Social proof is of critical importance when you’re trying to grow anything online. Be it a personal brand, a new music video, or a product review, the more views a video has, the more credibility it has. Whether or not this is fair, it is human nature. If you’re looking to bolster your video’s credibility, and increase the likelihood of new viewers giving your content a fair chance, then a Rise YouTube In-Stream campaign is a great solution.

Contents:

• How much does it cost?
• How does it work and where do the views come from?
• How do I set up an In-Stream campaign?
• What are the demographics of the viewers?
• What makes Rise different from other platforms and marketing companies?
• How do I track campaign results?
• What if I have questions about my campaign?

Here’s what Rise YouTube In-Stream Campaigns Do:

1. Get your music video/podcast/etc seen and discovered by new viewers
2. Increase real YouTube views
3. Drive conversions, influence consideration, and reach new users across multiple devices with your ads, including desktop computers, phones, and TVs
4. Bid for what you care about. Depending on your campaign goal, you can pay based on overall impressions, or when viewers watch your ad completely or interact with the video (whichever comes first)
5. Add interactive features like call-to-action buttons, sitelink assets, product feeds, and more to your ads to encourage people to interact with your brand or business more
6. Verify Rise targeting and results from your own Google Analytics account
7. Promote any YouTube URL (including YouTube Shorts)
   

Your video will be run as a “skippable” in-stream ad that plays before, during, or after other videos on YouTube and websites and apps on Google video partners. After 5 seconds, the viewer has the option to skip the ad and continue watching the video.

This campaign type typically has more retention, meaning viewers are more likely to watch until the end. Because the ad plays before another video, there is not a way for the viewer to easily engage (Like, Comment, Subscribe) so typically the engagement would be lower, but the views cost less than Discovery views.

Rise guarantees the number of views depending on your budget. Because these are real people, we can’t force a person to engage beyond the view. Typically people will comment, like, and subscribe much more easily if the video organically has “social proof”, meaning there is organic interest. If your video has only a couple of comments, it’s less likely an ad viewer will comment whereas videos with a bunch of comments to start will typically see more comments and engagement.

It’s helpful to remember that different platforms often have different barriers and levels for engagement for different people. Think of your own engagement habits on various platforms. If you’re like many of us, you might be more likely to comment on Instagram, save a post or share with a friend. But that doesn’t mean you are as actively engaged on other platforms.

Keep that in mind when you’re setting your expectations for how others may choose to engage on your content. 

How much does it cost?

All Rise campaigns can be created either as a Single (one-time) campaign or as Monthly Subscription (ongoing until canceled).

• Single Campaign: The minimum campaign price is just $100, and can be optimized to target either a global audience, or only Big-5 territories.
• Subscription Campaign: Subscription campaigns are automatically discounted 10% from the single campaign cost, bringing the entry price to $225/mo. Subscriptions require a minimum of 3 months but can be canceled anytime after that. They will remain live until you request cancellation.

Rise also offers Discovery Campaigns to help increase real views, with a higher chance of engagement. We recommend running both campaign types in tandem.

How Does It Work?

How can we guarantee views are real? 

Rise leverages Google Ads to ensure we’re fully compliant with YouTube’s terms of service, and to ensure transparency in our campaigns and reporting. 

Clicks on ads that Google considers to be illegitimate, such as unintentional clicks or clicks resulting from malicious software will not be included in your view goal.

Each click on an ad is examined by Google, which has sophisticated systems to identify invalid clicks and impressions and remove them from your account data. When Google determines that clicks are invalid, they will automatically filter them from your reports so that you’re not charged for those clicks.

Here are a few examples of what Google might consider to be invalid clicks:

• Manual clicks intended to increase your advertising costs or to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads
• Clicks by automated clicking tools, robots, or other deceptive software
• Extraneous clicks that provide no value to the advertiser, such as the second click of a double-click

How Do I Setup a YouTube In-Stream Campaign?

Creating a campaign is straightforward, takes only a few minutes, and can be done directly through our website on desktop or mobile, https://rise.la/create. 

For this article, we’re going to demonstrate how to create a single YouTube In-Stream campaign optimized for a global audience. (Please note we do offer subscriptions, which include automatic discounts, and are a great option for ongoing growth with consistent releases).

First, you choose a platform: i.e. YouTube. Then enter your contact information, and click GET STARTED.

Next up, select your preferred targeting, campaign type, and enter your budget. Rise will tell you exactly how many views we can guarantee based on your inputs. You may enter any budget you like and preview the guaranteed results before you pay for a campaign. Go to https://rise.la/create to experiment with optimization and budget to see what results Rise will guarantee. Larger budgets will guarantee larger results, and will take longer to run. If you ever have questions about allocating your budget, you can always email a growth expert: https://rise.la/contact-us

Please note that the campaign flight is just an estimate, and some campaigns can be successfully completed in fewer days, while others might take longer.

