Spotify Marketing: How to Run Successful Audio Ads on Spotify

Some people are intimidated by the number of options available in marketing, but if you’re in the field, it’s an amazing reality. Rather than being forced into advertising in one or two places, we have an opportunity to expand our reach in a multitude of ways in order to connect with our audience. We can listen to what people are saying, learn what our target market needs, and create campaigns that are more likely to get results. Isn’t it fantastic?

Today, we want to talk about one of the newest options for advertisers: Spotify marketing. Spotify has been making waves in two ways:

• Users love having their music all in one place (with an ability to create playlists and even listen when offline)
• Advertisers enjoys having many options with Spotify marketing

In addition to audio ads, brands on Spotify can advertise using podcasts, display ads, and video ads. With so many people using Spotify around the world, this could be a great time to change allocation of funds in your marketing strategy. Should you advertise using audio ads on Spotify? Today we’re going to look at how it works and why you should choose Spotify for your marketing campaign!

About Audio Everywhere — Spotify’s Audio Advertising Platform

According to Spotify, the Audio Everywhere platform is designed to help brands reach out to their prospective customers wherever they are and no matter what device they are using. The user will hear your ad between songs, which means a 100% SOV (share of voice) for all advertisers.

Not only will the user hear your advert, they’ll also have an opportunity to click on the display unit and reach any URL you choose. This differentiates Spotify from traditional radio ad campaigns, which are less effective. When advertisers choose radio as a media channel, they erroneously rely on the listener to remember their brand name or advert the next time they are online. With Spotify, they’re already connected and can learn more about your brand with one simple click.

In terms of logistics, the audio ads work on browsers, desktops, mobiles, and tablets. Furthermore, you can also reach out to some gaming consoles, cars, TVs, and other connected devices.

Why Advertise on Spotify?

Before we move onto our advice in this guide, why should you consider advertising on this platform in the first place? Here are a few key reasons:

Growth of Spotify

Firstly, nobody can deny the growth of Spotify in the last few years. Towards the end of 2019, it was revealed that Spotify had nearly 250 million active monthly users. Although that didn’t quite compete with Facebook and Instagram, it’s still a huge number (and will almost certainly contain a strong selection of your target market).

Additionally, we have to consider the type of ads that you can use on Spotify. We’ve seen that the audio ads have a 100% SOV. Not only that, but users are also more likely to interact with an audio ad compared to a visual ad appearing in a social media feed.

Strength of Service

While talking about their audio advertising service, Spotify said they have 500,000 podcasts and over 50 million songs in their library. With this, it’s a service that’s only going to grow as time goes on. Younger audiences get access to new music, and older generations can listen to the theme tunes of their youth. Since the app is available on all devices, it will likely remain popular for some time to come. As more people listen, more ad space opens up and your brand has the chance to shine!

‘Screenless Moments’

Spotify also talks about so-called ‘screenless moments,’ meaning their ad platform allows brands to reach people on occasions where visual media cannot. When advertising on Facebook or Instagram, for example, we need users to visit the platform and actively pay attention to what’s on the screen. When advertising on Spotify, however, we can play our ads while the listener is cooking, exercising, driving, cleaning, relaxing, or more. This comes off as less intrusive and makes listeners more inclined to research the brand further.

Voice-Enabled Ads

As the final main benefit, we want to talk about Spotify’s testing with voice-enabled audio ads. These ads allow listeners to act on an advert without even touching their device. For instance, your potential customer could be cleaning or driving and say a specific phrase to take action (as long as the microphone has been enabled). After an audio commercial prompts the listener, they can say ‘Play Now’ and a specific playlist, created by the brand, will begin. Not only will this playlist have more commercials, but the user will be actively interacting with your brand.

Read More: Brand Building 101

Running Successful Audio Ads

As promised, the second half of this guide is all about getting your audio ads right. You’ve decided to advertise on this growing platform, so how do you ensure that your money isn’t wasted? Since this is a valid concern — and you may not be accustomed to audio advertisement — we’ve compiled some brilliant tips below. In addition to the tips regarding getting set up, we’ll also go into the audio itself.

Choose the Right Objective

As you’re setting up your ad, one of the first things you need to do is select an objective. Unfortunately, a mistake here could cause problems later so be sure to get this right. You’ll have two options:

• Raise awareness for a brand, business, or organization
• Promote a concert or music-related content

We’re assuming that you’re not a music promoter and that you want to get your brand some exposure on Spotify, so you’ll want to choose the former.

In this section, you’ll also be asked to create an ad name. Don’t worry, this has no bearing on the ad itself. Instead, it’s useful to keep things organized (especially when planning more than one campaign).

Consider Your Audience

If you’re still unsure whether or not to choose Spotify for marketing purposes, this next section is important. If the platform doesn’t offer much in the way of targeting, you might be tempted to spend your money elsewhere. Fortunately, we’re able to choose a specific location (which can be narrowed down to a country, state, city, or even a designated market area).

From here, we can adjust the age range of the campaign. If you want to target those between 18 and 24 years, make sure you set these preferences. Then you can choose to target males, females, or everybody.

In order to succeed, you also need to play around with the ‘target based on listening behavior’ section. Do you want to reach out to your target audience while they’re listening to all music? Alternatively, do you want to go for a smaller niche by choosing a particular genre or playlist category? For example, a single campaign might have the following targeting options:

• 18–24
• California
• Female
• All Music

Finally, you can also set your chosen platforms, playing times, schedule, and budget. With the latter, Spotify has actually made it very simple. After entering a total budget, they will distribute this amount evenly between two given dates.

Read More: Identify the Best Targeted Audience for Your Product

Pay Attention to Spotify Specifications

In the past, we’ve seen many ad campaigns fail because the marketer didn’t look at the requirements of the platform itself. For example, Spotify has laid out the following specifications for audio ads:

• File Size — Under 1MB
• Length — Under 30 seconds
• File Types — MP3, WAV, or OGG

Write a Strong Script

There are many factors that make up a strong script, but the most important is the need to match the voice of your brand. Rather than offering something completely different to your web content and blog posts, it should be a continuation of the brand voice. While some will go for a very serious tone, others will inject some humor. Whatever you choose, make sure you aren’t conflicting with content you have elsewhere.

Take Advantage of the Offered Services

Did you know that Spotify will create a voiceover for your script? That’s right, choose the voice profile you desire, get the script across, and they will do the rest for no extra charge. If you choose this option, it’s still possible to choose a background track since they have a library of songs (you can also upload your own, if necessary!).

Provide a Key Message

Just because we’re dealing with audio content, this doesn’t mean you can lose the core values of what makes strong marketing. Primarily, you need to lead with the critical information. If you do this, the listener is less likely to switch off or blank your ad from their ears.

Extra Tips

To finish, here’s some bonus advice for audio ads on Spotify:

• Understand that audio ads on Spotify are not the same as radio ads (listeners are mobile and have connected devices)
• Form an emotional connection
• Ensure that ads transition nicely from the playlist
• Add a specific call to action

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