Welcome [back] to another week of your weekly dose 🎶

Every Tuesday, I’ll be sharing tips, updates, and must-know music marketing insights to help you get your music heard!

By Finch Bergling

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This week's newsletter is sponsored by Winamp​

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That's not hypothetical. Over 400 million accounts were hacked last year, musicians included, and all that content, all those followers, all that hard work can disappear overnight.

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Your Weekly Tip

If you had $1,000 to promote a new song, would you spend it targeting the US, Europe, or... Maybe Brazil?

Yesterday I had a call with a student who is releasing a song this week. He asked me to take a look at his ad campaign and see how he can improve his results.

I had a few notes, but the main one - and the one that turned into a full conversation - was this: he wanted the ads to target the US.

His request made sense, buttttt it's the wrong move, and here's why.

Targeting tier 1 countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada) with ads is more expensive than targeting tier 2 countries (South America, Eastern Europe, etc.). For the same budget, you'll get far fewer listeners by targeting tier 1. Sometimes it can be 10 times more expensive per listener.

Targeting tier 1 only makes sense if your budget allows it. Most musicians can allocate $1,000 or less, which is why I recommend tier 2.

Now you might ask - what's the point of the ad campaign if we're not reaching our target audience in tier 1 countries?

Here's the point.

You use ads as a complement to a playlist campaign. Playlists give you streams. Ads give you saves. Together, they trigger algorithmic playlists, which can 100x your results.

That's the whole story. If you target the US with a $1,000 budget, you might not generate enough impact to trigger algorithmic playlists. If you target Bulgaria with that same budget, you almost certainly will.

So how do you reach your target audience in tier 1 countries?

This is when I told my student about the Coca-Cola company.

Coca-Cola has thousands of drinks - some popular, some less so. And they want someone to become a fan of not just one or two, but many of their drinks. They do it by promoting, for over 100 years, one single product: the original Coca-Cola drink.

When they release a new drink, do you think they spend their full marketing budget promoting it? They wouldn't spend even 0.1% of their budget on a new product.

Why? Because there's not enough proof yet that people actually want it.

What I told my student is this: you're about to spend your entire marketing budget on a song you don't even know performs well yet.

Why not spend some of it promoting the new song to trigger algorithmic playlists from tier 2 countries, and spend the rest promoting your best-performing song to tier 1 countries?

That's your signature song. That's the entrance song to your world. That's the song that will make someone go back and stream everything else you've made.

That's what Coca-Cola is to the Coca-Cola company.

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Before your next release, pull up your Spotify for Artists and social media analytics and find your Coca-Cola song.

Then split your next campaign like this:

→ New release: run ads to tier 2 countries to trigger the algorithm cheaply

→ Your Coca-Cola song: run ads to tier 1 countries to reach the audience you actually want

Two campaigns, one budget, and suddenly you're doing what most independent artists never figure out - using a proven song to bring people into your world, while the new one earns its place algorithmically.

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Your Weekly Reel Idea

How would you react to the very first song you ever made? It's a strong hook that draws people in, and by reacting to that old song, you create a fun and relatable video that makes your audience feel like they're getting to know you better.

📝 Want to watch this full content idea + hundreds more? Find this and hundreds of other proven content ideas inside my 'Content Vault'. Click here to unlock lifetime access to the full collection - never run out of content ideas again!

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Let's work together

• ​Submit your music to my Spotify Playlists.
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• Get my new $1 training - "Turning Playlists Into Fans."
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• Learn step-by-step promotion strategies with Your First Hit Song 2026.
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• ​Book a 1-1 consultation.
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• ​Build a playlist and grow your streams, email list and fanbase.

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Discounts & Links 🔗

• Get 10% off on SubmitHub​
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• Get ​7.5% off your first campaign on Playlist Push - use code finch
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• Get 40% off your first month on PlaylistSupply - use code finch40
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• Get 40% off your first month on Booking-Agent.io - use code finch40
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• Get 40% off your first month on RadioPromo.io - use code finch40​
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• Get 7% off on DistroKid​

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That’s it for this week! Hope today’s email gave you something useful to work with.

Until next week, Finch 🎶

P.S. Newsletters aren’t social media - I can’t see what you’re enjoying unless you tell me. Hit reply and let me know what you liked (or didn’t) - I’d love to hear from you! 😊

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