Imagine if you could be with your customers while they drove to work, cooked in their kitchen, and even went on a run. (No, you don’t have to try to keep up with their seven-minute mile pace.)
The savviest marketers know that you can’t wait for your customers to come to you. Instead, you need to go to them, and ultimately, meet them where they are at.
That’s where Spotify — a global leader in the music streaming space — comes into play.
There are more than 381 million active Spotify users who use Spotify in their daily lives. You have the opportunity to tap into that target audience with an ad campaign that impresses them and stays with them.
In this post, we’ll show you how you can effectively get Spotify users to think about your brand with an effective ad campaign. Before we start, let’s take a look at Spotify as a whole and understand who is on the platform.
A closer look at Spotify advertising
Spotify offers two models for its users: a freemium version and Spotify Premium, a paid version that offers increased sound quality and additional functionalities like the ability to curate your own playlist and select the order in which your songs play.
However, the main difference between the free and paid version is that Spotify Premium is ad-free. That means advertisers can launch their audio and display ads on Spotify’s free version, with the potential to reach the platform’s 220 million non-paying monthly active users (MAUs).
How Spotify’s subscriptions stack up
For digital marketing professionals, reach is everything.
Spotify holds the most audio streaming subscriptions compared to the other major music streaming platforms: Amazon, Apple, and Google. And Pandora.
While Pandora has been around longer, the platform has a much smaller user base than Spotify at 58 million users. This number still is more than 162 million shy of Spotify’s non-paying monthly active users.
In terms of reaching the most users, Spotify can’t be beat.
Launching your campaign with Spotify Ad Studio
Now that we’ve convinced you to advertise on Spotify, let’s look at creating your audio ad. It’s so easy to get started with the self-serve advertising platform Spotify Ad Studio that you’ll probably finish it before your favorite song concludes. (And no, we’re not talking about the six minute version of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen).
But what exactly is Ad Studio? Ad Studio is a “self-serving” platform, which means you can launch your entire campaign on your own in real-time. You don’t need to talk with a sales rep or gatekeeper at Spotify. You have the full capability to launch an ad campaign on the network in just a few steps.
However, if you want to improve your campaign and produce high-quality radio ads that can run on Spotify as well as other channels, Decibel Ads may be a better option.
How Decibel compares to Spotify Ad Studio
Decibel, an online audio ad platform, has helped so many businesses make and launch an effective audio advertisement in just a few clicks (and at a sustainable cost).
The platform has many benefits that make it stand out:
Publisher aggregation
You can upload your ad and use Decibel’s publisher aggregation offering to make sure it runs on a variety of audio channels. Spotify, of course, only lets you run ads on Spotify.
Advanced targeting
Target beyond Spotify on Decibel and reach hyper-local listeners who are close to your business. Decibel offers more demographic and interest-based targeting than Spotify.
Conversion tracking
With Decibel’s conversion pixel, you’ll get deep analytics including listener breakdowns and a clearer understanding of how many listeners converted. Currently, Spotify does not report conversion data.
Now that you know how to make an effective ad in Decibel or Ad Studio, let’s dive into some of the ways you can ensure your Spotify ad campaign is a success.
3 tips for increasing your ROI on Spotify
So a couple of clicks and you’re making the big bucks? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Optimizing your ad campaigns is often a round-the-clock type of job. As the campaign manager, there are always tweaks that you can make and insights for you to digest.
Here are three tips that can increase your advertising revenue.
1. Test and compare different ad formats.
Some people like chicken. Some people like steak. When it comes to ad formats, different ones work for different audiences. Figure out which one works for yours.
In the early days of your initial ad campaigns, you should test out many different types of ad formats (audio, static images, and video).
You will quickly begin to compile data on which creative and ad types your target audience is engaging closely with. Compare the cost per mil (CPMs), impressions/reach, click-thru data, and conversion data across all types of creative and formats. This will help you understand how you should allocate your budget.
2. Get granular with your targeting.
To make sure your ad gets to the right people, you need to target a specific subset of relevant, passionate potential customers.
Spotify Ad Studio provides you with the chance to get hyper-targeted with your ad placements. This means that your ads, with the right messaging and targeting, could really pack a punch on the platform with your audience.
It is important to note, however, that only one advanced targeting measure is allowed for each ad set. Spotify highlights “first-party age, gender, and location data” as well as “podcast, playlist, and platform preferences” as some of the most popular ways to reach audiences.
3. Ask your existing customers what they listen to.
Don’t think you know it all. Ask your customers for the answers you need.
Most companies forget this step, and others simply gloss right over it. However, it is simple and so important. Survey your existing audience, either via email or on social media, to learn about their listening habits. What podcasts are they binging? What are their favorite streaming stations? What genres do they like?
All of these answers will help you craft specific buyer personas that you can use to target in your next campaign. If they are currently buying from you and listening to certain stations, it may make sense for marketers to launch audio ads or video ads on those same channels to reach more potential buyers.
Brands that remember to do this step and engage with their audiences on a deeper level will have a more precise understanding of their audience and their listening habits.
Finding success with Spotify advertising campaigns
After your first Spotify ad campaign, don’t be surprised if you feel like you’re on top of the world. The possibilities of what you can do and who you can reach are endless! You’ve just started to tap into the potential of the platform, and it can be quite intoxicating.
There are so many different ways to get your brand in front of captive listeners by launching a Spotify advertising campaign. Thankfully, the platform has the Spotify Ad Studio, a self-service tool that enables brands to create and launch their own campaign in minutes.
By making the process easy and having such a large user base eager for content, marketing on Spotify is a no-brainer for brands and businesses looking for a lucrative channel to activate on this year.
Start preparing your next Spotify advertising campaign with one of these sample audio advertisement script templates. Personalize your favorite so it showcases your business and concludes with a compelling call-to-action that will drive revenue for your company.