# The Cheapest Time to Run Music Ads Is Right After the Holidays
> We tracked every b00st.com campaign for a year. Ad prices peak on Black Friday week and bottom out in February, so the smartest release budget is the one you plan now and spend after the holidays.
- URL: https://b00st.com/blog/the-cheapest-time-to-run-music-ads
- Published: 2026-11-02
- Authors: Jason R. Stevens, CFA
- Tags: Ad Costs, Release Strategy, Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, Music Marketing
## TL;DR
- Black Friday week was the most expensive week of the year: $8.01 per 1,000 impressions and $1.07 per click across Meta, Google and TikTok.
- February was the cheapest month: $2.87 per 1,000 impressions and $0.40 per click, so the same budget bought about 2.7 times the clicks.
- The savings start in mid-January, not on January 1, so plan a Q1 release for late January or February.
Every fall, the same thing happens to music ads: they get more expensive, and they don't work as well.
That's not a hunch. We pulled a full year of daily data from every campaign we ran on Meta, Google and TikTok, from September 2025 through September 2026, and measured what attention actually cost, day by day. The pattern is clear, and it's the same one every big advertiser plans around: the holidays are the worst time of year to buy attention, and the weeks right after are some of the best.
Here's what we found, and how to use it for your next release.
## Why ads cost more in the holidays
Ads are sold in an auction. Every time someone opens Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, advertisers bid for that spot, and the highest bids win.
From November through December, every retailer on earth joins that auction at once. Gift guides, Black Friday sales, holiday promos: all of them are bidding for the same people your music is trying to reach. More bidders for the same eyeballs means higher prices for everyone, including artists.
Then the holidays end. The retailers pull back, but people don't stop scrolling. Same audience, fewer bidders, lower prices.
## What a year of our data shows
Across Meta, Google and TikTok combined:
| | Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) | Cost per click (CPC) | Click-through rate (CTR) |
| :-- | --: | --: | --: |
| Black Friday week (Nov 24–30) | $8.01 | $1.07 | 0.75% |
| Early December (Dec 1–14) | $6.35 | $0.90 | 0.70% |
| Late December (Dec 15–31) | $5.71 | $0.86 | 0.66% |
| Early January (Jan 1–14) | $4.69 | $0.87 | 0.54% |
| Late January (Jan 15–31) | $5.85 | $0.54 | 1.08% |
| February | $2.87 | $0.40 | 0.72% |
Three things stand out.
**Black Friday week is the peak.** It was the most expensive week of the whole year, by both measures. If you're paying for attention that week, you're outbidding Amazon.
**The holidays don't just cost more, they convert worse.** Click-through rates sagged through December and early January. People are busy, distracted and shopping. Your ad is competing with every gift and every sale in the feed.
**The real savings start in mid-January, not on New Year's Day.** Early January prices per impression drop, but people still aren't clicking much. By the second half of January, clicks come back and the cost per click falls by more than a third. February was the cheapest month of the year.
## What that means for a $500 campaign
Put the same $500 behind a release in two different weeks:
- **Black Friday week:** about 62,000 impressions and 470 clicks.
- **February:** about 174,000 impressions and 1,250 clicks.
Same budget, same music, about 2.7 times the clicks. That's the difference between a release that gets heard and one that gets lost in the holiday noise.
## It's not the same on every platform
Each platform moves a little differently, which is one more reason to spread a release across more than one.
- **Meta (Facebook and Instagram):** in the holiday season, prices per impression peaked in November ($7.72), not December. Cost per click peaked in December ($1.07) and fell 25% in January.
- **Google (YouTube):** the biggest swing of the three. Cost per impression fell by half from December to January, and cost per click fell from $0.89 to $0.28.
- **TikTok:** the quietest of the three. Cost per impression climbed into December ($4.92) and hit its lowest point of the year in February ($2.07).
Video views follow the same seasonal shape. Each platform counts a view differently (Meta counts 3-second plays, YouTube counts TrueView views), so compare each line with itself over time rather than against the others.
## Planning a Q1 release
If you've got music coming in early 2027, here's how to time it:
1. **Hold your budget through the holidays.** Unless you're tied to a date, like a show or a holiday single, don't spend into the most expensive weeks of the year.
2. **Aim for late January or February.** That's when prices are lowest and people are clicking again.
3. **Build your assets now.** Use December to finish your video, artwork and links, so you're ready to launch the moment prices drop.
## One more thing: this fall has a midterm election
Look at the right edge of the charts. Across all three platforms, the cost per 1,000 impressions in September 2026 was nearly double September 2025's ($9.30 vs. $5.01), and Meta's climbed from $6.19 to $12.12.
The likely reason is the US midterm elections on November 3. Election years pull an enormous amount of political money into Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and it ramps up from late summer through Election Day. Those campaigns are bidding for the same feeds as your release, and they aren't price-sensitive. Our data runs through September, before the final weeks of that push.
Once the votes are in, the political money disappears. This year, though, retail fills the gap almost immediately: Black Friday is November 27. So there's no break between election season and holiday season, which makes the window after the holidays even more valuable. The two biggest auctions of the year will both be over by then.
## How we measured this
We used daily data from every b00st.com campaign on Meta, Google and TikTok from September 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026. Every rate comes from totals, for example total cost divided by total impressions, never from averaging daily rates. Clicks are link clicks. Our campaigns cover a mix of goals, from video views to ticket sales, and that mix moves month to month along with the auction.
## The bottom line
The holidays are when everyone else is buying attention. The weeks right after are when you can buy it for less. Plan now, launch after the rush, and let your budget go further.
Ready to plan your next release? [Start your campaign at b00st.com](https://app.b00st.com).