Beatchain launches ad-buying feature for independents

The tool, which uses machine-learning technology, is aimed at artists and music marketers of all levels. The feature is built into Beatchain’s platform and helps artists to connect and grow their fan base by automating complex ad placements on Instagram and Facebook. The tool also analyses an artist’s potential audience through social media interaction, streaming, song releases and other tools on Beatchain’s platform, taking the guesswork out of reaching potential fans.

Fan Builder can start an advertising campaign with a few clicks. After setting a campaign goal, promotion budget and timeframe, artists will select and purchase online digital advertising curated for them based on machine learning, with ads automatically targeted toward their own unique online audience.

“The amazing thing about Fan Builder is that it uses data from the artist’s own social media and streaming profiles to hyper-target ads that will focus on audiences that have already shown interest in their music and brand,” Beatchain founder and CEO Ben Mendoza said. “This levels the playing field for independent artists and gives them access to the same tools and processes they’d get working with a marketing team at a major record label.”

During a Fan Builder promotional campaign, artists and brand managers can keep track of the rise in music video views or social media presence using Beatchain’s data insights page, where they can see the return on investment through website pageviews, song streams, merch sales, email signups, and even in what country and city these originate.

"For as little as $5, artists can start a targeted digital ad campaign that is proven to find them more fans," Beatchain's chief technology officer, Ed Godshaw, said. "Even though we believe our distribution platform is best in class, we don’t see ourselves as a pure play distributor and don’t require artists to distribute their music through Beatchain to use Fan Builder. Fan Builder empowers artists to take their releases and deliver them to engaged and growing audiences.”

With the addition of Fan Builder, Beatchain says it is making good on its vision to upend the traditional way of marketing and distributing music, and revolutionising the way artists are discovered. Commenting on the app in an interview with Music Tech last year, Mendoza said that their vision was to arm musicians, producers, artists and label owners with all the information they need to understand and build their audience.

Fan Builder currently supports both Facebook and Instagram advertising. However, Beatchain plans to expand the service to both Google and Twitter ads soon.