IMPORTANT: When promoting your video on YouTube, your video must comply with Google’s advertising guidelines. This means that if your video includes sensitive content that may not be suitable for all audiences, Google will not approve your video for a campaign. Rise is subject to those terms and conditions, as well. Please see below for more details.

Now that you’ve read the video guidelines, and acknowledged that your video is appropriate for a Google Ads campaign, Rise will collect payment with a secure integration to our merchant provider, Stripe. After payment, there are additional and important details needed for Rise to process and run a successful campaign.

You’re probably wondering, “When do I input my YouTube video link?” and other important details. This is all in the next step and only takes a few minutes to complete:

For YouTube campaigns, you do need to provide a link to your published video (or an unpublished link in the event the video is unreleased). Also, many people ask to “see the ad” but on YouTube, your video is the ad. 

You will select which genre best fits your music, and you can include more than one genre. 

Now, just one more step… 

For YouTube campaigns, we don’t have a firm requirement for account access, but it can help us optimize your campaign and get better results. And congratulations, your campaign has been created, and everything else happens for you!

What are the demographics of the viewers?

This is a great question and is asked frequently, and for great reasons! In short, Rise targets viewers primarily following Google’s own advice and trends:

• Rise will use a data-driven approach to targeted viewers who are most likely to engage and react positively to the content.
• Based on mood or genre. Rise prioritizes targeting to reach like-minded listeners of specific moods, feeling, speed, and other facets.
• Re-targeting the warmest fans. Our campaigns deliver re-targeted ads to listeners and viewers who have shown repeated interest in our ads and music recommendations. 
• Finally, location. Many platforms encourage artists to accumulate a global fan base in different cities and countries around the world, especially ranked by engagement. Depending on the campaign type, Rise offers global targeting or Big-5 (US, UK, CAN, AUS, NZ). Over time, it is likely that more options will roll out.
• Based on these factors, you could expect to see a wide variety of locations in your analytics from a Rise campaign. Viewers will never be exclusive to any one location and must be real YouTube users.

Some artists ask to target only specific markets, i.e. “I want only people in New York to follow me because that’s where I live and perform”. Beyond the fact that YouTube is not exactly designed to increase your physical footprint in specific markets, obtaining clicks and views from exclusively premium cities is a very expensive endeavor and would tremendously increase the cost of results – regardless if they are from Rise or any other marketing company.

How to track my results?

Once your campaign is live, you can sit back and watch the results come in, usually within 24 hours of launch. You’ll receive email notifications about your campaign status, for example, an email confirmation that we’ve received your campaign, a notice that your campaign has been scheduled for the date you selected it to start, or that your campaign has been completed. You can monitor your campaign from your customer dashboard. This updates every 24 hours with the core metrics for your particular campaign. 

For a YouTube In-Stream campaign, as soon as your video clears Google’s independent review process, your campaign will begin. From there you will immediately start seeing new views. 

In your dashboard you can see a historical list of every Rise campaign you’ve run, and by clicking VIEW on any particular campaign, you can see that campaign’s individual results. 

Once you click VIEW, you’ll see that corresponding campaign’s results:

We will only ever report metrics and results that are a direct result of your Rise Campaign, that we can transparently guarantee. For example, if you’re running a separate Google Ads campaign for a more targeted audience, or are enjoying good organic reach, we will not report any views from those efforts. This way you can always evaluate your campaign and compare it directly to other marketing strategies you might be using, and compare it with your organic growth too. 

What does my ad look like?

For TrueView newbies, this is a common question, but with a simple answer. The ad is your video. 

What if I have questions about my campaign?

In a world of shady third-party playlists, fake Instagram promoters lurching in your DMs, Rise prides itself on customer service. And just like the people we get to listen to your music, we are real people who are monitoring, optimizing and managing your campaign. You can submit a support ticket from your dashboard, and someone from our team will reach out to you.

Keep in mind that the platform is heavily automated, and while we do have quality control personnel on staff, there are certain things that we won’t catch. (For example, if your release date changes, or you made a mistake during your campaign set up by inputting the incorrect date, you can solve that quickly with a support ticket, and we will manually update your campaign details).  

We understand that every marketing dollar is precious, and we are grateful to have earned your business and your trust. Keep Rising!

What makes Rise different from other marketing companies?

There is a lot that separates Rise from other companies. First of all, Rise is the only platform to fully guarantee campaign results and also fully automate the campaign delivery from start to finish. 

This means that Rise can be seamlessly and regularly incorporated into your marketing strategy, used in tandem with other tools, or by your marketing team. We’re not looking to replace anyone, but simply be a complimentary resource that can help your team become more efficient and achieve greater results.

Guaranteed results

Every Rise campaign includes guaranteed results based on platform, optimization and budget. We only guarantee results that we can directly control. For example, on a YouTube campaign, we guarantee a minimum number of people will be shown your video. But we can’t guarantee that every viewer will love your music, view the video repeatedly, or over and over again, comment, like or subscribe to your channel, but we hope they do! This is why the dashboard includes only tangible results we have control over. 

