Spotify Tunes Up Platform To Make It Easy for Advertisers To Buy, Create, and Measure

Spotify Advertising hit a new high note today as we unveiled how we’re making it easier than ever for advertisers to buy, create, and measure on and for our platform.

We’ve been hard at work investing in our ad platform, modernizing our ad tech, and solidifying industry partnerships to become a platform that delivers results for advertisers of all sizes. During our first Spotify Advance event in New York City, we showcased a suite of new ad solutions that will unlock the full power of Spotify.

This next stage of Spotify Advertising was ushered in with news of the launch of Spotify Ad Exchange. We call it SAX for short. For the first time, advertisers will be able to access Spotify’s engaged and logged-in users via real-time auction, with full addressability and measurement capabilities. Today, advertisers can plug into SAX via The Trade Desk, Google Display & Video 360, and Magnite, with Adform and Yahoo DSP coming soon.

We also shared how we’re making our self-serve Spotify Ads Manager work harder for advertisers with new tools and solutions to help them meet their objectives, including enhanced targeting and measurement capabilities.

To complement our automated buying solutions, we introduced new ways for advertisers to create with Spotify: our in-house agencies, Creative Lab and AUX, and our new Spotify Gen AI Ads.

We’re also making our platform more addressable to help advertisers better measure the impact of their Spotify campaigns with our Spotify Brand Lift solution and new App Installs objective, alongside industry-leading tools from our third-party partners.

For the Record sat down with Spotify’s Global Head of Advertising Lee Brown to unpack these developments and hear more about how Spotify is revolutionizing advertising for brands of all sizes.

This is such an exciting new chapter for Spotify! Why is it so critical to assemble these global CMOs, agencies, creators, and key influencers now, and share these updates?

Thanks! I’m really proud of our team for getting us to this point—we’re happy to finally be able to share what we’ve been busy working on. Spotify Advance marks a pivotal moment for our company as our advertising business enters a new stage. We’ve been investing to become a platform that can deliver results for advertisers, whatever their goal, whatever their size. 

Whether you’re a CMO, a media agency buyer, a podcast publisher, a seasoned creative director, or a creator looking to grow your brand, we’ve got you covered. We invited this cross-sectional group to learn about our new solutions firsthand and hear from our team directly on why Spotify should play a bigger role in their marketing strategy.

What are the biggest benefits that our ad products offer businesses? 

Spotify Free users tune in to Spotify for two hours each day, making it an essential daily companion that gives brands the unique opportunity to connect with super-engaged fans in our positive environment. People feel good when they’re on Spotify. This is good for advertisers looking to build new connections or go deeper with their audience. In fact, Spotify’s 2024 Culture Next report found that 71% of Gen Zs see Spotify as the ultimate antidote to doomscrolling.

Now it’s easier than ever to reach these users thanks to solutions like the Spotify Ad Exchange and Spotify Ads Manager, and to create audio ads made for Spotify with our intuitive Gen AI Ads. Advertisers in the U.S. and Canada can now leverage generative AI in Spotify Ads Manager to produce scripts and voiceovers at no additional cost, making it easy to create high-quality, scalable audio ads. We’ll be launching Gen AI Ads in the U.K. next.

And because we all know that if you can’t measure it, it really doesn’t matter, we’re also bringing more measurement solutions to our platform. We want to ensure advertisers can more easily understand the impact of their campaigns with tools like an enhanced Spotify Pixel and new partnerships with leading third-party players, including DoubleVerify, IAS, AppsFlyer, and Kochava.

How is Spotify Advertising unlocking innovative ways for brands to connect with artists, creators, and fans?

We’re on the cutting edge of culture and creativity—and we know that’s one of the reasons advertisers turn to Spotify. So just as we’re making it easier to buy on Spotify, we’re making it even easier for advertisers to create for Spotify and in collaboration with us. That’s where our in-house agencies, Creative Lab and AUX, come in.

Creative Lab is our dedicated team of creative minds that works collaboratively with brands and agencies to inspire and scale creativity to build unique and effective campaigns made just for the Spotify platform.

Our in-house music consulting agency AUX leverages our expertise in music, culture, creators, and fandom to elevate brands as only Spotify can. Today, we welcomed Visa and Kona Big Wave to the AUX family and announced the expansion of our partnership with Coke Studio.

How should advertisers approach younger audiences like Gen Z, assuming their habits are different from older generations?

More than 251 million Gen Zers turn to Spotify as their daily companion, so we know this audience well. We’ve built an intimate, engaging, and uplifting space for them, and they also use us to soundtrack moments throughout their day—not just when they’re sitting in front of a screen. For brands, that’s a really exciting opportunity to engage this young audience at key moments throughout their day. Now it’s easier than ever to do that on Spotify. 

Check out more coverage from Spotify Advance and visit Spotify Advertising for more about our advertising program and tools.