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11Artist growth

Case Studies

Released January 29, 2026 · FANDOM's debut single · remix EP March 27

Two Car Garage

Jon Bellion x Swae Lee

$43.3K of paid effort ($28.3K ad media, $15K creator seeding) behind a debut single that reached 312.6M creator views from 153,681 TikTok videos, 5.27M Luminate streams, 250 playlist placements including Spotify's flagship New Music Friday, 215 chart entries with five at number one, and carried FANDOM past 500K Spotify monthly listeners within two and a half weeks of release.

$43.3K
Paid effort
$28.3K ad media, $15K creator seeding
312.6M
Earned creator views
From 153,681 TikTok videos
5.27M
Luminate streams
4.35M stream equivalents, 435 song sales
215
Chart entries
Five at number one, 14 in the top 10
01Where this started

Context

No audience, no data, no prior release. The single's full marketing budget in the tracker was $116,615 with $116,432 spent; the ad-spend line was $79,300 with $79,117 delivered. The measured digital layer below is the platform-verified portion of that. The paid plan was deliberately light: the goal was to seed the sound and see what caught. Google spend in release month was $223; the first real flight ran in February.

Full marketing budget
$116,432of $116,61599%
Ad-spend line
$79,117of $79,30099%

The budget tracker for this single: what the plan committed, and what has been spent against it.

03Earned, owned and direct

Creator seeding, owned content and direct-to-fan

Creator seeding
Chaotic Good
Budget
$15,000
Posts
51 (39 of 30 deliverables, 130%)
Views
1.23M
Likes
133,932
Shares
3,066
Comments
413
Eng. rate
11.2%
CPM
$12.22
Cost per view
$0.0122
Cost per post
$294
Owned contentOwned content on the FANDOM link tracker, 35 posts.
YouTube
Posts
16
Views
4.44M
Likes
12,587
Eng. rate
0.28%
Top posts
Official video 4.19M views and 527 comments (YouTube Studio); behind-the-scenes documentary 131K
TikTok
Posts
8
Views
975K
Likes
2,981
Eng. rate
0.31%
Top posts
Release-day post 430K; pre-save post 189K
Instagram
Posts
11
Views
155K
Likes
1,521
Eng. rate
0.98%
Top posts
Release-day feed post 77K
Total
Posts
35
Views
5.57M
Likes
17,089
Eng. rate
0.31%
Top posts
Remix EP (Lumine, Eran Hersh) and the documentary extended the cycle on March 27
Owned views by platform
4.44M975K
  • 4.44MYouTube
  • 975KTikTok
  • 155KInstagram

Views as the link tracker counts them. The official video is 4.19M on YouTube Studio, inside the 4.44M the tracker attributes to 16 YouTube posts.

Owned engagement rate by platformEngagements as a share of views
  • YouTube
    0.28%
  • TikTok
    0.31%
  • Instagram
    0.98%

Reach and engagement do not sit on the same platform, which is why the owned plan is read on both.

Direct-to-fanDirect-to-fan on Laylo, three sends.
Jan 30
Message
Release announcement
List size
1,216
Clicks
85
CTR
6.99%
Cost
$2.44
Cost per click
$0.029
Mar 24
Message
Remix EP and BTS documentary drop 3/27
List size
2,138
Clicks
235
CTR
10.99%
Cost
$14.62
Cost per click
$0.062
Mar 27
Message
Remix EP streaming now
List size
1,948
Clicks
224
CTR
11.45%
Cost
$3.90
Cost per click
$0.017
Total
Clicks
544
CTR
10.26% blended
Cost
$20.96
Cost per click
$0.039
Laylo click-through rate per sendClicks as a share of the list
  • Jan 30
    6.99%
  • Mar 24
    10.99%
  • Mar 27
    11.45%

One bar per send, dated as the table above dates it. The blended rate is on the totals row.

