Fresh off its first full year of profitability, Spotify is aggressively courting advertisers.
At the first Spotify Advance presentation in New York on Wednesday, Spotify’s version of an upfronts presentation, the audio streaming giant announced several new offerings aimed at increasing advertising investment, including a broader rollout of its ad exchange, new AI tools, and new tech capabilities.
Perhaps the largest bit of news to come out of the company’s presentation was the official rollout of its ad exchange, which was piloted late last year. The ad exchange, known as Spotify Ad Exchange, or SAX, enables advertisers to buy audio, video, and display ads programmatically; podcast ads are expected to roll out later this quarter, Chloe Wix, global head of product and commercial growth, said during the presentation.
“Automation is table stakes for any ad platform looking to compete today,” Wix said.
SAX, which is available through DSPs including The Trade Desk and Google’s Display & Video 360, will soon be available through other DSPs like Adform, Magnite, and Yahoo DSP. It’s already live in the US, Canada, and several other major markets, and more than 5,000 advertisers have already used the platform, Wix said.
“There is no other channel poised for growth like audio is today,” Will Doherty, SVP of inventory development at The Trade Desk, said during a panel at the event. “It is the single biggest and most important channel for our marketers to invest in so that they can right-size their omnichannel approach.”
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GenAI ads: Advertisers in the US and Canada can now build scripts and voice-overs to create GenAI audio ads within SAM. The feature, which is in beta, allows advertisers to input keywords, pick voice styles, and generate audio spots that feature prelicensed music.
Already, there is interest: according to the company, 4 in 10 advertisers producing audio ads in SAM are opting to use the AI tool.
Managing up: Beyond AI-generated audio ads, Spotify introduced other capabilities within its ad manager, including advanced targeting offerings and an enhanced version of its ad-tracking tool, Spotify Pixel, Wix said. Pixel and Spotify Brand Lift, the company’s first-party campaign performance measurement tool, will also now be available within SAM, and partners including IAS and Kochava are signed on as third-party measurement providers.
In addition, Spotify rolled out new lower-funnel options, including App Installs Objective, which shows ads to users who the platform has determined are more likely to click and download an advertiser’s app, and Website Traffic Objective, which lets advertisers target campaigns to users who Spotify has determined are more likely to check out brand websites.
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