Should Spotify Advertising Be A Part Of Your Marketing Strategy?

There are so many different platforms out there for marketers to advertise on and sometimes it can be hard to decide which platform is best suited to your business or your clients. Spotify is one of those platforms that marketers are still hesitant about adding into their marketing strategy, as Spotify ads are only played to those who do not pay for a subscription.

Spotify is currently one of the most popular streaming platforms, owning 36% of the global streaming market. Spotify has an estimated 232 million active users with around 124 million who do not pay for their premium service. That number is quite far off the 1 billion active users on Instagram and over 2 billion on Facebook, but Spotify is still a relatively new company, only going public in 2018. 

How does Spotify work?
Spotify is a legal way to stream online music and podcast. You can listen to entire albums or playlist created by Spotify staff, artists, and other users. Users can listen to Spotify free however they will receive banner ads within the official apps and the occasional audio ad between songs. Alternatively, users can purchase the Premium subscription service and avoid all advertising.

Why use Spotify for Advertising?
In recent years, Spotify has recorded steady and significant growth. The launch of their advertising platform Spotify Ad Studio in the Autumn of 2017 was initially only available in the US, however, since March 2018 the UK and Canada can also avail of this service. 

Since the final quarter of 2014, Spotify has increased it’s active users from 69 million to 271 million in the third quarter of 2019. It has also increased it’s subscribers from 18 million in the same period to 124 million.

What does this mean for your Spotify Advertising?

1. Spotify advertising is new to the market and therefore could be a way of reaching your audience without much competition.
2. It is different from traditional platforms as it is the only one that allows for audio-only self-serve ads.
3. Audio only ads are cheaper to produce compared to video ads. This also has the advantage of allowing you to reach your audience while they are mobile.
   
   

Who is using Spotify?
Spotify has a highly engaged audience who they really know. They have a 100% logged in audience spending 2+ hours per day on the platform meaning Spotify has the ability to collect a lot of data on their users. Spotify’s built-in streaming intelligence is able to identify what the audience is listening to, what music and how to best direct their adverts accordingly. 

Advertising Options
Spotify is still a relatively new platform, and its advertising studio is even newer, which means you can get more bang for your buck! You will need to spend around £200-250 for your audio ads, however image based display ads will depend on your content. Spotify understands their user’s listening behaviours in high detail and this gives advertisers the opportunity to create great storytelling ads to direct to the right audience. Consider these stats that Spotify have on how Millennials use the platform:

• 68% of stream on mobile.
• Millennial listeners are 64% more likely to buy brands they see advertised.
• Millennials stream on repeat more than they stream on random, and they’re 90% more likely to have the latest tech products.

 
There are two different types of ads:

Audio ads

• Play periodically between songs.
• Can be 15-30 seconds long. 
• Played approximately every 15 minutes. 
• They cannot be skipped.
• Can contain an image and some text. 
• Use Spotify Ad Studio
  
  

Display ads

• Shown at the bottom music player.
• Leads users to your website once clicked.
• Can only be shown on desktop and web platforms. 
• Use Spotify for Brands 

Targeting in Spotify:

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Platform
• Advertise across all Spotify music or just in certain genres or on certain playlists.

 
Free strategies: 

Branded Playlists

• There are over 2 billion playlists with one-third of all listening time on Spotify being spent on user-generated playlists there is clearly a lot of demand for playlists on Spotify!
  
  

How To use Spotify Playlists For Your Brand:

• Spotify allows brands to create a custom playlist with their logo, text and link. 
• Playlists contain a minimum of 20 songs by different artists. 
• No single artist should appear more than once on your playlist
• Don’t include artists you might think would be opposed to your brand.
• Share your playlist on all your platforms, Instagram is one of the best ways to promote your playlist. You can also add Spotify to your website! How different would you stand out with that!?
  
  

Podcast
What better way to engage with your audience and show them that you are experts in your field then by starting a company podcast! Spotify is now making Podcasts one of their top priorities to expand the platform, meaning it would be an ideal time to get into the Podcast game before everyone else does!

There are two different ways to do this, you can use Anchor (which has been bought by Spotify) to ensure your content is distributed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other major podcast services. Or you can use Spotify’s Podcast Platform!

Should you invest in Spotify?
In today’s world of marketing, it is increasingly important that brands connect on a more personal level with their audience and engage with them. Spotify seems like the perfect place to do this! Even if you are not ready to test out advertising, why not try out some of the free options, take a look at McDonald’s account, yes that’s right McDonald’s has a Spotify account, thinking twice now that maybe you should too? 

If you are interested in Social Media Marketing, whether that be Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, LinkedIn or any other platform, feel free to contact our digital marketing manager Nick at nick@thewebbureau.com!