How to choose a music marketing agency without buying hype

Hiring a music marketing agency is a decision that weighs heavily on an artist's or a small label's budget, and one that is usually made with very little information. This guide lays out what to ask, what to sign and what to demand.

An agency can produce content, buy and optimize ads, distribute on social platforms, pitch songs to curators, radio and press, and measure all of it. It cannot turn a song that does not connect into a hit, guarantee editorial playlist placements, or promise a number of streams. If someone offers you that last one, you already know how it ends. It also does not replace the part of the work only the artist can do: the music, presence on their own channels, and responding to their audience.

Questions before the first meeting

Send them in writing before the call. How they answer says as much as what they answer.

• Which artists or brands have you worked with, and can I talk to one of them?
• Which parts of the work do you do in-house and which do you subcontract?
• How do you define reach, and what data do you measure it with?
• What happens if the goal is not reached?
• Who will be my point of contact, and how often do we talk?
• Can I see a real client report, even anonymized?

How to read the answers

A serious agency talks about retention, saves, sound usage, cost per view and traffic to the destination. An agency selling fantasies talks about going viral, about the algorithm as if it were magic, and about secret contacts inside the platforms.

Pay attention to the questions they ask you, too. If they do not want to know which song it is, who likes your music today, what your total budget is and what happened with previous releases, they are not going to build a plan: they are going to sell you the same package they sell everyone.

Also ask them to walk you through a campaign that did not work and what they learned from it. People who work with data have that story ready; people selling fantasies do not have one, or they blame the artist.

What the contract should say

A short, clear contract protects both sides. These points should not be missing:

• Scope of work, piece by piece: how many pieces of content, which ads, which platforms, which deliverables.
• A measurable goal and how it is measured, naming the tool and the data source.
• What happens if it is not met: partial refund, extension at no cost, or exit without penalty.
• Ownership of everything produced: content, ad accounts, audiences and data are yours when it ends.
• Access to the ad accounts during the engagement, even read-only.
• Minimum term and exit conditions. Be wary of a mandatory twelve months on a first contract.
• An explicit ban on bots, bought streams and paid playlists.

Guarantees: which ones are reasonable

Guaranteeing streams or editorial placements is impossible without cheating. Guaranteeing reach, meaning how many people will see the campaign's content, is possible when the agency controls distribution and ads, and it should be in writing with the metric and the source defined.

A healthy guarantee has three parts: what is guaranteed, how it is measured, and what happens if it is not met. If one is missing, it is not a guarantee, it is a sales line.

Ask, too, what happened the last time they fell short for a client. An agency that has been around for a while has missed at some point, and the useful answer describes what was done to make it right. If the answer is that it has never happened, either they are new or they are not telling you everything.

What reporting should look like

If the report is an image with big numbers and no sources, ask for the source. If there is none, there is a problem. A useful report:

• Is weekly during releases and monthly the rest of the time.
• Separates what the agency did from what the artist or label did on their own.
• Includes real spend and cost per result, not just results.
• Shows what did not work and what was changed.
• Gives you direct access to the sources: YouTube Analytics, Spotify for Artists, TikTok Analytics, the ad account.

Warning signs

Any one of these on its own deserves a question; two or more together deserve looking elsewhere.

• Promises of virality or of contacts inside the platforms.
• Success stories with no names and no verifiable data.
• Pressure to sign today for a discount.
• Ad accounts in the agency's name with no access for you.
• Results that show up in the report but not in your own tools.
• Streams climbing while saves, followers and comments do not move.
• Per-piece or per-account pricing with no plan explaining why that quantity.

A note about us

Good Noise Projects works with all-inclusive monthly packages from $2,500, sized to a reach goal, with that reach guaranteed in writing. We mention it because we meet the list above, and because we think any agency should be able to answer those questions without getting uncomfortable. If you are comparing proposals, use the list on all of them, ours included.