The short answer
A $5,000 sound led campaign for Stick Figure delivered 5.96M verified views at about $0.84 per 1,000. Clippers posted 1,400 clips, and 125 approved clips were paid. The top clip reached 1.9M views on its own.
Our World Cup case study showed what $4,000 can do when the timing is right. This one is about volume: a $5,000 sound led campaign for Stick Figure’s “Edge of the Ocean” and “What a Feeling,” where clippers posted 1,400 clips and 125 approved clips were paid.
What did the campaign deliver?
- Budget: $5,000
- Clips posted: 1,400 (approved plus pending)
- Clips approved and paid: 125
- Verified views: 5.96M
- Top clip: 1.9M views
What was the brief?
Stick Figure didn’t need clippers cutting band footage. The goal was to put both songs in front of new listeners, so we ran it as a sound led campaign. Each track becomes the audio behind a mood, and clippers build the visuals from their own footage in niches where that mood already performs.
That keeps the lift on the band’s side close to zero. A sound campaign only needs the official song links. More on that in How Music Clipping Campaigns Work.
Why 125 clips were paid
Every campaign has a fixed budget and a cap on what one clip can earn. Approved clips are paid per 1,000 verified views until the budget runs out, and on this campaign 125 approved clips used all of it. Every clip was checked against the brief before it could be paid. The rest stayed live on clippers’ pages, still playing the song and collecting views at no cost to the campaign. Those views aren’t counted in the 5.96M, which covers approved clips only.
How far did the top clip go?
One clip reached 1.9M views on its own. Because every campaign caps what one clip can earn, most of those views cost nothing extra, and the rest of the budget kept paying other clips instead of being swallowed by one viral post.
What did it cost per 1,000 views?
$5,000 across 5.96M verified views works out to about $0.84 per 1,000. Clippers were paid at $1 per 1,000, so the cap pulled the real rate below the quoted one. For how our fee sits on top of the budget, see What Does a Clipping Campaign Cost?
The lead song moved too. “Edge of the Ocean” averaged 88,007 Spotify streams a day before launch and 100,228 a day during the campaign, up 14%. Other things can lift streams in the same week, so we read that as a signal, not proof.
Frequently asked questions
Why were 125 of the 1,400 clips paid?
Approved clips are paid per 1,000 verified views until the budget runs out, and on this campaign 125 approved clips used all of it. The rest stayed live at no cost to the campaign.
What did the band need to provide?
Only the official song links. Clippers built the visuals from their own footage.
Why did the cost come in below $1 per 1,000?
Clippers were paid $1 per 1,000 views, and every campaign caps what one clip can earn. One clip reached 1.9M views, and most of those views cost nothing extra.
Did the campaign lift streams?
“Edge of the Ocean” went from 88,007 Spotify streams a day before launch to 100,228 a day during the campaign, up 14%. Other things can lift streams in the same week, so we read that as a signal, not proof.
What would we tell another band?
- Lead with the sound. For reach, a sound led brief beats asking clippers to work only from band footage.
- Pick the lane first. The song has to match the mood of the pages it lands on.
- Budget for volume. At $5,000 there’s enough room for hundreds of clips to get a shot, and the budget follows the ones people actually watch.
Releasing something soon? Send us the song and your budget, and on a call we’ll show you the lane we’d run it in.