The guide to ad rotation for self-serve advertisers

When it comes to self-serve campaign management, ad rotation is one of advertisers’ most valuable tools. Ad rotation refers to the way multiple ads in an ad set are delivered to your audience. On Spotify Ad Studio, you can use this tool to customise the way your ads in each ad set are served to listeners.

If you’re wondering how to effectively leverage ad rotation in your next Spotify campaign, look no further than this ads rotation best practices guide. Below we share top use cases for the three different types of ad rotations: even, weighted, and sequential. Plus, tips on how ad rotation can influence your creative strategy and help to optimise campaign performance on Spotify.

1. Even rotation

All creative assets within the ad set will deliver evenly and randomly throughout your campaign.

• Launch and learn: Rotating ads evenly works well if you want to test new creative messaging with your audience. The random and equal distribution of even ad rotation can help you determine whether one creative message is performing better than another.
• Spice it up: Avoid creative wear out and add variety to your campaign with an even ad rotation. You can equally rotate creative assets that showcase multiple testimonials, copy points, or products features.

2. Weighted rotation

Increase or reduce the load of specific ads with weighted ad rotation. When you choose this ad rotation setting, be sure to do a quick math check: the weights for all ads within an ad set must add up to exactly 100%.

• Heavy up on promotions and during key time frames: Giving certain ads more weight in your ad set can help you promote key initiatives and seasonal offerings—like a promo code for a summer sale.
• Test, learn, and optimise: Your Ad Studio dashboard will help you keep track of your campaign results in real-time. If you’re seeing that ad A in your ad set is outperforming ad B, consider shifting more impression weight to ad A. This will help to optimise your campaign based on individual ad performance and ensure you’re giving the most air-time to the creative that really resonates with your audience.

Note: click-through-rate and completion rates are only two ways to define campaign performance. You may also want to look at site-traffic or broader KPIs when evaluating your campaigns on Ad Studio.

3. Sequential rotation

You decide the order that Spotify users in your audience hear or see an ad within your ad set when you choose the sequential ad rotation setting. While there’s no limit to the number of ads you can serve sequentially, we recommend adjusting the frequency to match or exceed the number of creatives you’re using to ensure each ad is seen or heard. Here are a few sequential messaging advertising examples to try:

• Nurture through the funnel: Guide your audience through from awareness to action with messaging tailored to each step of their journey through the sales funnel.
• Keep them engaged with episodic messaging: Let your story unfold through multiple ads served in succession to users.
• Teach your audience: Start off with a longer ad, then follow up with shorter, CTA-driven messages that will incite your audience to take action. Emerging brands often use this approach to introduce themselves or educate their audience on complex products and services.
• Be a story tease: Drum up excitement and anticipation with a short teaser ad before serving longer messages with more detail revealed. Entertainment brands love this approach for campaigns like movie trailer releases and album drops.

No matter the creative rotation option you choose, keep these best practices in mind:

• Remind listeners of critical information—like your brand name.
  Don’t assume someone will remember every detail of the prior ad, even if you’re serving sequential messaging. Be sure to state the name of your business or brand in every ad. Also consider the things you need to restate for each ad to make sense on its own.
• Factor in frequency and targeting.
  Make sure your campaign budget and audience targeting allow for a frequency at or higher than the number of creatives in your ad set. This is especially important for sequential ad rotation. For example, if you want users to hear all four ads in a sequential ad set, you should have a minimum frequency of four to ensure users have the opportunity to hear them all.

Ad rotation is a valuable tool that can maximise campaign performance and enhance the way your audience hears and sees your story on Spotify. Whether you use an even ad rotation to showcase different testimonials, a weighted rotation to heavy-up on a seasonal promotion, or sequential messaging to tell a multi-part story, the options available through our self-serve ad manager can help you efficiently and effectively promote your message.

Ready to get started now? Sign up for an Ad Studio account or create a new campaign and discover which ad rotation setting will work best for you.