Attaching a Digital Album to a Product in Shopify
Attaching digital albums to your Shopify products is easy!
When creating a digital release using the Single Music dashboard, you’ll be prompted with three options to publish:
You can create a new product in Shopify for your digital album, using Single's product template, by selecting "Publish with Audio Player" or "Publish without Audio Player." However, you can also choose to attach the digital album to any product in your Shopify store (CD, vinyl, merch, a digital album you made using your template, livestream ticket, etc.) by selecting “Attach to Existing Products." This is a great way to create bundles as well.
In this article, we'll focus on the "Attach to Existing Products" option, but if you want a more thorough comparison between each publishing option, you can find it HERE.
"What if I have already created my digital album?"
In the case that you have previously created your digital album and now want to attach it to a product, you can do so simply by going to the digital album page and clicking the "Attach" button in the upper right corner.
Note: If you are attaching the digital album to products in order to create bundles, just be sure to follow Billboard's rules while doing so, if you want your music to report to them!
The Attachment Queue
After clicking "Attach to Existing Products," you will be brought to the Attachment Queue page. Here you will see a search bar which you can use to find products in your Shopify store. Search for and click on a product you want to attach the digital album to in order to add it to the queue.
Attachment and Reporting Type
The Attachment and Reporting Type should be the format of the product you are selecting. In the example below, we have selected a product called "CD" and subsequently selected "CD" as the Attachment Type and "Physical" as the Reporting Type, since it is a physical CD product. If you were using your own product template for the digital album product in Shopify and wanted to attach the digital album to it in Single, you would select "Digital" as the Attachment Type and "Digital" as the Reporting Type, etc.
The UPC for the product you are attaching to will be automatically pulled in based on what is entered into the SKU field within Shopify. If it does not pull in, you will need to manually enter it.
Note: Each chart has its own unique rules. For instance, Aria & OCC both allow for bundles to report. If you are attaching to a bundle containing merch (t-shirts, posters, collectibles, etc.) you must select "Merch" as the attachment type and "Digital (Aria & OCC only)" as the reporting type.
Learn more about reporting to the charts.
❗️It is important to note that if you already have a physical product or variant set up for reporting under the Physical Reporting section of the app, you will not be able to find that product in the search bar of the Attachment Queue page.❗️
This is to prevent reporting from being setup twice, resulting in products double reporting. If you would like to deliver the digital album to purchasers of a physical product AND report those sales, instead of just reporting them (as is the case when it is tagged in the Physical Reporting section), you can simply find and delete the product under the Physical Reporting section. After doing so, you will then have the ability to attach a digital album to it and set it back up for reporting, as detailed above.
Note: If you are attaching to Vinyl, Tapes, or CD's you must select "Physical" as the reporting type (unless reporting to OCC).
Managed Fulfillment
This toggle should ONLY be on if the product is a digital album. Because there is no physical product component, this tells our system to mark the Shopify order as fulfilled when Single delivers the digital album. For more info on Managed Fulfillment, check out our dedicated support article HERE.
Deliver To Existing Orders
Single has the ability to associate past Shopify purchases with a digital album. If orders occurred before you installed Single - no problem. You can toggle this on and the digital album will be delivered to all past purchasers of that product. This toggle will not be available if the product does not have any previous sales/orders.
Note: If you are attaching a digital album to a product and it is a preorder, be sure to leave "Deliver to Existing Orders" on in order to ensure it reports properly.
After you have selected all of the products you want to attach the digital album too and have set the Attachment and Reporting Types, click "Create Attachments."
Congratulations, you’ve successfully attached a digital album to your product(s)!
You’ll now see new sections, detailing your sales and reporting counts, on the View Release page of your digital album!
You can view these analytics at any time by clicking on the release on your “Manage Digital Releases” page.