DIY: The benefits of self-serve advertising

The world is full of self-service solutions meant to make our lives easier, from gas stations and grocery checkouts to airport kiosks and ATMs. With no need to wait in long lines or track down a customer service agent, these tools help people save time and money—and take control of their own needs.

Today, self-service is available for more than just filling the tank or depositing paychecks—brands of all sizes can enjoy the same kind of convenience when it comes to their advertising campaigns.

Read on for a breakdown of the standout benefits of self-serve advertising for your business.

What is self-service advertising?

Essentially, self-service advertising tools use automation to help you—as a business owner—or your sales representatives, sales teams, and ad ops teams buy and manage campaigns. These platforms give brands and small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) the tools they need to build and customize their own ads with ease.

For small businesses on a budget looking to launch their first ad campaign, self-service advertising platforms are a great way to get started—and there's no need to hire a pricey firm or consultant to get those first ads out the door.

What are the biggest benefits of self-serve advertising?

Let's unpack some of the most notable benefits of self-serve advertising:

1. Set the budget that's right for you

À la carte advertising solutions can be expensive. Self-serve ad platforms, on the other hand, are often easier on your budget. Many also have built-in tools for managing and optimizing the amount you spend.

With Spotify Ad Studio, you can launch an advertising campaign starting at just $250. You can also manage your budget by setting bid caps for your goals. If your goal is to drive impressions, you can specify the maximum you want to spend to win those impressions. This way, you'll more easily stay within budget, and you can always adjust as needed.

2. Customize ad creative to your needs

Creating ads is easy with self-service ad platforms. Just like you might customize a meal on a food delivery app, you can pick and choose creative that tells your brand's story—letting you launch an ad in mere minutes.

With Ad Studio, you also have access to free production tools like background tracks, audio mixing, voice actors, and calls-to-action. You can choose from our assets, upload your own, or use a combination of both.

3. Use automation to your advantage

While a self-service advertising platform requires some input, it also does a lot of the legwork for you. To streamline the advertising process, simply set your parameters and set your campaign free.

With audio ads, for instance, you can choose from ad rotation options like:

• Even rotation. Ads within a campaign rotate evenly and randomly.
  
  
• Sequential rotation. Ads within a campaign roll out in a certain order.
  
  
• Weighted rotation. Ads rotate based on their assigned weight or value.
  

In other words, instead of manually launching and pulling ads, you can save time—and boost campaign effectiveness—by automating distribution.

4. Reach your ideal audience with multiple targeting options

Digital audio ads aren't one-size-fits-all. They should speak directly to your target audience and reach listeners where they're already active. This is especially important for small businesses looking to get in front of local or niche customers.

That's why Ad Studio enables advertisers to use customized targeting options. For example, you might want to reach audiences based on their interests, age, location, language, or even context—like when they're cooking, working out, or studying.

For inspiration, look at data storage company Iron Mountain: They targeted business decision-makers between the ages of 25 and 60 with Spotify's audio ads, grabbing audience attention and driving traffic to their website.

5. Optimize campaigns for better results

With self-serve ad platforms, you can optimize your advertising strategy in real-time to improve results.

For instance, you can easily track metrics like impressions, reach, spend, clicks, and conversions for each ad and target audience. From there, you can adjust your strategy accordingly and test new ideas. Is one of your CTAs performing better than another? Implement it across more ads. Ready to experiment with a new format? Set aside a small budget to try it out and measure results.

As an example of this type of trial and error, consider healthcare services company TherapyChat's campaign. They tested different formats and ultimately found that personal, testimonial-style content was most effective for increasing awareness. With their adjusted ads, TherapyChat drove consistent traffic to their site and increased time spent with their brand.

Long story short: Self-service ad platforms let you have full control over ad sales—so you can build the right campaigns for your ad objectives and keep growing your business reach.

Ready to reap the benefits of self-serve advertising with Spotify? Discover more about Ad Studio here.