Comments on: Is Jango Payola?

By: Manuel

Manuel — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:17:04 +0000

i joined jango 2 weeks ago and paid for promotion of 100 airplays and waited for the songs to go live.

its been 2 weeks and the songs havent gone live and i sent them 2 emails and havent received 1 response from them..i really would like a refund cause of this poor service from them. regardless of whether this is a scam or not i will never use jango again,.

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:40:42 +0000

Good question, with no easy answer. The $500 is pretty much negligible, which means you’re going to be doing all the promo yourself on the internet. Alternately, you can build a following around an amazing live show. I’m still using Jango here and there, mostly just dumping back any affiliate money I receive into the site. It continues to bring in mailing list signups, Facebook friend requests, Twitter followers, and a few sales. If you’ve laid down your groundwork with a solid product, compelling web site, and consistent presence on the major social networks, it’s probably worth $100 to see what kind of response you get on Jango.

By: Carlos Rodriguez

Carlos Rodriguez — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:34:58 +0000

I love the analysis. I will be reading more and posting. If you had a very small budget say $500 for promo. What is the best way to organically grow a following?

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:01:33 +0000

My understanding is that you only hear an ad when you skip a track, but I haven’t played around long enough as a listener to know for sure. I personally have never heard an ad.

By: The Nooge

The Nooge — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:15:18 +0000

I agree with the poster who said the thing not to like about Jango is that they CHARGE for air play, and then they go and sell advertising.

Normally the business model is one or the other, but they decided screw it, let’s do both. That’s the only thing that really turns me off about what they do, it’s greedy and it doesn’t really work that great for unsigned musicians – although the model works really well for Jango.

And you are right on 100%, no way is this a scam, they tell you what they are doing, then they do it.

By: Todd Durrant

Todd Durrant — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:37:10 +0000

With promoting, it isn’t always easy to say if you’ve “broken even”. I think that if you try to weigh direct sales with your promotional costs in any particular arena, you end up saying “no”. Hopefully by spending $300 on something like Jango, you end up with long-term outcome that pays long after the money is spent. You’re into regular rotation, keep picking up fans, and the next time you release something, maybe a whole handful of people that didn’t know your stuff on the first 4 albums are there to pick up the new one.

That’s why it is not always easy to quantize a specific promotion. But I think in this case, the amount is rather small. $300 is nothing for a pile of plays directly to listeners who like your brand of music, when compared to a $700 half-page ad in a music magazine that will get you nothing, ever.

-Todd

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:24:00 +0000

I’m getting the free plays on Last.fm too, so it’s not an either/or proposition. I only got 645 plays in Q1 of 2009, so I’m reaching far more people on Jango.

My guess is that I probably haven’t broken even on the $300, but that I might over time if some of the listeners stay on board as long-term fans.

I’ve yet to hear of any promotional method that can earn back its expense in sales, valuing time at a measly $5/hr.

By: Peter Tanham

Peter Tanham — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:11:43 +0000

Sorry, I didn’t mean the last.fm power plays. To get organic plays we have to pay them, but that’s free on last.fm.

If you were to take an educated guess, do you think you’ve broken even on the $300?

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:43:39 +0000

Thanks for the comment Peter!

I have no way of knowing what I’ve made back. I can confirm $83 in direct sales as of today, but most sales are probably through the “buy” buttons on the site, which I can’t track separate from my “regular” sales.

Last.fm costs 20x as much per play, and Grooveshark Artists costs 5x as much, so it’s at least cheaper than the alternatives.

By: Peter Tanham

Peter Tanham — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:59:40 +0000

So really at best you’ve made $200 from your $300 investment?

I’m not so sure I like Jango. It seems cheeky to be charging artists to give them the content, and then go and sell advertisements against that content.

I can see the draw of paying to get new people to experience your music (nothing wrong with advertising), but with those kind of figures, I don’t see why it’s any better than last.fm.