The Solution:

Issuu regularly uses podcast advertising to drive authentic brand connections with their target audiences. But in the past, they focused on direct podcast buys, establishing relationships with individual shows and hosts. For this campaign, they wanted to try self-serve, audience-based podcast buying on Spotify Ad Studio.

Spotify's audience-based solution—the Spotify Audience Network—connects advertisers to podcast listeners. The network’s scale enabled Issuu’s ads to appear on multiple podcasts and reach a larger pool of listeners. "So many people listen to podcasts and use Spotify as their go-to podcast source," said Stephanie McQuade, a performance marketer at Issuu. "Audience-based podcast buying through Spotify is a way for us to grow our awareness and get people to know our name across many different touchpoints."

Issuu and their digital marketing agency, Outshine, also worked with Ad Studio to write and produce a podcast ad at no additional cost to their campaign.

"Within 24 hours, we received an incredibly polished and professional audio ad—recorded by Spotify Ad Studio's talent—that greatly exceeded both Outshine and Issuu's expectations," said Hillary Gillis, a Consultant at Outshine. "Not only was the quality of the work above what we had anticipated, but the creative team was great to work with — quick, courteous replies and the client could make revisions or alterations as needed (though they were happy enough with the first take). If you're looking to fold an emerging medium into your awareness strategy, I can't recommend running self-serve podcast ads with Spotify Ad Studio enough."

Their voiceover script used one of Issuu's core phrases, "Create Once, Share Everywhere," and highlighted the platform's ease of use. "Word-of-mouth testimonials carry more weight with our audiences than just being targeted with an ad," McQuade said. "With Spotify, we wanted to test how our audience resonated with podcast ads in some of their favorite shows."