The Biggest Misconceptions About YouTube Music Promotion

If you want to promote your music on YouTube you NEED to understand these 2 main distinctions... 

There is a ton of misinformation and vagueness around promoting your music on YouTube and how it should be done. 

The bad thing about these myths is that if you’re not as experienced with the subject, you could be fooled into thinking they’re true. This would be harmful to your long term growth as a musician because you were misinformed about where to put your marketing budget.

In-stream Ads Example

1. In-stream ads are not good for engagement because there is no comment section or like button shown when the in-stream ad is playing
2. There is also no click-through link to the original video unless one puts a 'watch now' button to the original video link, which is redundant as the user is already watching the video
3. Artists often struggle with creating good in-stream ads because the usefulness of in-stream ads often depends on hooking the viewer within the first 5 seconds. 

Discovery Ads Example

1. Have better engagement with comments, likes, and subscribers since users are watching the video on YOUR watch page
2. You know that the user at least had intent of watching your video since they clicked on it

1. Typically have a lower avg. watch time since every click will count as a view regardless of if 30 seconds are watched
2. Have less reach than in-stream ads because a user has to show intent to click (this is not usually a problem until you’re trying to get millions and millions of views)
3. Most artists didn’t study copywriting as a career, and the effectiveness of discovery ads has a ton to do with both the music itself and the copywriting of the ad. Headlines like, “Check out this new single now,” simply don’t work well. This is why thousands of artists have come to us to run their YouTube promotions for them.

In short, in-stream ads are typically best whenever you're trying to get a conversion (such as a purchase or sale), while discovery ads are best for engagement.

Most artists are trying to get more engagement for their videos; thus, the discovery ads are better suited for that goal. 

One of the most useful things we tell artists is to run ads side-by-side with us and see who gets the better results. 

You can try out our YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music or social media promo by clicking the button below. 

Not to mention we give out our social media ads for musicians course INCLUDED when you purchase any promo package!

No matter which ad type we run, artists often don’t have realistic expectations on results for campaigns. The reason for this is because they assume that if someone likes their video, they will automatically become a fanatic of the channel. 

This typically does NOT happen after only viewing one song from an artist. 

Even if someone likes your song, you still need to coach them through the process of subscribing and engaging with your channel. 

As a general rule, we advise artists to tell someone to subscribe to their channel at least 5 times per video if that’s the goal you’re going for. 

“If they like it, they’ll subscribe. I won’t have to tell them,” is extremely flawed logic used by people who don’t really understand marketing. 

Another misconception is that you’ll still receive just as much traffic to your songs even after you stop paying for ads. 

Unless you were promoting a cover song that is naturally getting a TON of searches AND you’re ranking atop the YouTube search results for that term, don’t expect to have perpetual traffic off of one round of ad spend. 

YouTube is a great option for marketing music given they have such a vast user count. As of right now, we still recommend slightly more marketing budget toward IG, but it could easily topple over to YouTube if you find you’re having more success there. Here’s what a breakdown might look like:

• 40% of marketing budget to IG (a little kickback to FB depending on your goals) 
• 20-25% of marketing budget to YouTube/Google
• 20-25% of marketing budget to Spotify Playlisting
• The remaining budget towards testing on Apple Music or TikTok

You never want to build all your audience in one place, but you do want to allocate resources properly based on the pros and cons of each platform. 

Aside from picking the wrong ad type, most artists aren’t thinking like a marketer when they set up their ad. They’re thinking like an artist.

In advertising, you have think about very specific details to get your desired end goal (i.e. a subscriber, merch sale, etc.) 

Just because someone likes your music does NOT mean they’re going to subscribe. 

Here’s one tip: if you see an ad on YouTube and it makes you stop what you’re doing and pay attention, then take notes about why that ad made you stop and apply some of the same principles to your music videos so you can get the same results. 

Again, the reason we’re so in-tune with this is because we’ve run THOUSANDS of campaigns for artists, not just talk about them. Which means we have the experience (not the opinion) of what is going on.

To grab YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or social media promo, check out our options at omarimc.com/promotion 

When your song is ready to go, it's time to start promoting it to potential fans! Omari has the best organic promotion services money can buy. With packages for SoundCloud, Spotify, Instagram, and YouTube, we will get your music the traffic and attention it deserves! Click below for more information.

© 2025 Omari MC, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

© 2025 Omari MC, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.