Artists: If a marketing, digital, or PR agency approaches you, ask for a client reference and a success story. Get a specific artist they've worked with and what was accomplished. If they can't or won't provide one, end the conversation.
“this is new” nope! it’s literally what the music industry was doing before the current “make sure you have 100k followers and 10 million streams before we look your way” tactic labels transitioned to.