Pre-Save on Spotify & Apple Music

With download shops or physical products, it’ s already standard practice to make the release available for pre-order, for the sole reason that you can collect sales for the important first chart week. But how is this supposed to work with streaming services, where you don’t own the music and therefore can’t pre-order it? This works via so-called Pre-Saves, which are possible at Spotify and Apple Music. In this blog we explain how they work and what advantages they bring.

Set up Pre-Save on Spotify

In a nutshell: With Pre-Save you give your listeners the opportunity to save an upcoming release before its release, so that it will appear directly in the fan’s library on the release day. So instead of getting fans to listen to the new release and save it in their library on the day of release, you have a longer lead time thanks to Pre-Save.

As with pre-sales via iTunes, Amazon etc., we recommend that you allow sufficient lead time for Spotify Pre-Saves. There is no point in setting up a pre-save campaign two days before the song is released. The campaign can run for two or even more weeks so that you can really collect a lot of Pre-Saves.

To set up a Spotify Pre-Save campaign via iGroove, all you need is an upcoming release that has already been delivered to Spotify. Pre-Save is available for singles, EP’s and albums.

The best way to do this is to choose the free service “Spotify Pre-Save” and as soon as the URI is available, we will put it into your link site, which you can share with your fans. Please note that it can take up to two days from the time the release is delivered to Spotify until we can add the URI to your link site. So please take this short waiting time into account when planning your campaign.

Promote your Pre-Save campaign

The main reason for a pre-save campaign is, of course, that you can promote a release before it’s available on the streaming services, not just as a pre-announcement, but with a clear call to action. So once you have your pre-save link, share it through your channels from social media to newsletter.

What are my advantages with a Pre-Save campaign?

The algorithms of streaming services pay close attention to how often a song is saved. So if you can already generate many saves before the release thanks to a pre-save campaign, the algorithms will not miss this.

Many pre-saves increase the chance of being included by Spotify in the algorithm playlists. With a bit of luck it even has an influence on whether your release will be included in one of the official Spotify playlists.

As described, the algorithms are not only interested in how many streams you have, but also whether the listeners became active and saved your song or added it to one of their playlists. With Pre-Save you can get your fans to save your song in their library before release.

Last but not least you have of course much more streams on the first day than if you can only promote the song from the release date, which is a sign of success.

Pre-Add on Apple Music

As mentioned, this pre-save option is also available on Apple Music, where it is called Pre-Add.

While Pre-Save in Spotify is not running via the Spotify app but via third party providers, Pre-Add works in the app of Apple Music itself. Under the menu item “Soon available” you can search for the desired album and then click the “Add” button. The upcoming release is also already displayed in the artist profile. As soon as the release is available, it will be added to the user’s library.

This currently only works for releases with more than one song, a pre-order date and at least one instant gratification.

Do you have any questions about Spotify Pre-Save?

Then contact our support at [email protected] or write us in the chat.