built
within the Facebook platform and are much more optimized for musicians.
ReverbNation actually taps into the Facebook advertising API, which knows exactly
what song a particular user is listening to at that moment on Spotify or any other
of the music platforms that Facebook allows.

This means that potential fans need not “Like” a certain
artist that sounds like your band, but if you tell the PROMOTE IT tool that you sound like Pink Floyd and that you’re
looking to target fans living in Connecticut, a Facebook user living in Connecticut
listening to Pink Floyd who doesn’t “Like” Pink Floyd on Facebook may still see
your ad. Before, bands were able to target music fans that have listed similar
artists as a “like” or “interest,” but now they can also target fans who have recently listened to them on Spotify,
Rdio, Rhapsody, Deezer, or MySpace.

It’s tough to gauge how effective mere display ads are in
converting potential fans into regular, or even casual fans – despite how high of
a digital pedestal they’re placed upon. At the end of the day, it will always
come down to the quality of music that determines if a user shifts from an ad clicker
to an actual fan of your music.

The newly expanded PROMOTE IT platform is available now to use. Campaigns start at $25 each.

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