04What it produced

Outcomes

Streams
5.27M Luminate (4.35M stream equivalents, 435 song sales; 35,669 in the latest week). 7.41M all-DSP plays on FUGA: 55.7% Spotify, 17.8% Spotify under 30 seconds, 11.2% Apple Music, 5.9% YouTube Shorts, 5.0% YouTube, 3.4% Content ID. 3.12M Spotify streams on the activity feed (Sep 15). Top territories: United States 3.42M, Canada 182K, United Kingdom 163K
Earned creator content
312.6M TikTok views across 153,681 creator videos, 7.78M engagements (2.49% rate). 4.9M Meta views across 4,106 sound uses on the top formats (Instagram Reels 1.32M views and 2,498 creations; Facebook UGC 1,042; Instagram UGC 566). Top creator territories: US, India, Mexico, Philippines, Brazil. 10K creator videos by April 19, 50K by April 25. 42 viral videos over 100K views logged by the activity feed
Playlists
250 placements (44 live): 212 Spotify, 14 Amazon Music, 10 TIDAL, 8 Apple Music, 4 YouTube, 2 Deezer. 23 editorial with 10.1M follower reach; 178 listener-made. 13.8M lifetime follower reach. Named editorial: New Music Friday (4.6M followers, peak 26), Just Good Music (955K, peak 20), New Music Friday Deutschland (933K, peak 40), Singled Out (921K, peak 18), Pop Brandneu (512K, peak 14), New Music Friday Canada (598K, peak 38), All New Pop, New Music Friday Naija, Ghana, Levant and Saudi Arabia. This Is Jon Bellion: 46,958 plays from 84,751 followers (55% of the audience). Release Radar 248K plays, Discover and Mix 140K
Charts
215 chart entries, 5 at number one, 14 in the top 10: 175 on Apple Music territory charts, 30 on Spotify, 9 on iTunes, 1 on YouTube. Number one on Spotify's Luxembourg daily chart (Feb 24, up from 2), Spotify Local Pulse New York City (Feb 5) and Las Vegas (Apr 16), YouTube Daily Top Songs on Shorts Canada (Feb 16), Apple Music Alternative Vanuatu. iTunes Indie Rock Global peak 4
Radio and Shazam
399 radio plays across 40 stations; 5,486 Shazams
Press
6 tracked articles, including Melodic Magazine on the debut and an IMDb listing for the video
Activity feed
1,001 logged events: 471 creator videos, 198 playlist adds, 42 editorial adds, 162 Apple Music album features, 40 radio plays, 29 chart entries. Milestones: 3M Spotify streams (Aug 16); Lumine Remix 5,000 streams (Jul 19); Eran Hersh Remix 5,000 streams (Apr 19)
Artist-level lift
FANDOM passed 100K Spotify monthly listeners on Feb 2, 250K on Feb 3 and 500K on Feb 15; 100K YouTube views on Feb 1 and 500K on Feb 7; entered Chartmetric's top 100K artists on Feb 3 and top 50K on Feb 9; Spotify followers grew 5,189% in the month to March 1
Consumption mix, all-DSP plays on FUGA
55.7%17.8%
  • 55.7%Spotify
  • 17.8%Spotify under 30 seconds
  • 11.2%Apple Music
  • 5.9%YouTube Shorts
  • 5.0%YouTube
  • 3.4%Content ID

7.41M all-DSP plays on FUGA, against 5.27M Luminate-verified streams.

Playlist placements by DSP
212
  • 212Spotify
  • 14Amazon Music
  • 10TIDAL
  • 8Apple Music
  • 4YouTube
  • 2Deezer

Placements by DSP, from the playlists line above. Live placements and follower reach are in that line.

Chart entries by platformEntries
  • Apple Music territory charts
    175
  • Spotify
    30
  • iTunes
    9
  • YouTube
    1

The chart entries above, split by the platform that charted them.

Dated milestonesDays from release
  • YouTube
  • Spotify
  • Chartmetric
  • Remixes
  • YouTube
    500K YouTube views
  • Spotify
    500K Spotify monthly listeners
  • Chartmetric
    Top 50K artists
  • Remixes
    Eran Hersh Remix 5,000 streams
Jan 29 releaseAug 16

Dated milestones from the activity feed and artist-level lift rows. The 5,189% follower growth in the month to March 1 is a rate over a window rather than a dated event, so it is not plotted.

05What it cost

Efficiency

Blended CPM
$1.20 across all paid media (Google $0.50, Meta $0.74, TikTok $2.56; Marquee $22.09 by design, priced on listeners)
Cost per paid video view
$0.0020 (benchmark $0.02 to $0.03)
Cost per Meta traffic result
$0.029; $0.080 per link click
Cost per converted Spotify listener
$0.86; $1.70 per new active listener
Earned views per paid dollar
7,216 (all-in); $0.14 per 1,000 earned views; $0.28 per creator video
Cost per 1,000 Luminate streams
$5.37 on ad media; $8.22 all-in with creator seeding
Cost per earned YouTube subscriber
$2.17 (Google-attributed)
Direct-to-fan
$0.04 per click across three Laylo sends
06Findings

What I learned

  • The trend did the work, and I report it that way.

    153,681 creators used the audio and the earned curve was running before most of the measured spend landed. The paid money lit a fuse; it did not buy those views. I keep earned views out of paid impressions and I do not use this single to set expectations for a normal release.

  • Breadth beat scale.

    The organic creator base was micro and nano: median 1,501 followers, the largest under 10,000. Nobody big picked up the song. 153,681 people did. That is the more durable pattern and the harder one to buy.

  • Virality and coverage are separate systems.

    A 312M-view creator trend produced six press articles. Press needs its own engine and its own timeline.

  • Extra content for people already invested converts best.

    The remix EP and documentary sends out-clicked the release announcement, 11% against 7%.

  • Launch-month support was too light.

    The single released into a month with $223 of Google behind it. The efficiency was excellent, but the fuse could have been lit sooner.

  • Cheap reach came from prospecting and DSP traffic.

    Google video at $0.50 and the Meta DSP flight at $0.54 CPM are where incremental reach budget should go on a release like this.