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.

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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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Hisham Dahud is a Senior Analyst for Hypebot.com. Additionally, he is the head of Business Development for Fame House and an independent musician. Follow him on Twitter: @HishamDahud