How to Simulate a Waterfall Release with an Instant "Grat Track" through Feature.fm

If you are releasing an album or multiple singles in a progressive fashion, e.g. a Waterfall Release, you may consider dropping an Instant Gratification Track. 

“Grat Tracks'' are songs that are made available during the pre-order period for people to buy and download individually. They can be individually purchased as a one-off, or if a fan pre-orders an EP or album, the Grat Track will be automatically downloaded into their library once it is available. 

While Feature.fm doesn’t currently support traditional Waterfalls or IG tracks, we do have a workaround method that you could use for a comparable solution - one that would effectively accomplish multiple steps: collecting pre-saves, promoting a released track, all while gaining new Spotify followers, email addresses, and song streams! 

There are 3 primary steps to this IG Track workaround within the Feature.fm platform, plus 1 additional step that is optional.

Step 1: Setting up the Pre-Save

Step 2: Creating an Action Page (‘Save’ action) for the IG track

Step 3: Linking them together

Step 4 (Optional):  Deep Link your IG track into a playlist

 

Step 1: Setting up the Pre-Save

Create a Pre-Save link for the EP, album, or next track to be released. Be sure to take advantage of all the various customization options available like editing the messaging of the landing page, uploading an album image, embedding a Preview from one of the supported Preview Sources, and activating the Local Release feature for time zone-specific drops. 

IGTrackFAQimg1.png

 

Step 2: Creating an Action Page (‘Save’ action) for the IG track

Next create an Action Page for the IG track. Select “Save” as the Action Type and again, customize the landing page with personalized messaging, imagery, a Song Preview, and other “Post-Action Settings.” Add the URL for each streaming platform one by one by creating a new Action button for each as shown below. 

IGTrackFAQimg2.png

 

Step 3: Linking them together 

Save your Action Page and then grab the URL for this page by clicking the blue “Get Link” button from your Feature.fm dashboard. Next head back into edit your Pre-Save link again, and paste the Action Page URL that you just copied, into each “Post Pre-Save Destination” field. Save your changes!

IGTrackFAQimg3.png

 

Now, when your fans successfully pre-save the album, they will be automatically redirected to this Action Page and prompted to save the IG track to their library. 

 

Step 4: Deep Link your IG track into a playlist (Optional)

If you want to get real fancy with this strategy, you could include a final step 4 in the process which is setting up a Music Smart Link for the IG track that deep links into a Spotify playlist. To learn how to Deep Link a playlist-specific track, check out this article here. 

Once you’ve got the Smart Link setup, grab the URL for this landing page and head back into your Action Page. Go into “Edit” the settings of your Spotify button, tick the box “Include a post action destination URL or unlock” then paste the Smart Link URL into the field that appears (see image below).

IGTrackFAQimg4.png

Having pre-saved your album and saved the IG track, your fans on Spotify will now automatically redirect into the Spotify app to listen to the track within the container of a playlist. This means that if they stream the song and continue listening to Spotify, the next sequence of songs that play will be dictated by your playlist rather than randomly curated by Spotify. 

Helloooo Streams!!

 

The flow of the above sequence looks like this:

IGTrackFAQimg5.png