TC
ExpertiseLeadershipExperienceProduct InnovationsProject RolloutsContentPressCharts & MilestonesFeatured BuildsSkillsCase Studies
Contact
Back to Home
11Artist growth

Case Studies

Released May 22, 2026 · official video August 6, 2026

Something Special

Ahn Hyo-seop x Khalid

$137.5K of paid effort ($117.5K ad media across six channels, $20K creator seeding) produced 7.43M Luminate streams, 31.8M creator views at a 9.33% engagement rate, a Spotify Top 50 USA chart entry, 81 chart entries with ten at number one, 2,353 radio plays across 131 stations, 57 press articles, and a music video that lifted streams 70.9% in a week when it landed eleven weeks after release.

$137.5K
Paid effort
$117.5K ad media across six channels, $20K creator seeding
7.43M
Luminate streams
4.78M stream equivalents, 929 song sales
31.8M
Creator views
3,275 creator videos at a 9.33% engagement rate
2,353
Radio plays
Across 131 stations; 18,790 Shazams
01Where this started

Context

Ahn Hyo-seop's first single, with Khalid: a pairing built to cross K-drama and US R&B audiences. The single's full marketing budget in the tracker was $365,371 with $364,942 spent; the ad-spend line was $167,871 with $167,442 delivered (99.7%). There was no existing trend to ride, so the plan had to build momentum itself across six ad channels, creator seeding, editorial, press and a second content drop.

Full marketing budget
$364,942of $365,37199%
Ad-spend line
$167,442of $167,87199.7%

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
$20,000
Posts
231 (94 of 94 deliverables)
Views
10.25M
Likes
1,228,006
Shares
405,603
Comments
2,888
Eng. rate
16.0%
CPM
$1.95
Cost per view
$0.0020
Cost per post
$87
Owned contentOwned content on the FANDOM link tracker, 34 posts.
Instagram
Posts
15
Views
15.07M
Likes
1,064,510
Eng. rate
7.06%
Top posts
May 5 announcement feed post 6.49M views at 7.7%; release-day reel 5.94M at 7.4%
TikTok
Posts
9
Views
8.41M
Likes
22,583
Eng. rate
0.27%
Top posts
Release-day post 5.18M; first-meeting post (May 8) 1.34M
YouTube
Posts
10
Views
13.70M on the tracker
Likes
11,652
Eng. rate
0.09%
Top posts
Official video 12.29M on the tracker and 11.31M on YouTube Studio (351K in its first 20 hours, 4.6M by Aug 27); lyric video 1.21M
Total
Posts
34
Views
37.18M
Likes
1,098,745
Eng. rate
2.96%
Top posts
Press folded back into owned content: the "Rolling Stone. Forbes. The Korea Times." post (Jun 12) and the Rolling Stone Korea premiere reel (Aug 6)
Owned views by platform
15.07M8.41M13.70M
  • 15.07MInstagram
  • 8.41MTikTok
  • 13.70MYouTube

Views as the link tracker counts them. YouTube is 13.70M across 10 posts, of which the official video is 12.29M; YouTube Studio reads that video at 11.31M, and the two sources are never mixed. This row used to read 5.38M, which was the tracker before it had caught up with the video, and it left the row's own top item larger than the row.

Owned engagement rate by platformEngagements as a share of views
  • Instagram
    7.06%
  • TikTok
    0.27%
  • YouTube
    0.22%

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, two sends.
May 5
Message
Khalid x Ahn Hyo-seop first pairing
List size
2,015
Clicks
136
CTR
6.70%
Cost
$18.89
Cost per click
$0.139
May 22
Message
Something Special is out
List size
3,534
Clicks
238
CTR
6.73%
Cost
$14.68
Cost per click
$0.062
Total
Clicks
374
CTR
6.74% blended
Cost
$33.57
Cost per click
$0.090
Laylo click-through rate per sendClicks as a share of the list
  • May 5
    6.70%
  • May 22
    6.73%

