Album Campaign Report: Track What Worked | TAP
Album campaign reporting templates
By TAP Editorial Team
Quick answer
Keep five things and you will know more than most artists do at the end of a release: what got written about you, what got played and where, your streams and saves week by week against your last record, who you contacted and what they said, and what you spent. None of it takes longer than ten minutes a week. The point is not the record-keeping, it is being able to decide the next release on evidence.
At the end of an album campaign most artists have a feeling about how it went and almost no evidence. The feeling is usually wrong in both directions: the release that felt quiet often did more than the one that felt busy, because busy is what you can see and results are what you cannot. These are the records worth keeping while it is happening, because none of them can be reconstructed afterwards. Blogs go offline, radio play logs roll over, and your memory of who replied in March will be gone by June. Ten minutes a week, in a spreadsheet or a notes file, and at the end you have something that makes the next release a decision instead of a repeat.
Coverage log
Every piece written about the record. Fill in a row the day something appears, because the link may not survive the year.
Date | Outlet | Writer | Type (review / interview / news / feature) | Link | Saved PDF? | The line worth keeping | How they found it (you emailed / they found it / somebody passed it on) Example row: 14 Apr | The Wave Cache | Sam L | Review | [url] | Yes | "the closest thing to a live take anybody has put on a record this year" | I emailed 6 weeks out
The last column is the one that pays for the whole exercise. At the end of the campaign, count how many pieces came from your own emails against how many arrived on their own, and you will know whether the outreach was worth the fortnight it took. Save every piece as a PDF the day it goes up. Small sites close and the quote you would have used on the next release goes with them.
Radio log
Every play you can find, including the ones nobody told you about. Stations very often play a record and never email.
Date | Station | Show | Track played | How you know (station playlist page / recently played / somebody told you / you heard it) | Did you email them? | Replied? Example row: 2 May | Amazing Radio | [show] | Track 3 | station recently played page | Yes, 8 Apr | No reply
The Did you email / Replied pair is what matters here, because the common finding is that stations add records without ever answering the email. If half your plays came from people who never replied, that changes how you read silence next time. Check station playlist and recently played pages yourself once a week rather than waiting to be told.
The weekly numbers
One row a week from four weeks before release to four weeks after. Take it from Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists and your own socials.
Week | Streams (7 days) | Listeners (7 days) | Saves | Playlist adds | Followers on the platform you use most | Mailing list | Pre-saves or pre-orders | What happened this week (one line) Example row: Week of 12 May | 4,180 | 2,930 | 210 | 3 | +48 | +11 | n/a | album out Friday, review in The Wave Cache
The last column is what makes the numbers readable in six months, because a spike with no note beside it is a mystery. Take the figures on the same day each week so the weeks are comparable. Resist reading anything into the first fortnight, which is noisy for everybody, and do not compare your numbers to another artist's: the only comparison that means anything is against your own last release at the same point.
Who you contacted
The list that outlives the campaign. This is the single most valuable thing you will build, and it is worth more on the next record than on this one.
Name | Outlet or station | Email | Date you wrote | What you sent | Replied? | Covered it? | What they said | Write to them again? Example row: Sam L | The Wave Cache | [email] | 6 Mar | album link + note | Yes, 9 Mar | Review 14 Apr | asked for more folk-leaning stuff | Yes, definitely
Keep the ones who said no with a reason. A writer who explained why it was not for them has told you something useful and is more likely to be right for the next record than a stranger. The final column is what you will read first when you start the next campaign, so write it as a note to yourself rather than as data.
What it cost
Everything you spent on the release, including the things that do not feel like promotion. Fill it in as you spend, not at the end.
Date | What | Amount | What it produced | Would you do it again? Example rows: 3 Feb | mastering | [amount] | the record | yes 20 Feb | artwork | [amount] | the thing people shared most | yes 1 Mar | submission platform campaign | [amount] | 6 reviews, 2 playlist adds | maybe, at half the offers
The last two columns are the reason this exists. Without them you have a list of expenses; with them you have a budget for the next record that is based on what actually returned something. Include your own time if you can bear to, at least roughly, because a free channel that took you three weekends is not free.
Quote sheet
The lines from your coverage that you can use again. Built as coverage arrives, so it is ready when you need it.
"[The quote, exactly as written, no words changed]" [Outlet], [date] [link] Three to six of these, in the order you would use them. Longest and best first.
