Spotify Advertising: Let Your Marketing Message Be Heard

Nowadays, advertisers and marketers need to stay up to date with the latest developments in the industry. When you think about advertising online, the first platforms to come to your mind are most likely to be Facebook, Google, Bing, YouTube, and other advertising giants.

Still, there are new advertising platforms emerging all the time, and you need to keep up with all the trends, or you risk missing out on some serious opportunities to reach new customers. Which leads us to Spotify advertising.

People all over the world listen to Spotify. But music is not the only thing they listen to. With Spotify advertising, you have the opportunity to get your message heard by millions of Spotify users.

What is Spotify?

Spotify is a digital platform that enables its users to stream music, podcasts, and video created by artists from all over the world. It provides you with access to millions of songs and other audio-visual content.

Spotify lets you listen to your favorite music with Browse and Search features, get personalized recommendations using features such as Discover Weekly, Daily Mix, and Release Radar, build your own music collections and radio stations, or check out what your friends listen to.

Spotify can be used on a wide range of devices, including computers, tablets, phones, TVs, speakers, cars, and more, and it’s easy to synchronize your own music across multiple devices using Spotify Connect.

There is a free version that allows you to play music with no charge, while you can upgrade to Spotify Premium to use some of the more advanced features.

If you’re making music, you should check out Spotify for Artists. If you’re a business owner, check out Spotify for Brands.

Why Opt for Spotify Advertising

In recent years, Spotify has recorded steady and significant growth.

In the fall of 2017, they launched Spotify Ad Studio, their self-serve advertising platform. At first, it was available only in the US, but in March 2018, UK and Canada also gained access to Spotify advertising.

As of the third quarter of 2018, Spotify has 87 million subscribers (which is a 40% year-over-year increase) and 191 million active users (28% more than the previous year) across 65 markets.

In addition, Spotify has recently acquired Loudr and expanded its partnership with Hulu.

What does Spotify’s growth mean for your advertising efforts?

1. As it’s still a relatively uncharted advertising territory, Spotify advertising could be a new way of reaching your target audience without having to fight off fierce competition.
2. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the traditional advertising platforms (like Google, Facebook, Bing) as no other platforms allow for audio-only self-serve ads.
3. Audio-only ads are usually easier and cheaper to produce than video ads.  Plus, they allow you to reach your potential customers in situations when visual ads can’t (when driving, for example).

Take advantage of Spotify’s highly engaged audiences

What makes Spotify advertising potentially extremely purposeful is the fact that Spotify really knows its audience. With their 100% logged-in audience spending 2+ hours a day listening to music on multiple platforms, Spotify is able to collect millions of data points every day.

Spotify’s streaming intelligence enables you to target your audiences more precisely. For example, knowing that Millenials stream 68% of the time on mobile, listening to “chill” music for 14% of their streaming time might influence the way you serve them your ads.

Or knowing that moms on Spotify are 28% more likely to listen to music that feels empowering and are 25% more likely to be doing so in the early hours (5-6am), can make it much easier for you to reach them, provided moms are your target audience.

Spotify Advertising Options

Audio ads – These are periodically played to Spotify users between songs. Audio ads can be 15 or 30 seconds long, can’t be skipped, and are played approximately every 15 minutes. They can contain an image and some text.

Display ads – Display ads are shown at the bottom of the music player, leading to your website once a user clicks. Unlike audio ads, display ads can only be shown on desktop and web platforms.
Branded Playlists – Spotify allows brands to create custom playlists with their logo, text and an optional link. Such a playlist needs to contain a minimum of 20 songs, all by different artists.

Another similar option is Sponsored Playlists, which enable brands to sponsor one of Spotify’s top playlists for a week, giving them plenty of branding opportunities within those.

With Sponsored sessions, you can offer the incentive of uninterrupted listening. In exchange for viewing your video ad, the user gets 30 mins of music with no ads.

How to Set Up a Spotify Ad

Step #1 – Sign up for a Spotify Ad Studio account

After clicking on the Sign Up button, you’ll be prompted to either create a new Spotify account or log in with an existing one.

Given that you’ve decided to use Spotify for advertising, it’s highly likely that you already have an account, but still, you might decide to create a new one to use with Ad Studio.

Step #2 – Create an ad

Depending on your advertising objective, choose one of two options given, come up with a name for your ad (which is not your ad title, it’s just an internal name given for easier organization if you’re running multiple ads), and click Next.

Step #3 – Choose your target audience

The basic targeting options include location (target a specific country, state, city or DMA), age, and gender.

This is pretty much what every advertising platform offers, but the next step is what enables you to get the most out of Spotify advertising.

Step #4 – Target based on listening behavior

It all comes down to this – the main advantage of Spotify advertising is that you’re able to target people based on their listening behavior. There are three options to target by – All Music, Genre, and Playlist Category.

This option enables you to be creative with your ad targeting in ways you can’t be using other advertising platforms. Let’s say

This is one area where your targeting can get creative in ways that you can’t in other ad platforms. Does your brand sell kitchenware? Advertise to anyone listening to “Cooking” or “Dinner” playlists. Are you advertising open internship positions at your company, specifically for students? Advertise to anyone listening to “Focus” playlists in the nearest college towns.

Step #5 – Choose platform(s)

Decide on which platforms and devices you want your Spotify ads to show. You can choose among iOs, Android, and/or Desktop.  

Step #6 – Set your budget and schedule

First, choose the start and end date (and time) for your campaign.

And then set the total budget (which is to be evenly distributed throughout the entire duration of your campaign). Please note that the minimum budget for Spotify advertising is $250. So, if you’ve been wondering how much it costs to advertise on Spotify, the answer is – no less than $250.

Step #7 – Set your Display Creative

A Display Creative consists of a Companion Image (640×640 JPEG or PNG files), an Ad Headline, and a Companion Link.

You can preview it on both desktop and mobile, so make sure it looks good.

Step #8 – Set your Audio Creative

Another option that separates Spotify advertising from advertising on traditional platforms is the ability to base your ad around an Audio Creative. The Ad Studio lets you upload your own audio (15-30 seconds in MP3, OGG, or WAV format) or simply write a script and people from Spotify will record the voiceover for you.

If you’re having one of Spotify’s voice actors record the ad for you, you can include notes on the tone you want them to use, choose the preferred demographics (female young adult, for example), and use the pace chart to determine how many words to include in your copy.

You can also choose the background track from Spotify’s list of ready-made ones (that’s if you’re not uploading your own audio).

Step #9 – Place order

Double check everything to make sure you’ve set your ad properly, hit the Place Order button, and your ad is good to go!

Please note that there are certain limitations as to what you can advertise on Spotify. Ads promoting tobacco, drugs, pornography, weapons, or any type of illegal conduct, products, or services are prohibited on Spotify. For more detailed info, check the Spotify for Brands terms and conditions.

Use it right, and Spotify advertising can be another powerful tool in your advertising toolkit. In case you’re looking to use Spotify for music marketing (which makes perfect sense, of course), here are some additional tips for marketing and selling your music online.