Promo campaigns: how to measure who actually played your track

Most promo campaigns are judged on what is easy to count: opens, downloads, feedback scores. None of them tells you whether a DJ played the track. A campaign that got 40 downloads and two plays did less than one that got 15 downloads and eight. This guide covers the few numbers that matter, how to collect them, and how to use them next time.

Downloads, feedback and plays are different things

• Opens and downloads tell you who looked. Useful to know who to watch, but many DJs download everything.
• Feedback (“nice, will support”, a rating out of 5) tells you who said they liked it. It is an intention.
• Plays are what happened in a club, on the radio or in a recorded set, with a date and a place you can point to.

Keep all three, but judge the campaign on plays.

The numbers worth tracking

1. Play rate: DJs who played it, divided by DJs you sent it to. The single best measure of whether the track and the list fit.
2. Time to first play: days from the send to the first play you can link to. Fast first plays usually mean the track works immediately in a set.
3. Repeat plays: DJs who played it at two or more gigs. These are your core supporters.
4. Plays by DJs you didn’t send it to: a sign it is being passed on.
5. Where it was played: countries, and the size of the events. A play at a festival main stage and a play at a bar both count, but not the same way in a pitch.
6. Reach, carefully: the views on the clips that show the play. Use what the platform shows; never estimate crowd sizes you can’t back up.

Set it up before you send

You need two lists, and they take ten minutes to set up:

• The send list: DJ, Instagram handle, date sent, version sent, and whether they opened or downloaded it if your promo tool shows that.
• The play log: DJ, date, event or venue, city, type of evidence (club clip, set recording, radio, tracklist), link, and the second the track starts.

Then watch the DJs on your send list after their gigs. Our guides to knowing if a DJ played your track and finding Instagram clips cover where to look.

An example

Here is what a four-week summary might look like. The numbers are made up, to show the method.

In this example, three of the six DJs who played it never left feedback, and four of the eleven who left feedback never played it. That is normal, and it is why feedback alone is a poor guide.

Use it for the next send

• Send to the players first. The DJs who played this one get the next one a few days before everyone else.
• Look at who downloaded but never played. If it happens twice, the fit may be wrong. Send them fewer promos, or different ones.
• Find more DJs like your players. Who plays alongside them on line-ups? Who do they play back to back with? Those are good additions to your list.
• Compare campaigns, not tracks. Measure every campaign the same way, and you will see whether your list is getting better.

Turn it into a report

At four weeks, write one short paragraph and attach the play log: how many DJs played it, the strongest plays by name, where, and whether it was before release. That paragraph is what you send a label, a booking agent or a distributor. Our guide on proving DJ support to a label covers how to present it.

If you are comparing tools to collect plays for you, our overview of tools that track DJ support explains what each kind measures: some count plays, some count tracklist entries, and some count feedback.