Phil B.
Promotion Is A Scam - Terrible Customer Service
I’ve been a BeatStars user for years and was excited to try their Promote advertising platform to push some of my tracks. Unfortunately, the experience has been extremely disappointing. First, the platform charges upfront for campaigns based on your daily budget — but doesn’t spend most of the funds. In my case, I was charged over $170, but only about $27 was actually spent on impressions. The rest? Converted into “Promote credits” without warning or an option for a refund. Most ad platforms (Google, Meta, etc.) only charge for what’s used — not BeatStars. There’s no way to control CPM bids, no performance reporting, and no data on keywords that lead to impressions. It’s a total black box. Even worse, when I contacted support to request a refund for the unused funds, I was met with copy-paste policy responses and told that refunds weren’t possible — even though the service was never delivered. Their support also takes days to get back to you. As a business owner who runs multiple ad accounts across different platforms, this was by far the least transparent and least user-friendly ad experience I’ve had. If you’re considering using BeatStars Promote, be very cautious. You may end up paying for impressions you never get — with no refund and no accountability.
Response from BeatStarsApr 10, 2025
Hi Phil B, Thank you for your detailed and honest feedback, it’s truly appreciated. I’m really sorry to hear that your experience with Promote didn’t meet expectations, especially as a longtime BeatStars user. I want to clarify a few key points to hopefully provide some transparency: When a campaign is created and a budget is set, any unused funds are not lost but are converted into Promote credits that you can apply toward future campaigns. This is outlined in our Promote Terms of Service - https://www.beatstars.com/policies/promote-terms-of-service While we understand this may be different from how other ad platforms work, it ensures your remaining budget is preserved. Please know that we don’t manually control how many impressions a campaign receives. The number of impressions can vary depending on factors like campaign settings, bid amounts, target audience, the time of day, and overall traffic on the site. If you’re not seeing the desired results, you’re always able to pause or stop a campaign and adjust the settings to better suit your goals. We understand the need for more advanced features like bid control and granular performance insights. While these aren’t currently available, we’ve shared this feedback with our product team and it's definitely something we’re exploring as we work to improve the platform. We truly appreciate your investment and your time, and we want Promote to provide value to all creators using it. Thanks for the feedback and support.