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

04What it produced

Outcomes

Streams
7.43M Luminate (4.78M stream equivalents, 929 song sales; 78,424 in the latest week). 19.51M all-DSP plays on FUGA: 53.5% YouTube Content ID (10.44M), 35.9% Spotify (7.00M), 5.2% Spotify under 30 seconds, 2.1% Apple Music, 1.3% Shorts. 3.40M Spotify streams on the activity feed (Sep 15). Top territories: United States 3.59M, Canada 89K, Japan 78K
Earned creator content
31.8M TikTok views across 3,275 creator videos, 2.96M engagements (9.33% rate). 8.6M Meta views across 7,500 creations on the top formats: Instagram Reels 3.97M views and 1,708 creations, Instagram posts 2.13M and 3,432, Instagram UGC 721K and 2,360; 8,565 Music Sticker uses. Top creator territories: US, Argentina, Mexico, Dominican Republic, India, Philippines, Brazil. 18 viral videos over 100K views logged
Playlists
118 placements (32 live): 88 Spotify, 13 Amazon Music, 6 TIDAL, 6 YouTube, 4 Apple Music, 1 Deezer. 16 editorial with 2.32M follower reach; 61 listener-made; 14 artist-radio. 7.43M lifetime follower reach. Named placements: Spotify Top 50 USA (3.2M followers, peak 39), This Is Khalid (1.11M, peak 4, 39,856 plays), New Music Friday Canada (598K), New Music Friday France (415K, peak 34), New Music Friday Japan (170K, peak 13), All New K-Pop (360K, peak 3), All New Pop (319K, 20,125 plays), New Music Friday UAE, Maghreb, Belgium and Egypt. Release Radar 218K plays, Discover and Mix 197K
Charts
81 chart entries, 10 at number one, 28 in the top 10: 36 on Spotify, 25 on iTunes, 14 on Apple Music, 4 on Shazam, 2 on YouTube. Number one on Spotify Local Pulse in Austin, Charlotte, Indianapolis, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego and Seattle (Jun 4), YouTube Daily Top Songs on Shorts Canada (May 27) and Apple Music Pop Vanuatu. iTunes Japan Pop peak 17, Guatemala Pop peak 6. Shazam charts in Seoul, Korea and Honolulu (Jul to Aug)
Radio and Shazam
2,353 radio plays across 131 stations; 18,790 Shazams. The feed logged the climb from 25 plays (Jun 15) to 1,000 (Aug 1)
Press
57 of 90 tracked articles. Agency placements: Forbes interview with Ahn Hyo-seop (29.7M UVPM), Rolling Stone Korea exclusive video premiere and interview (8.4M each), Asia Business Daily (4.1M), Korea Times (1.6M), AllKpop; Billboard exclusive pitched
D2C
Something Special CD on the FANDOM store; Meta conversion campaign bought 350 purchase events at $8.31
Activity feed
722 logged events: 370 creator videos, 132 radio plays, 64 playlist adds, 38 editorial adds, 45 chart entries, 7 Apple Music track features. Milestones: 5M Spotify streams (Jun 18); 5M TikTok views (Jun 12), 10M (Jun 22), 20M (Aug 12); 750 creator videos (Aug 5); 10,000 Shazams (Aug 8); 5M YouTube views (Aug 15)
Second wind
The Aug 6 video lifted streams 70.9% in its first week, added 18.8M earned creator views in the following reporting week at $1.33 per 1,000, and put the song on Shazam's Seoul and Korea charts three months after release
Consumption mix, all-DSP plays on FUGA
53.5%35.9%
  • 53.5%YouTube Content ID
  • 35.9%Spotify
  • 5.2%Spotify under 30 seconds
  • 2.1%Apple Music
  • 1.3%Shorts

19.51M all-DSP plays on FUGA, against 7.43M Luminate-verified streams. Content ID at 53.5% is 10.44M of those plays.

Playlist placements by DSP
88
  • 88Spotify
  • 13Amazon Music
  • 6TIDAL
  • 6YouTube
  • 4Apple Music
  • 1Deezer

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

Chart entries by platformEntries
  • Spotify
    36
  • iTunes
    25
  • Apple Music
    14
  • Shazam
    4
  • YouTube
    2

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

Dated milestonesDays from release
  • TikTok
  • Spotify
  • Shazam
  • YouTube
  • TikTok
    10M TikTok views
  • Spotify
    5M Spotify streams
  • Shazam
  • YouTube
May 22 releaseAug 15

The dated milestones on the activity feed row. The radio climb from 25 plays (Jun 15) to 1,000 (Aug 1) and the Aug 6 video sit in the outcomes above.

05What it cost

Efficiency

Blended CPM
$1.61 across all paid media (Google $0.86, TikTok $1.74, Snapchat $2.45, Reddit $1.82, Meta $3.24; Marquee $19.38 by design)
Cost per paid video view
$0.0047 (benchmark $0.02 to $0.03); 58.4% view rate against a 15% bar
Cost per click
TikTok $0.099; Meta $0.053; Snapchat $0.068; Reddit $0.23
Cost per Meta result
$0.043 blended; $0.0285 on the DSP traffic flight; $8.31 per D2C purchase
Cost per converted Spotify listener
$1.08; $0.99 per new active listener
Earned views per paid dollar
231 (all-in); $4.33 per 1,000 earned views; $41.99 per creator video
Cost per 1,000 Luminate streams
$15.82 on ad media; $18.51 all-in with creator seeding
Creator seeding
$1.95 CPM and $0.0020 per view on 16.0% engagement
Direct-to-fan
$0.09 per click across two Laylo sends
06Findings

What I learned

  • Catalog can be reactivated on demand.

    A music video eleven weeks after release lifted streams 70.9% in a week, produced earned views at $1.33 per 1,000 and opened Korean Shazam charts. Timing the second asset is worth more than spreading media evenly across the cycle.

  • This is what a driven paid-to-earned curve looks like.

    With no trend to ride, 231 earned views per dollar and $4.33 per 1,000 is the benchmark I set the next release against.

  • The feature did work on radio that social never does.

    2,353 plays on 131 stations and 18,790 Shazams came from broadcast and discovery, not from the creator layer. A well-known feature buys a second distribution system.

  • Launch support arrived late.

    Only $533 of Google ran in May; real support began in June. The August video showed what launch-week concentration could have done.

  • Small channel tests earn their place.

    Snapchat ($3.0K, 3.6% CTR, $0.068 CPC) and Reddit ($2.4K, 0.8% CTR) both cleared their benchmarks and are now part of the playbook.

  • Clean books are a result too.

    Every measured platform tied to the tracker to the dollar. That is what made the rest of the program's reconciliation gaps diagnostic rather than noise.