May 17, 2021

Starting with Spotify

Starting with Spotify

Written by Chris JacksonOne of the most exciting and terrifying activities for a digital marketer is experimenting with a new digital ad platform. It’s exciting because it means reaching new audiences and having new ways to share one’s messages, but it’s terrifying because you don’t really know what to expect. Anstice recently got the opportunity to do just this by using Spotify for two of our clients (Nureva Audio and Genesis Land Development Corp.) in March.Now the major difference when comparing Spotify to other digital platforms is of course the media type. We are primarily dealing with audio, but video is available as well. Spotify accepts audio files that are a maximum of 30 seconds long and in .WAV or .MP3 file types (click here for all specs).Creating audio files can seem like quite the challenge, but don’t worry, Spotify has you covered. Their in-house audio studio is exceptionally quick and delivers ads based on your recommendations, music selection, and script. Once you approve the ads (or send them back for revisions) you can be up and running within 24 hours. Things get even easier if you are already using audio for something like radio and you have the ability to use this creative on other platforms. Simply upload your audio file, wait for Spotify to approve it, and you are good to go.There are of course some drawbacks to the platform. Firstly, it is still relatively new, and things are constantly changing. This is good, but it does mean that some features you want may not yet be available and current features might move around within the platform. Additionally, there is a minimum spend of $250, and there is currently no way of directly connecting data from the platform to dashboard tools such as Google Data Studio, making reporting a bit more tedious.That being said, if audio makes sense for the campaign, I think Spotify is certainly worth exploring. The ability to target by location and further refine by demographics, interests, real time-contexts, and genres is very powerful. Not to mention the extremely high average ad completion rates, allowing for more of your message to get to your intended audience.