Radio is dead, long live web streaming services!
Music has always been a conductor of emotions, whether it has helped us get through a rough heartbreak, create lifelong memories around a popular summer hit, or to find the strength to run that extra mile (Eye of the tiger, anyone?). Audio offers an intimacy that no other media can match, and in an age where “mass personalization” is the way to engage with consumers, it becomes obvious why advertising through audio is still and will remain relevant. Though times change and habits do too.
According to Comscore’s recent statistics*, 94% of millennials are more likely to be on Spotify than listening to any other source of audio entertainment. And we all know how the youth of today are the consumers of tomorrow. This puts music streaming services at the forefront of any long-term marketing strategy and allows brands to create a deep connection with an audience that has shown itself as serious influencers of techs, entertainment and trends.
With Spotify opening their Canadian beta, earlier this month, for its self-serve advertising platform to local and national advertisers (the streaming service previously had a floor set for $25,000+ campaigns), brands can now easily reach the untapped market of music streams listeners. Yay! While the beta offers limited options, it still opens some very interesting possibilities.
Spotify Targeting: You’re the one that I want
For a more-than-fair CPM, Spotify Ad Studio allows for ad placement through their subscribers’ favorite playlists and engage with a passionate and tech-savvy user-base. Targeting options obviously include digital marketers essentials such as geography, demographics and language, but where it gets interesting is the ability to target specific genres and moods, which allows you to create truly intimate moments with your audience. With an average listening time of 2h+ daily*, you can catch your audience driving through their commute, focusing at work on their web browser, cooking dinner while blasting their jam on the boom-box, or even on their favorite gaming console as they unwind after a long day.
Spotify ad placements: Any way you want it
Once you’ve decided on your target audience, you can deliver your message through a variety of ad formats :
Audio ads allow you to reach highly engaged users across multiple devices and platforms. For non-premium subscribers, audio ads are served between songs during active sessions, thus ensuring 100% of your audience attention. Awesome, right? In addition to the audio spot, you can extend your message with a clickable companion display, allowing to redirect the user to your website – or landing page!
If audio isn’t enough for your always-innovating, make-it-better, get-me-more-attention advertiser’s thirst (guilty!), you can deliver quality viewable video content across mobile and desktop devices through the video takeover option. Just like audio spots, your video message is delivered during commercial ad breaks and includes a clickable companion display on desktop browsers. Advertising can get annoying though, so if you are scared that listeners might resent you for interrupting their groove – pun intended – you can sponsor a 30 minutes ad-free listening session in exchange for watching your video. That’s a sweet deal if I’ve ever seen one!
If you don’t have the resources to come up with professional audio or video content, you can still get yourself seen through traditional display ads which are interestingly designed for viewability. For example, Display Overlays are delivered when a user is returning to the app, ensuring maximum impact. Other formats include a homepage takeover on the desktop version of the Spotify homepage and a standard leaderboard displayed right over the play/pause button. Did someone say “notice me” !?
Spotify Measure me gently
By using both their first-party reporting suite and partnering with other third-party measurement tools, Spotify Ad Studio allows for deep insight on campaign performance. Reach, Impressions, Clicks and CTR are leading the reporting parade, but other options enable for more comprehensive metrics, such as awareness, message and brand association, or purchase intent. A real treat for data-driven marketers like me.
Conclusion
By allowing local and smaller brands to advertise on their platform, Spotify is opening a whole new world for advertisers who wish to supplement, or substitute for that matter, their traditional radio advertising campaigns. With several targeting options, multiple ad formats, and precise measurement data, you can know set your cross-channel marketing efforts for success, and get the reporting metrics you need to make your business grow.
Contact Us To Lean How We Can Get You On Spotify
*source : https://spotifyforbrands.com/en-CA/
