Introducing Spotify Podcast Ads and the Spotify Audience Network to Canada

Podcasts have become a regular and trusted source of news, entertainment, and information for millions of listeners around the world. And user behaviour on Spotify globally supports this trend. In fact, 25% of our users now listen to podcasts on our platform, while listenership continues to grow at triple-digit rates year over year.¹ Here in Canada, it's the same story: 1 in 3 internet users reported listening to podcasts last year, with a quarter of listeners tuning into an average of 3 different podcasts each week.² Podcasts are now a global, mainstream medium for a wide-ranging audience of tuned-in listeners.

Historically, a lack of clear and equivalent measurement has prevented podcast advertising from truly taking off like its digital media counterparts. This is because podcast content is still largely downloaded via RSS feeds—which limits the advertiser’s visibility into whether their ad was actually heard. But the shift in consumption from downloads to streaming has opened the door for advances in data-driven podcast advertising. And as the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service, we’re moving beyond these constraints to reimagine what's possible for this uniquely powerful and intimate medium.

At the same time, we believe that audience buying is the key to scaling podcast advertising. Advertisers have traditionally bought podcast ads on a title-by-title basis. And while title-based buying remains an effective way to align with trusted podcasts and hosts, an advertiser’s reach is limited to a specific title. This has made it challenging to target your customers at scale.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that we are solving these challenges with the introduction of two innovative ways for Canadian advertisers to tap into the power of podcast advertising.

First, Canadian advertisers will now be able to leverage Spotify Podcast Ads to reach podcast listeners on Spotify. Spotify Podcast Ads offer the intimacy of traditional podcast ads, with the precision and transparency of modern-day digital marketing. Powered by Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI), Spotify Podcast Ads deliver and report on confirmed ad impressions, rather than downloads. This is a major step forward for podcast advertising—providing marketers with key information about who heard their ad and how the creative performed. With this new level of digital insight, advertisers are equipped to make even more data-driven decisions for their podcast campaigns.

Second, the Spotify Audience Audience Network, which we announced at Stream On in February, is now available to Canadian advertisers. The Spotify Audience Network is an audio-first advertising marketplace that makes it possible for advertisers of all sizes to connect with listeners across a broad range of content on- and off-Spotify, including Spotify Originals & Exclusives and content from third-party Megaphone publishers.

With the Spotify Audience Network, advertisers have a broad range of easy-to-use, audience-based targeting tools including demographic targeting, geographic targeting, and even audience segment targeting. Advertisers can reach highly engaged, targeted audiences within podcasts both on- and off-Spotify. Today, the network includes the audiences listening to podcasts from our four studios (Spotify Studios, The Ringer, Gimlet, Parcast), leading third-party podcast publishers like ViacomCBS and the Wall Street Journal, and podcasts by local Canadian publishers such as Girlboss.

Advertiser reaction has been promising: within three months of launch, nearly 60% of Spotify’s US podcast advertiser base is advertising with the Spotify Audience Network with advertisers like Volkswagen and Saks taking advantage of this new offering. ³

In a recent report, Advertiser Perceptions asked over 200 podcast advertisers,⁴ “Which buying method works best for achieving your company’s podcast campaign KPIs?” The top two responses by a wide margin were “by audience segment” and “across a podcast network”. This survey further validates our conviction that audience-based buying is the future of audio advertising. Ivan Pehar, Regional Head of Ad Sales, Canada at Spotify notes, “As podcast consumption continues to skyrocket in Canada, we’re excited to unlock these two innovations–Streaming Ad Insertion and the Spotify Audience Network–for Canadian advertisers. Now they’ll be able to target engaged podcast listeners at scale while understanding the value of their investments like never before.”

For marketers, we’ve been able to extend the reach and scale of advertising campaigns. Matt Houghton, Director of Digital Marketing at Interac notes: “The new Interac InLife platform celebrates living a simpler, more joyful, less stressful life; one way to do that is listening to a great podcast. Leveraging the Spotify Audience Network means we can specifically share our message with a defined set of podcast listeners, something we have not been able to do with previous campaigns.”

It isn't only advertisers that benefit from the Spotify Audience Network; publishers do, too. Megaphone podcast publishers who opt in to the network have seen meaningful improvement in their ability to monetize. Opted-in podcast publishers have seen fill rates increase by over +10%, CPMs increase by over +40%, while the number of unique advertisers in their content is increasing, with some publishers seeing that number double.⁵

Together, Streaming Ad Insertion and the Spotify Audience Network offer versatile ways for advertisers to align with trusted voices on Spotify and reach their audiences at scale while driving growth for podcast publishers.

And this is just the beginning. At Spotify, we’re innovating every day to take advantage of the untapped potential ahead of us, exploring how to make podcast advertising easier to buy, evolving the podcast ad experience, and working with podcast publishers and creators to improve their monetisation. Come join us on this journey.

For marketers, reach out to your Spotify sales rep to learn more about how your business or brand can be part of the future of podcast advertising. For publishers, contact your Megaphone account representative or reach out through the Megaphone website to connect with someone who can speak with you directly about how to monetize your content more effectively through the Spotify Audience Network.