Tags: smart links
We’ve written about a handful of music smart linking services over the past couple of years. It’s a crowded marketplace with the likes of Linkfire, Feature·fm, ToneDen or stge·io all competing to bring the most value for the most competitive pricing to artists and their teams. Bristol-based Amplify·link is one of them and aims to stand out with a very extensive set of features – plus outstanding artist branding capabilities.
Amplify·link – which has recently launched an update of its Beta platform – says that right now, their platform is being used by 80,000 artists and creators, including Darkoo and Joey Bada$$, to grow their profile and engage fans.
CEO and founder Sam Bates told Music Ally how he and his business partner started working on the platform in 2016 having founded a music and brand partnership agency together – but only really started focusing on it as their main business in 2019. In April this year, Amplify·link 2.0 was launched including a host of valuable new features including donation and merchandising options as well as newsletter signups that can be integrated across all links.
Customisation is key
One ofAmplify·link’s key selling points is its level of customisability compared to its competitors. Artists and their teams can insert imagery and use intelligent colour suggestion to make sure their entire page looks coherent and professional. Users can also choose between a multitude of different fonts that can be used across their links, making them even more customisable.
Bates says: “Where we focus a lot of our attention is the capabilities for our artists to brand themselves. We have very, very customisable templates and we have more to come. Because music is such a visual medium we wanted it to be an extension of the brand of the artist. Artists being creatives often want to see their branding reflected across everything they do online. What you can do with Amplify·link doesn’t really look like anything out there at the moment.”
Usual and unusual smart link features
Besides its focus on customisation, the platform integrates a variety of more common smart link features as well as some rarer ones. You’ll be able to add a prominent Spotify follow button to each link, promoting audience growth across the DSP. It covers pre-saves across all available pre-save platforms – i.e. Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer – as well as bio links that combine an artist’s various promotional efforts on one link.
Besides that, it covers one of the widest remarketing pixel integrations we’ve seen, allowing teams to install pixels from Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok. It means artists can capture fans visiting their links – and remarket to them – on all of these platforms, something only matched by the market leader, Linkfire.
Amplify·link’s monetisation features are even more interesting. Users can integrate merchandise imagery and link out to a shop – plus, you can add a donate button that links to an artist’s Patreon. This latter feature is one that Music Ally hasn’t seen on any other smart linking service before, and is a very timely feature that acknowledges the importance of direct fan funding for artists.
Livestreaming, analytics and playlisting
Another type of link that can now be created using Amplify·link is multi-platform livestreaming links: artists can schedule livestreams, complete with countdowns, across various platforms. It means that fans can decide where to tune in from, helping to drum up a bigger audience for artist livestreams. A feature like this, which we have only seen on ToneDen before, has become a valuable option since the start of the pandemic.
The company is also working hard to implement more advanced analytics and is starting to integrate streaming attribution information – with Boomplay being the first partner, and more to come in the pipeline.
Another area of innovation is the company’s leap into editorial and playlisting, offering an additional promotional avenue for artists. AmplifyYou is the brand’s new editorial site featuring articles, knowledge and guides relating to the music industry. Recent content topics include innovative fan engagement strategies from industry experts, NFTs in the music industry and the collision of music and gaming. Amplify·link’s newsletter has a reach of 30,000 subscribers and users on the Pro tier will be eligible for inclusion in this newsletter – plus within the playlists that the company is currently building out.
Pricing and comparisons
As part of the update launch, Amplify·link has introduced new pricing tiers. Users can choose to sign up for a free account – or pay $10, $20 or $40 per month, with each tier giving access to additional features. Bates is excited by what’s to follow: “There’s loads to come. The business tier is now really competitive with anyone out there in terms of the amount of artist profiles and analytics as a lot of platforms limit analytics by number of clicks or streams.” The company is aiming for a funding round with Bates stressing their focus on the artist-fan connection: “what we want to build is help artists own the fan relationship more. We want to really innovate in this area, and that is at the core about where we want to go.”
Overall, Amplify.link is a smart link provider that offers one of the most extensive suite of features, and artists who use it will enjoy the opportunities it provides. There are many services in this very busy space, and each of the rivals offer a slightly different mix of features – like marketing features such as contests and social unlocks (see Linkfire and ToneDen) or advertising capabilities (see Feature.fm and Found.ee) – so we recommend you make sure you understand your needs and try out platforms for real to see what suits you.
If you want to test out how Amplify·link works in practice, you can get a free 14-day trial without needing to connect a credit card.
Source: Music:)ally
