When should I start radio promotion for a release?

Most artists and labels launch their radio promotion campaign on or around release day, but you can also start earlier if you want to build momentum before the official release.

Launching in advance gives radio stations time to discover, download and potentially begin supporting the track before release day. This can be particularly valuable if early radio activity starts appearing in a specific market, as those signals may give your label, distributor or marketing team useful data for additional promotion or editorial pitching around the release.

With Syndicast, every track is added to WARM monitoring when the campaign launches. This means that if a monitored radio station plays the track before its official release date, that airplay can already be detected and included in your campaign data.

This makes pre-release radio promotion much more measurable than it used to be. You do not necessarily have to wait until release day to begin building a radio story around the track.

One limitation is Shazam-related activity. That data only becomes relevant once the track has been officially released, so pre-release campaigns will initially rely more heavily on radio downloads, monitored airplay and station activity.

For many releases, a good approach is therefore to begin radio promotion shortly before release day, giving stations time to discover the music while allowing early activity to contribute to the wider launch strategy.