Hey y’all!
Let’s talk about every AMP user’s favorite tool, Featured Tracks! Featured Tracks can give your new songs a boost and help surface your music in new corners of Pandora. It is a completely free tool and one that should definitely be in your arsenal when promoting your music.
Not super familiar with Featured Tracks? Well, let's review it!
WHAT ARE FEATURED TRACKS?
Featured Tracks receive heightened spins for up to eight weeks, during which time listeners can give their feedback on the track by thumbing up or down. The result — the track is played to the right listeners on stations where it fits best for them.
IMPACT OF FEATURED TRACKS
The use of Featured Tracks is the simplest, easiest way to boost new music on Pandora. When you select a track to be Featured, we introduce it to new listeners on more stations than it would typically reach. As soon as a track is Featured, it kicks off a period of accelerated testing and evaluation during which your track will receive a boost in spins across numerous stations where it is a good musical fit.
FEATURED TRACKS GUIDELINES
To make sure you get all you can from the Featured Tracks experience, follow these eligibility guidelines and best practices:
WHAT MAKES A TRACK ELIGIBLE TO BE FEATURED?
It hasn’t been Featured before
It was first spun on Pandora within the last 365 days
The track is receiving at least 10 spins per week on radio
WHEN SHOULD A TRACK BE FEATURED?
At the release of a new single
At the release of a new music video
Upon radio impact for a new single
Marketable events
Notable placement in a film, show, or commercial
Tour kickoff
Note: When Featuring a track that is brand new to Pandora, we recommend letting the track spin organically for 3-4 weeks before beginning the Feature period. This helps the track establish a foundation upon which the Featured Track can build.
USING THE SELF-SERVICE TOOL
You can submit a Featured Track using the self-serve submission form found within AMP.
TO CREATE A FEATURED TRACK:
Log into AMP and click the blue plus (+) sign in the top right corner of your screen
Click “Featured Track” in the drop down menu
Choose track to Feature:
Begin typing the name of the track you wish to Feature, and select it when the title appears in the pop-up list
Note: If the track you’re searching for appears greyed out in the pop-up list, it is not eligible to be Featured. See Featured Track Guidelines above.
Choose dates for your Featured Track:
The start date you choose can be no earlier than today
The end date will be eight weeks after the start date by default — but you can set an earlier end date, too
The Featured Track will remain active for the set amount of time unless one of the following happens:
You submit another track to be Featured; this will automatically stop Featuring the original track (once the new track completes processing)
Note: you cannot re-Feature the original track once it has already run its course as a Featured Track
The Featured Track has received significantly negative feedback from listeners, and both the Featured Thumb Ratio and the Total Thumb Ratio have dipped below 20% (see Campaign results within AMP)
Complete Campaign Information
Creating a Featured Track creates a Campaign
Name your Campaign in the Title field provided — if you do not name your campaign, a name will be automatically generated for you
To publish your Campaign, click “Post Campaign”
Alternately, click “Save as Draft” to return to your campaign later for further editing and publishing
To add more elements to your campaign, including Artist Audio Messages, click the blue plus sign (+) to the right of the header (at the top of your screen).
REPORTING
Pandora is able to collect a number of performance metrics for Featured Tracks. You can see these in real time in the Feed under the Activity tab in AMP.
Performance metrics for all campaigns can be viewed under the Campaigns tab. Sort Campaigns by status (All, Live, Draft, Complete) using the menu on the right. Campaigns will be listed in the center panel, sorted by when they were last edited. Clicking on any Campaign will open detailed performance metrics for the Campaign, broken out by campaign element.
You’ll be able to see the following statistics for your Featured Track:
Start Date
End Date
Total Listeners who have heard your Featured Track
Featured Spins (spins generated from a song being Featured that would not have occurred naturally)
Total Spins (total number of times your Featured Track spun during the Feature period)
Featured Thumb Ratio (percentage of total Thumbs given on Featured Spins that were Thumbs Up)
Total Thumb Ratio (percentage of total Thumbs given on all spins during the Feature period that were Thumbs Up)
TIPS
When you’ve Featured a song, we encourage you to start an Artist Audio Message that is set to play before the song that tells your listeners to Thumb Up the track. This can help get more feedback for your song so Pandora learns how to better play your song to listeners on more stations. This data will also be helpful for Pandora to know which listeners may want to hear this song after the Featured Track campaign has wrapped up.
Please note that we do not guarantee any outcome from using the AMP tools, such as Featured Tracks, to promote your music on Pandora.
That’s a lot of info! Have you had success running a Featured Track campaign? Have any additional tips? Let us know!
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