Never edit a quote to make it better, and never join two half sentences with dots to make one strong one. People check, and being caught doing it is far more expensive than a weaker quote. Put the best two on your own site, use one in the next pitch email, and keep the rest. These are also what a station or a venue asks for when they want to know who else has backed you.
The one-page summary
Written a month after release, for yourself. Twenty minutes, once, and it is what you will read before you start the next one.
[ALBUM TITLE], out [date] What happened: [Three or four sentences. Coverage, radio, the numbers against your last release.] What worked: [The two or three things that clearly did something. Name them.] What did nothing: [Be specific and be honest. The channel that took the most time and returned least goes here.] What I would do differently: [Three things, concrete enough to act on. Not "start earlier", but "send the album on 12 January for a 24 April release".] People to write to again: [Names.]
Write it a month after release rather than the week of, when you are either elated or flat and neither is a good state for judgement. The third section is the one people skip and it is the most useful. If you cannot name anything that did nothing, you have not looked hard enough, because every campaign has a channel that felt productive and produced nothing.
Sharing it with somebody else
If a manager, a label, a bandmate or somebody funding the release wants to know how it went, this is the shape. Facts first, no adjectives.
[ALBUM TITLE], [release date], report to [date] Coverage: [number] pieces. [Name the three most relevant, with links.] Radio: [number] plays we can confirm across [number] stations. [Name any show worth naming.] Streams: [number] in the first four weeks, against [number] for [previous release] at the same point. Saves and followers: [numbers]. Spend: [total], against [what it produced]. What we would change next time: [Three lines.]
Give the comparison against your own previous release rather than a raw number, because a raw number means nothing to anybody, including you. Say what you would change; a report with no learning in it reads as defensive even when it is not. Do not estimate audience reach figures for outlets. If you want to say how big a station's audience is, RAJAR publishes UK radio listening figures and that is the source to cite rather than a number you assembled.
Frequently asked questions
Is any of this worth the time when the numbers are small?
More so, not less. When a release does a few thousand streams, the difference between the channel that produced eight hundred of them and the one that produced none is easy to see and easy to act on. At larger numbers everything blurs together. The records are cheapest to keep and most useful to read exactly when you are still working out what works for you.
How do I find radio plays nobody told me about?
Check station playlist and recently played pages yourself, weekly, for the stations you approached. Many publish what they have aired. Set a search alert for your artist name and track title. Ask your listeners, who hear things you do not. Plays happening without a reply is normal rather than unusual, which is why waiting to be told leaves most of your results invisible.
What should I compare my numbers against?
Your own last release at the same point in its life. Not another artist, not a general figure from an article, and not what you hoped for. If this is your first record, the comparison comes later and the job now is simply to write the numbers down so that next time there is something to compare against.
How do I know a piece of coverage was worth anything?
Look at what happened in the three days after it appeared, in your weekly numbers. Sometimes nothing does, and that is worth knowing about that outlet. The other measure is whether the piece gave you something you can use again: a quote, a photograph, a writer who now knows your name. Coverage that produced no traffic and no usable line was still coverage, but it should not change your plan.
When should I write the summary?
About a month after release. Sooner and you are writing from the mood of release week, which is unreliable in both directions. Much later and you have forgotten the detail that made the difference. A month out you can see whether anything sustained, which is the question that actually matters, and you are far enough from it to be honest about what did nothing.
From the field
Proof points
- Optimal pitch lead time for an album: 10 to 12 weeks before release for long-lead press, 6 to 8 for radio (Liberty campaign cadence)
- Named contact reply rate vs generic inbox: 5x higher (Liberty internal data)
- Best UK send window: Tuesday and Wednesday 09:00 to 10:00 UK (Across 60+ campaigns)
- Album of the Day windows: Long lead (4 to 6 weeks) for BBC 6 Music style features, plays often happen with no reply (WARM monitoring)
What actually happened
Brii Elliss, WFUV: Pre-release album push, 1,790 sends, WFUV reply within 30 minutes, 39 plays before street date (2025)
Album campaigns split into two jobs. The first is finding the playable line, the one moment a producer can use on air without a setup. The second is the longer feature angle for press. I keep these on separate pitches. Mixing them turns the email into a press kit dump, which is the fastest way to be ignored by both audiences.
Chris Schofield, Radio plugger, Liberty Music PR
Related resources
Further reading
- TAP Blog — In-depth guides, comparisons and advice for independent artists running their own promotion.
- UK Music — The voice of the UK music industry, representing labels, publishers, and collecting societies.
- Music Week — Industry news, charts, and analysis for music professionals.
- The Music Network — Global music business intelligence and networking.
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