Built to play the long game

Each of Rise’s campaign types is built on a specific strategy that our strategists have spent countless hours, and our own resources to test and develop, each designed to reach a specific goal. If you’re looking for a quick increase in vanity metrics, fake streams or results that seem too good to be true, Rise is not for you. But if you want real, sustainable and authentic results, and you consistently use Rise as part of a well-rounded strategy, you will increase your chances for success.

Authentic

Rise helps indie artists and developing acts alike clear one of the most difficult roadblocks in the industry — getting real people to listen to your music. This doesn’t mean that every view or engagement will result directly in a ticket-buying, merch-wearing fan. But even for minimum budget campaigns, we can get people to discover and listen/view your content. This helps you increase your brand awareness as an artist. And because our data-driven approach targets people who are most likely to engage with your music, these impressions have a better chance of resulting in real engagement.

We take the Y out of DIY

Other companies or platforms offer artists a DIY option to promote their music, or run social ads to cold audiences. But that requires you to become a Social Ads expert and offers no easy way to directly track results. With Rise, our team of experts monitor your campaign daily, ensuring maximized success, and delivering guaranteed results, so you can spend your time doing things you enjoy, like making great music!

Advanced audience data and access 

Rise has invested an enormous amount of money, time, experimentation, and energy into developing proprietary audiences and strategies to reach listeners. There are a few major factors that make Rise’s ability to convert engaged listeners more effectively than any one artist could achieve independently:

1. Scale. Rather than a single artist spending a few hundred dollars here and there to promote their music and get clicks to their socials, Rise is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time to accumulate warm audiences. This allows us to “win” the attention of listeners more effectively, faster, and at a tremendously larger scale than DIY promotion.
2. Perspective. Advertising and promoting your music to your existing fans is always a win, because they already like you and your music. They’re likely to engage with your posts and click when you ask them to. However, when you are advertising to new fans who have never heard of you, you’ll be running those ads from your own account. This comes across as self-promotional and in some cases “spammy”. Rise is an authority for recommending new music and through our discovery app Tout, listeners are voluntarily signing up to receive new music recommendations. This changes the perspective from spammy unknown artists, to an artist who is now being recommended by a credible music curation brand.

Backed by real people

Most music marketing websites are shady at best, and there’s often no chance of seeing the individual or team behind it. This should always be a huge red flag. Everyone at Rise is credible in the music and entertainment industry, you can check out our about page to see our photos, bios, and more. A lot of us are artists ourselves. 

If you’re new to Rise, and want to speak directly with one of our growth experts, you can schedule a video meeting. Though just about everything you need to know is on the website, sometimes it helps to have a conversation. You can also email us to get answers to your questions. We’d be happy to take a look at your profiles, and recommend campaign types, or budget allocation. 

Will Rise work if I’m running other campaigns? 

The quick answer is, absolutely. Rise sees best results when it’s used consistently by artists, and as a part of a well-rounded marketing strategy. Our results are tracked separately and will not interfere with other platforms or tools you may be using.

Real listeners, Real people. No Bots.

Rise knows the danger in bots, and the value of real listeners and viewers — and the pitfalls of fake and phony results. Rise is built for authentic, realistic growth.  

No expensive creative assets required

Even in a time of AI generated art, and ChatGPT building good creative assets can be taxing and expensive. With Rise your content is the creative asset. You don’t need to hire designers or editors to create special content for this campaign. In fact, if you’ve never posted a video anywhere on the internet, we can still deliver a successful Spotify campaign.

Never pay for the same fans twice* (*Spotify Conversion) 

With a Rise Spotify conversion campaign, you’ll never have to pay for the same fan twice. Once a listener follows you, they’re double opted in to pre-save all of your future releases. All you need to do is be sure to have an active conversion campaign, which will unlock your banked pre-saves, and gain you even more, depending on your budget, and release date. 

Can I see any case studies?

Rise has published a number of public case studies on our website. You can check those out here!

Who uses Rise?

Rise is a majorly vetted music marketing platform that works with Sony, Warner, Universal, Nettwerk, The Nations, Scooter Braun Projects, Red Bull Music, Empire, The Orchard, Curb, Black Box, Awal, MTheory, Rock Mafia, Heroine etc. and thousands of independent artists globally.

We’ve also been fortunate enough to receive many public testimonials and endorsements from many loyal artists, labels, distributors, and management companies.

Who is Rise?

Rise was launched in 2020 and ascended rapidly as a trusted marketing platform in the industry.  Our executive team ranges in experience from record label ownership and management, serial entrepreneurs and investors, software developers, growth, social, digital marketing, paid ads and eCommerce experts, to Entertainment and sports executives and marketers, analytics  to musicians and artists just like you who share the same passion for music.