According to Clickcease around 95 million Instagram accounts and 270 million Facebook accounts are bots or fake profiles. And this number is increasing every year. Facebook purged 2.2 billion fake accounts from January to March 2019. 

So what does this mean for artists and labels managing ad budgets? A lot. 

Wasting money & more…

Data from CHEQ.AI indicates that around 4% of all ad clicks and impressions on Facebook are from bots or non-genuine accounts. Based on our own SongFly data, this number of bot clicks can actually be as high as 40% for music ad campaigns. 

The immediate impact is that the bots are eating up the budget that was meant to go to acquiring genuine potential fans. So your money is being wasted. Additionally, unless you have the right systems in place, you won't even know this happened before it’s too late. 

With fake clicks. Your analytics are meaningless and it is very challenging (if not impossible) to use any data for retargeting.... And forget getting fans at a reasonable cost. Your campaign will very likely flounder. 

So, how can YOU navigate this? ‍

The easiest solution would be to hire a digital marketing agency. Since this isn't a new issue, a good agency should be savvy enough to navigate bots and find workarounds to block them through constant campaign tweaks. 

But agencies might be too expensive for you.  

If you don't have a few grand to spend on an agency, and are willing to go at it alone, here are a few actionable items that you can get deeper on. 

1. It's all about the Pixels, baby: Ensure that your acquisition funnel is properly tagged. By setting up a pixel and running an Engagement campaign with an optimization goal of (instead of running a traffic campaign), you are able to go one step further and see not only who visits your landing page, but who actually clicks through to any of the streaming services. This is critical so you can detect bad behavior FAST. For instance, if you see 10,000 ad clicks from Mexico on your campaign, but there are no clicks into the streaming service, rest assured, there are bots involved. 
   Look, we get it. It’s not the sexiest topic in the world… so if this is already boring you: you can simply use SongPage, our plug and play landing page service. It’s fully integrated with ad campaigns to automatically protect your campaigns from bots with the method above.
   

2. Leverage advanced tools for bot detection: There are multiple providers of bot blocklists, fraud sources and fraud filters, like ClickCease. These tools require a more advanced programming knowledge, and might not be worth tapping into on an individual level if you are an independent artist. Our ad automation tool, SongFly, auto-detects bots, and takes appropriate measures - and is designed specifically for DIY artists like you.
   
   
3. Give your campaign love: Great campaigns require much attention beyond bot detection. Constant tweaking, experimentation, and monitoring are critical to ensure an effective promotion. Getting real fans is about playing around with creatives, interests, audiences, and more! SongFly uses technology and a passionate team of marketers to do this for you while you go off and continue creating great music. So if you are not willing or able to give your campaign love, and don't have a budget for an agency, but still want to tap into the fan-building power of advertising: SongFly is the tool for you. 

What next?  

Integrate the tips above into your already-running marketing strategies, and if you aren’t moving yet, get started your fan-building here. Questions? Write to us at social@songtools.io and make sure to ask about our weekly webinars where we go deep into digital advertising for artists and labels. 

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