Social media ad campaigns can be helpful, hurtful, cheap, expensive, satisfying, or downright frustrating.

But, don’t fret. WordPlay T. Jay knows about and has used a tool that helps artists get the results they want from ad campaigns. Created by musician and entrepreneur Ari Herstand, the “Streaming and Instagram Growth” course aims to get musicians the results they want out of Facebook campaigns.

T. Jay said while organic growth was good on Facebook in the past, to really get growth these days, Facebook campaigns amounting to at least $5 per day are the way to go. T. Jay’s ads were not as effective as he wanted, so he took this course, at a cost of $500 (which can be paid in $50 per month installments), hoping to reach results like independent hip hop artist Lucidious, who in three years grew from 150 monthly Spotify listeners to 500,000, 45 Spotify followers to 50,000, 1,500 Facebook likes to 250,000, 1,200 Instagram followers to 100,000, and earning less than $100 per month from his music to $15,000-$20,000 per month just from streaming revenue.

In just May and June, and admittedly doing things wrong in May, T. Jay’s Spotify listeners have increased 79 percent month over month, his streams have increased 138 percent, and he picked up 128 followers in the last 28 days.

T. Jay said he is an affiliate of the course, but would promote the service for free because of how good it truly is, especially since he learned form mistakes along the way.

T. Jay started a campaign in May, budgeting $5 per day. He focused his ad on people who like Spotify and lyrical rappers, entering specific artists representative of his style.

T. Jay started out slow, growing just a few Spotify followers per day and not getting many Facebook likes. The problem, he learned, was rooted in where his ads were being delivered. Being an international campaign, T. Jay saw his ads in countries like Algeria were not helping him grow. Basically, the ads were running on too large of a scope.

Clicks are great, but a low cost per click did not translate into followers.

“The course is designed so that if you don’t follow it exactly, you won’t get the results,” T. Jay said. “I was running all these ads to different countries and didn’t realize they weren’t serving me well.”

T. Jay said it’s key to not deviate from the program, and when he went back and reassessed his campaign, he also narrowed his target to countries he was having the most success in, eliminating countries that were providing a lot of clicks but few followers. He also adjusted the musicians listed to widen the interest area of possible consumers.

By late June, T. Jay started to see his numbers double what they had done in May. The end goal, he said, is to focus on gaining followers and grow a base to make revenue from streaming, then focus on more specific areas as needed.

While it may be nice to focus a campaign solely in the U.S., the cost of doing so may be more money per click, and local growth can follow when streaming revenue allows for more freedom in the advertising budget.

Ultimately, this is a long-term strategy to growth, but as in the case of Lucidious, a proven successful one.

For more information about the program, people may visit https://aristakeacademy.teachable.com/p/streaming-instagram-growth/?affcode=267075_nmye6qky.