Spotify Advertising 101

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“Everyone Loves Music”

The success of Spotify in the last few years has been huge – its 7 million European users include people from all walks of life, who use the player as a personal radio station, listening to the music they enjoy while they work, browse the internet or relax at home. click for more info

Spotify intersperses its music with advertising (on the free version, at least), targeting specific audiences according to demographic, location and mood. The current formats are split between audio and graphical (banners and skyscrapers), or a mixture of both. Advanced advertising includes video as well.

Pricing is by CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) – £10CPM for audio ads and £6CPM for display ads. Targeting is organised by postcode, age and gender, or even by music tastes, and uses absolute targeted impressions, which means your ads will not be wasted on anyone outside your targeted group. Spotify users provide demographic information upon registration, which is used to aid targeting.

Audio advertising copy can be any length, but the ads are limited to approximately 2-3 minutes of advertising per hour of music listening. This can be accompanied by a logo, banner or packshot (in 250×250 gif format) which replaces the current album image and is clickable/trackable. Information regarding the ad scrolls below the tracklist, and is also clickable. Audio can be a great way to attract attention and place a call for action.

Display advertisements come in tower, banner or leaderboard format, and can scroll in sideways or from the bottom of the player. These are flash compatible and can be served by a 3rd party ad company. There is also the option of a screensaver, which has high impact as it covers most of the player until the user scrolls over it, whereupon it minimises to a clickable leaderboard at the bottom of the screen. CTRs for display ads range from 0.2-2.2%.

Ads can be used to publicise promotions, directing users to an entry point, either under the home page, in a pop up or a separate tab. These promotions are also targeted, and you can run several different campaigns for different targeted demographics. This format is ideal for Spotify, as it is simple for users to enter, since their details are already logged within the system. Advertisers can opt in to receive entrants’ details. nederlandse spotify streams kopen

Recently run ads generally have some aspect of affiliation, for example 3 Mobile have offered 24 months free Spotify Premium with one of their Sony Ericsson contracts. Seat’s Ibiza campaign combined a competition for tickets to the new Shakira tour and now a limited edition Shakira car.