Hello! Thank you for choosing to monetize your SoundCloud profiles with us at Label Engine.
Please read through this guide carefully to get a better understanding of the processes involved, how we can help, and what we will need from you.
What is SoundCloud Monetization?
Label Engine is an On SoundCloud premier partner, which allows us collect both ad-generated revenue and revenue from On SoundCloud subscription fees to be paid out to our labels.
When you enable your content for monetization, you are allowing short audio and video advertisements to be run at the start or end of a play. Increased play numbers, and increased ad plays, generate revenue for your label and artists.
As our premium distribution client, the revenue you earn will appear in your regular royalty statements and can be matched with your tracks/releases the same way revenue from all other digital store partners is matched.
Why Monetize with Label Engine?
- If you’ve never monetized your SoundCloud before, doing so could allow you to tap into extra revenue.
- If you are currently collecting revenue with a different rightsholder, monetizing with Label Engine will streamline the process by integrating collections into your existing Label Engine account.
To Enable a Track for Monetization:
- You must confirm you own the rights to the master in the US and provide SoundCloud with the ISRC for the track.
- Music Reports Inc. (MRI) reviews and confirms publishing clearance. For tracks to be identified by MRI you must provide: title, artist, label, and ISRC. Label Engine can guide you through this entire process.
- Please ensure that you are authorized to monetize the content on your desired accounts. See the table below if you are not sure.
- Any content you do not own full rights to may fall into conflict with other rights holders, and you will not be able to monetize these.
- If you have distributed content through Label Engine, you do not need to worry about possible conflicts. All content distributed through Label Engine can be monetized.
How to Monetize your SoundCloud Content
We can monetize all tracks that you own rights to on your label profiles and/or artist profiles. Preparing your content for monetization consists of two parts:
- whitelisting your profile(s), and then submitting these to be enabled by SoundCloud for monetization
- submitting your catalog to SoundCloud with required track information, which SoundCloud then verifies with publishers.
Please confirm that you wish to participate so we can whitelist your profile (and associated artists). Whitelisting your profiles will ensure that you can upload content without being blocked.
- To opt-in, contact us with links to the accounts you wish to monetize.
- Profiles will be submitted to SoundCloud for monetization, after which we will provide you with a spreadsheet in .csv format. Please fill out relevant track information and return to us.
Required fields:
-
- “Composer/Writer” – artist’s real name(s)
- “ISRC” – ISRC can be located for each track in your Label Engine account
- “Territory Controlled” – indicate “WW” or “Worldwide”
- “Publisher Contact” – include at least one email address that Soundcloud and Music Reports Inc. (MRI) can get in contact with in order to clear the publishing data more quickly
- Everything else is optional, but definitely helps to speed up the clearance process. Please send back to Label Engine in .csv format once completed.
- To view and edit your spreadsheet, open the .csv file in Microsoft Excel from the File menu. If you aren’t able to open the file in Excel or similar software, we’ve found that Google Sheets works just as well.
- To save your spreadsheet in .csv from Google Sheets, go to File > Download As > Comma-Separated Values (.csv)
- To save your spreadsheet in .csv from Microsoft Excel, go to File > Save As > Windows Comma Separated (.csv)
- Once the publishing information has been verified, Label Engine will notify you that the track can be monetized on the platform.
- You will then be able to either edit the track, enter the ISRC as available in your account, select ‘monetize’ and save the track, or ask Label Engine to have SoundCloud monetize the track.
- Pre-clearance can take a minimum of 48 hours or longer based on how complete the publishing information is.
- Self published tracks can take significantly longer to clear.
For New Tracks – Verifying Territories and Rightsholders
- Upload your content through the new upload flow and select the Monetization tab. If you do not see this tab, please notify us.
- Select the Monetization bubble.
- ** If your profile has previously been monetized by a different rightsholder, or if it will be monetized by multiple rightsholders, you will encounter a different flow in which you must select the proper rightsholder for each territory. In such cases, you will see a screen like the one below:
- Click on the drop-down menu and select “Label Engine”. You will need to do this for each territory or your track will not monetize properly.
- If you’ve correctly selected Label Engine for each of the territories, your screen should look like the one below. Your track will start to monetize and your royalties will reflect in your Label Engine account in much the same way as other stores.
For New Tracks – Verifying Publishing Information
- When uploading a new track, publishing information must be verified before the track can go live and be monetized in the US. If you have publishing information for a track, please include it in the publishing field upon upload to speed up the publishing verification process.
- We recommend uploading new tracks as private during the clearance process. Once they are cleared for monetization Label Engine will notify you, and you will then be able to edit the track and make it public.
- You may also upload the track and enter in necessary publishing information without selecting the Monetization option, so that the track is playable before the publishing information is cleared. This however presents a disadvantage to you; tracks generally receive most of their plays closer to the time of upload. Choosing to make a track public before it can be monetized will make a significant difference in your potential revenue.
- After you have selected the “Monetization” options for each of your tracks, you can always check the Tracks tab in your SoundCloud profile to verify that they they are in fact monetizing. To do this:
- Select the drop-down menu from your username in the top-right corner of your SoundCloud screen. Select Tracks. Alternatively, you can go to https://soundcloud.com/you/tracks to reach the same screen.
- If your tracks are monetizing, you should see blue icons as below.
- If your tracks are not monetizing, the blue icons will not be visible, and your screen will look like the one below. Please contact us if you believe your tracks are not monetizing properly.
Additional Notes
- If desired, ads can be scheduled to run only for a certain date range. You can also turn off SoundCloud monetization for any track at any time.
- If you are a label, SoundCloud suggests that you only upload the track on one profile, and then repost to other affiliated profiles from your initial label or artist page; this way all the plays will be directed to the initial page.
- If your artists control their own artist pages, we suggest monetizing only your label profile unless you have authorization from your artists to monetize tracks they’ve posted on their own profiles.
- Every account is individually monetized; your artists can also monetize the music they have released with your label through Label Engine.
- Whitelisting of any accounts you work with for PR and promotion is available, we can either whitelist the full account or do this on a track by track basis.
- Label Engine also offers piracy protection as per our contract agreement with our premium clients. If you label opts in, Label Engine enters your tracks into SoundCloud’s content ID system so that any unauthorized upload of your content will be taken down immediately by SoundCloud. If this is something your label would be interested in, please contact Label Engine to set this up.
If you have any questions, or would like a walk-through on the process, please contact us at support@label-engine.com.
The Label Engine Support Team