What is “Targeting” and what Targeting options do I have?

Targeting allows you to promote your music to a very specific audience of your choosing. Promote on SoundCloud offers two targeting levels: Simple and Advanced.

Simple targeting - Country, Device, Genre.

Advanced targeting - Country, Device, Genre, State, City, Age, Gender  

For example, if you used Simple targeting you could specify that you want your promotion to run in the USA and UK, to iOS users who listen to hip-hop. If you used Advanced targeting you could specify that you want your promotion to run in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles to female hip-hop fans, ages 18-24. 

When choosing your targeting options, be strategic about where you will get the most traction. For example, you can look at your SoundCloud Insights to see which cities you are receiving the most plays from and might want to match your targeting to those cities. Or maybe you are playing a show in London soon and want to target listeners in that city before you arrive. 

As with many promotional tools, we recommend testing different targeting options with different promotions to see which provides the best results for you. 

What countries can I target with my promotions?

You can target all countries and territories where SoundCloud Go is available. You can find the full list here.

What happens if I don’t select any targeting options for my promotion?

If you don’t select any targeting, your promotion will run against the general SoundCloud audience in the countries where your track can be monetized. This is not recommended, as you won’t be reaching the best possible audience for your music.

I have a lot of targeting parameters on my promotion and am not seeing a lot of available impressions? How do I fix that?

If you choose targeting options that are too specific, you might be narrowing your audience too much. It’s important to find a balance between your targeting and your reach - you want to make sure the right people are hearing your music but you also want to make sure enough of them are in your target audience. 

For example, if you notice that you don’t have a lot of available impressions for your promotion, try opening up some of your targeting options. Instead of targeting the city of London, try the country United Kingdom. Instead of Hip-Hop, try Hip-Hop and R&B. 

There’s no exact science to what will give you the best results, so use the data at your disposal (like your SoundCloud Insights) to make informed targeting decisions. Click here to learn how to understand your SoundCloud Insights better.

What ages can I target with my promotions?

If you select the Advanced targeting option, you can choose to target various age ranges between 13-65+. It’s important to note that in some locations, there may be local laws or regulations preventing certain age ranges from receiving your promotion, even if you select it in your targeting criteria. For example, in Europe, we do not target users under the age of 16 for legal reasons.

The unknown category means that there are certain users whose age is unavailable in our system. You can still reach those users by selecting Unknown, but you won’t know what age range they are.