Running Spotify Ads sounds like an obvious thing to be doing, but it is a surprisingly untapped opportunity.
Why don’t more businesses run Spotify Ads?
My initial thought is it’s just not on the radar of most businesses as a typical place to run ads. Everyone runs ads on Google, Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), TikTok and even LinkedIn. But, even though it is really heavily used by a huge swathe of the UK public, when most businesses think “Spotify”, they don’t think “ads”.
I also think that lots of businesses just don’t see it as relevant or targetable.
While Spotify doesn’t have the granularity of Meta or Google AdWords, it does have some good options for targeting ads – you just have to think a little differently.
Spotify Ads can be great for e-commerce brands
A really simple example is an e-commerce business selling fashion.
- First off, you can target the relevant age group for your clothes.
- Next, what genre of Music is your fashion associated with? If you are selling trainers? Target Rap, Grime or Hip Hop fandoms.
- Do you have specific hotspots around the county? You can target those as well.
- You can use the ads to drive awareness or target sales by sending them to your website from your ads.
- You can build your brand by using a mixture of video and audio ads on Spotify.
Using them to reach NEET’s in North Yorkshire
We currently have video Spotify advertising campaigns out in the wild for North Yorkshire Council and North Yorkshire Combined Authority as part of their You Choose North Yorkshire programme to encourage NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training), to contact them to find new opportunities for training, education or work.
The advertisements form part of a campaign which is also using YouTube, Instagram and TikTok ads to drive 16 to 24 year olds in North Yorkshire to contact support workers via a dedicated WhatsApp number.
The stats for Spotify ads are pretty impressive when you consider that this is a campaign for a completely new programme that has been live for just under 2 weeks.
- 117,008 impressions
- 1,158 Clicks
- 1% Click through rate
- £1.90 Cost per Thousand views (CPM)
- 18,703 Video Views
- 49.43% have viewed 100% of the video
Would Spotify Ads work for a B2B audience?
With the right marketing strategy, I think so. Spotify ads allow advertisers to specify the subject of the ads to help align with the target audience. There are options for most business categories you would expect to see if you run LinkedIn ads.
So you can select Logistics, Legal Services, Telecoms, or even Pest Control! This will work even better if you already have content on Spotify, like the podcast we created for law firm Marks & Clerk.
From there, you may want to target an older audience, and perhaps look at matched audiences against Podcasts rather than music. There are, after all, thousands of business podcasts on Spotify, which you can get your ads alongside.
Spotify has a highly engaged audience
- Spotify has around 40 million users in the UK.
- 15 million approx, of those are premium users who pay to ensure they aren’t hearing or seeing ads.
- Leaving around 25 million people on the free version, who are quite happy to have ads in exchange for the service.
- The Average UK user has Spotify on for 2 hours and 10 minutes per day.
- Heavy Spotify listeners spend between 3 and 4 hours a day on the app.
- Spotify has listeners across all age groups:
- 18–24 spend around 2.5–3+ hours per day. High playlist usage, background listening, and strong podcast adoption.
- 25–34 listen for 2–2.5 hours per day with very focused listening (work, commuting, gym).
- 35–54 spend around 1.5–2 hours each day with a mix of playlists, radio-style listening, and nostalgia content.
- 55+ spend 1–1.5 hours per day, they are relaxed listeners sticking to albums, classics, and less discovery.
- In the UK, people spend more time on average with Spotify than they do with TV.
- 2 to 4 hours for TV (that includes streaming).
- 1.5 hours on social media per day on average.
In summary, Spotify has a passive, captive audience that is highly engaged. But crucially underused.
Do Spotify Ads sound like they are right for your business?
We’re really excited about the opportunities Spotify Ads give businesses over other options, and we’d love to talk to you if you’d like to find out more. If that’s you please fill in the form and let’s have a chat.
