Marketing doesn’t begin on release day. Discover how presave campaigns can help you build momentum for your upcoming tracks and albums, and maximize reach once your new music drops.
What is a presave?
A presave is the streaming equivalent of a preorder. Unlike CDs and vinyl, digital music doesn’t need to be physically delivered. But music on streaming services does still have release dates.
A presave lets fans place a “virtual order” on an upcoming release. It’s then added to their streaming libraries the moment it goes live.
For artists, presaves are quickly becoming an essential marketing tool. Finding success on services like Spotify and Apple Music is all about increasing streaming numbers and engagement. Presaves do just that, by helping to build momentum around new music before it’s even out.
With Linkfire, you have the ability to create a prerelease link, which combines multiple presaves into one shareable link.
How does presave work?
Presaves can be used with most major streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Deezer. And while they each look and work slightly differently, these different presaves function in the same way.
To begin, you’ll need to create a presave link. Not all streaming services offer presave as a native feature in their artist dashboards. That means you’ll need to create them through a smart link platform like Linkfire. Or if you’re signed to a label or distributor, presave links may be part of your deal.
When you have your link, it’s ready to include in your promotions across the web. When fans click the link, they’ll be asked to authorize the presave. This authorization involves a number of permissions, which let streaming services take action on their behalf.
Once the presave is authorized, the fan’s job is done. When release day comes around, the track or album will be added to their library. As for the presave link, it will automatically convert to a standard smart link (such as Linkfire’s release link).
Common pre-save actions in streaming services
Add track/album to library
You want to be in your fans’ music collections. Whether they’re scrolling through to find a specific song, or hitting shuffle, the music they want to hear again and again is in their libraries.
Presaves make it easier to secure your spot, weeks or even months before your music actually drops. By capitalizing on fans’ first wave of attention, you ensure they don’t forget to click that save button on release day.
Follow artist
Why is increasing your follower count important? Well, streaming services automatically promote your new releases by adding it to your followers’ personalized playlists, such as Spotify’s Your Release Radar playlist.
Large follower counts also show streaming services that you’re worth paying attention to. The higher the count, the more likely you are to be recommended and playlisted to a wider audience outside of your followers. That’s why the number of followers often form the basis of labels and music marketers’ campaign KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
All your presaves in one link
Get your fans hyped with Linkfire prerelease links.
How does Spotify presave work?
When fans select a presave service from a Linkfire prerelease link, they’re taken to a permissions page (as shown in the image below). Here they can review the actions that their chosen service can take on their behalf.
If they’ve chosen Spotify, those actions include save track/album to library, or follow artist. They also authorize the collection of some account data, including their email address.
Actions included with Spotify presave:
- Save track to Your Library
- Save album to Your Library
- Follow artist
- View account data
How does Apple Music preadd work?
While it’s termed preadd, this Apple Music integration with Linkfire works in the same way as Spotify presave. It lets fans authorize the adding of a song or album to their library.
However, unlike Spotify pre-save, preadd does not include the option for fans to automatically start following an artist.
Actions included with Apple Music preadd:
- Add song to Library
- Add album to Library
How does Amazon Music presave work?
Amazon Music presave works in a similar way to Spotify presave where fans are taken to a permissions page (after visiting a Linkfire prerelease link). Here they can review the actions that their chosen service can take on their behalf.
Actions included with Amazon Music presave:
- Add song to Library
- Add album to Library
If fans presave a song or album, they will also automatically start following the artist, and if permission has been provided, they will also be signed up to artist newsletters.
How does YouTube Music presave work?
The YouTube Music presave function streamlines the way fans can find out about an artist's forthcoming album before it officially drops on YouTube Music. When fans land on your prerelease page, they'll be prompted to green-light the presave by agreeing to certain permissions. This enables YouTube Music to automatically add the new album to the fan's library upon its release, while also allowing the artist's team to gather data on their fanbase.
Actions included with YouTube Music presave:
- Add album to Library
- Collect email addresses
How does Deezer presave work?
For Deezer users, their library is called Favorites. Deezer presave through a Linkfire prerelease link can add tracks or albums to Favorites. Additionally, fans can add artists to Favorites, which is the equivalent of ‘follow’ on Spotify.
Actions included with Deezer presave:
- Add track to Favorites
- Add album to Favorites
- Add artist to Favorites
- View account data
How does TIDAL presave work?
TIDAL, known for its high-quality audio and artist-first approach, aligns perfectly with Linkfire's aim to empower creators. When you set up a prerelease link on Linkfire, you can activate the TIDAL presave, enabling your fans to get a head start on your upcoming album even before it's officially out on TIDAL.
For marketers, this means you can actually drive more revenue per stream while offering an unparalleled listening experience.
Actions included with TIDAL presave:
- Add album to Library
- Add track to Library
- Collect email addresses
Why presave campaigns are worth your time
Here are just some of the reasons presaves are becoming essential features in any music marketing mix.
Build meaningful hype
Music promotion doesn’t start on release day—it begins long before that. Because unless you’re already a household name, a surprise drop isn’t going to work.
There are tried and true ways of building excitement for upcoming releases, such as teaser tracks, giveaways, music videos, and more. And presaves are the latest tool in the marketers’ toolkit.
They’re hugely useful because they marry awareness with real action. You can remind someone a hundred times that your track is out next week, but it doesn’t mean they’ll listen to it. With presaves, fans are taking that extra step, committing to adding your music to their collection.
Drive streams
Presaves can grow your streaming numbers in several ways.
First up, from all those fans who presaved your music. When release day comes, they don’t have to hunt around for your record—it’s right there in their library. There’s no risk of them forgetting that it’s out.
Secondly, presaves help catch the attention of streaming services, increasing your chances of being playlisted. In choosing tracks to serve to a wider audience, playlists (both algorithmic and human-curated) pick music that’s already performing. It makes sense—there’s no point playlisting a song which no one is listening to in the first place.
So if your presave generates you lots of saves and streams on release day, it can land you on playlists like Spotify’s Discover Weekly, which in turn can massively boost your profile.
Gather insights
Like other types of smart links, presave links can give you a wealth of data insights into your audience. You can use stats to judge the performance of promotions and discover how to optimize them going forward.
Presave data vary between services but is likely to include figures on the number of visits and click-throughs. Additionally, some services will offer analytics on visitors’ locations, devices, and browsers.
Retarget audiences
If you’re running campaigns around retargeting, it might be possible to create custom audiences with presave data. It all depends on whether the service you used to create presave links integrates with ad platforms like Facebook or Google Ads. If it does, you may be able to create custom parameters to include in your remarketing data.
At Linkfire for instance, custom parameters include actions triggered when visitors interact with your Linkfire prerelease link.
Invite fans to join your mailing list
When fans authorize presaves with some services (currently these include Spotify pre-save, Amazon Music pre-save, and Deezer presave), they also grant permission for being notified about the release by email. A good practice is to use that chance for inviting fans to join your mailing list. Email marketing has a higher conversion rate than social, making it a great way to promote new releases, tours, merch, and more.
Appealing incentives such as free merch or a fun competition usually increases newsletter sign-up rates.
How to make a prerelease link in Linkfire
Our prerelease link brings together numerous presave services into one smart link. Fans can then choose their preferred service from our current presave integrations—Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Deezer.
Making a prerelease in Linkfire is just as easy as our other links. You can customize the landing pages’ artwork and text, and choose which presave services you want to activate. And don’t worry if you don’t have your release UPC code or URL yet—this can be added closer to the time of release.
To learn more, check out our Help Center article Creating prerelease links.
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