According to Edison Research, more than three-quarters (76%) of people in the U.S. over the age of 12 listen to digital audio at least once a month.¹ As one of the world's most popular streaming subscription services, Spotify has 626 million global monthly active users (MAUs), of which more than 393 million are ad-supported.²

This massive audience is great news for advertisers. But there's one looming question: How do you identify your target audience in such a huge pool?

Whether you're seeking to cast a wide net or home in on a narrower audience—or experiment with a mix of both strategies—Spotify Ads Manager allows you to create personalized digital audio ads and multi-format campaigns to reach the right people at the right time.

In the below guide, we break down how to do this, including helpful tips and tools for both small business advertising and larger brand campaigns.

Understand the different types of target audiences

Let's start with the basics: What is a target audience, anyway—and why is it important?

A target audience is a specific group of people advertisers hope to reach. While target audiences can get super specific, they usually start at a high level, with the following broad categories:

• Demographics like age, location, and job

• Interests like sports, politics, or fashion

• Behaviors like online shopping habits, mobile device usage trends, and podcast listening practices

• Context like when and where they consume content—for example, while cooking, working out, studying, partying, or traveling

Each of these attributes says a little bit about who your target audiences are. And the more you learn about them, the more you understand their listening, viewing, and buying behaviors—and the types of ads they're most likely to enjoy.

Understand your audience's behavior across channels

The first step is to analyze what you know about your current customers. Check analytics from channels like your website, social platforms, and email newsletters to see which demographics your customers tend to fall under and which types of content they engage with most frequently.

You can also use this data to better understand how your customers behave online. Do they make frequent e-commerce purchases? Do they prefer audio or video content over text-based articles? Do they favor mobile or desktop devices? Use this information to build a comprehensive view of your target customer.

Still unsure about what your customers want? Just ask them.

Send out email surveys or gather information from sign-up forms on your website. For example, you might ask:

• Where are you most likely to use our product or service?

• How many hours a day do you spend on your mobile device?

• How important is sustainability to you?

• How do you prefer us to contact you?

It may also be worth taking a look at the kinds of people who buy from your competitors and respond to their content. Are they similar to your most loyal customers? Or are your competitors tapping into a key demographic you're still missing out on? You can conduct a competitive set analysis to find gaps in your strategies and get a clearer picture of audience behaviors across your industry.

How to find a target audience for your business on Spotify

After you identify target audiences, you need the right tools and resources to grab their attention. That's easy to do with Ads Manager.

No matter the size of your business or brand, Ads Manager can help you get campaigns up and running in as little as 48 hours. What's more, you can use data-driven audience targeting tools to find your people at just the right moment—and figure out how best to reach them.

Spotify's vast and engaged audience offers a prime opportunity for businesses to connect with potential customers. Not only do multi-device users stream Spotify for up to two hours per day,³ but visual content is on the rise, too: Time spent with video on Spotify increased 48% year-over-year from 2022 to 2023, mostly driven by video podcasts and Gen Z's love for the format.⁴

Here are three ways to use Spotify's digital advertising tools.

1. Use contextual targeting.

Reach listeners with audio and video ads that match the content they're already enjoying and the moment they're already in.

Thanks to Spotify's logged-in audience, we can gauge how and when people stream audio content throughout the day. For example, we understand which genres and formats they're engaging with at certain times—and which devices they're using, including smart speakers, gaming consoles, and smartphones. That might be part of the reason why, in 2023, all Spotify ad formats saw a lift in metrics like Brand Awareness and Ad Recall, with Video Takeover, Sponsored Sessions, and Audio Ad formats leading the pack.⁵

Take Contiki, a group travel company. The brand successfully leveraged Spotify's contextual advertising capabilities to reach its target audience of 18- to 35-year-olds in the UK. By crafting an immersive audio-video campaign featuring user-generated content and curated soundscapes, Contiki was able to connect with listeners in relevant moments, resulting in significantly higher Engagement and Click-Through Rates (CTRs) that exceeded industry benchmarks.

2. Get in the Gen Z mindset.

If you're investing in digital audio advertising, you can't forget about two valuable audience segments: Gen Z and Millennials. Gen Zs in particular are turning to Spotify to discover new content. In fact, in the first half of 2023, Gen Z listened to more than 560 billion songs and more than 3 billion podcast episodes—a 76% increase over the year before.⁶

What's more, Zs on Spotify are engaged and use the platform to dig deep into culture—91% of Gen Z users say they use Spotify to dive deep into the music and podcasts they love.⁷

Advertisers have a valuable opportunity to reach these hyper-engaged audiences with context-driven targeting and personalized messaging that fits right into their experiences.

For example, VeraLab, an Italian beauty brand, successfully appealed to Gen Z and young adults with an innovative Spotify campaign for their new suncare line. By leveraging audio ads paired with Canvas looping visuals, VeraLab created an immersive, multi-sensory experience that resonated strongly with younger audiences. The campaign's use of trending audio techniques like ASMR, combined with visually engaging content, proved highly effective—resulting in a 95% Completion Rate and a CTR double Spotify's internal benchmark.

3. Continuously test and optimize.

Audience targeting isn't a one-and-done task—it's an ongoing process. As markets shift, behaviors change, and more data emerges, it's important to try new targeting tactics to find the sweet spot with your listeners.

With Ads Manager, you can track real-time reporting metrics like unique reach, frequency, video views, completion rates, and clicks. This way, you can see which ads are resonating—and which targeting strategies are driving the best performance.

IONOS, a web-hosting company, demonstrated the power of continuous testing and campaign optimization in a recent campaign on Spotify. By launching two separate campaigns—one focused on Impressions and another on Clicks—IONOS was able to leverage Spotify's full-funnel capabilities. The brand's approach of repurposing existing creative assets across audio and video formats allowed for efficient resource allocation while maintaining message consistency. The campaign achieved CTRs significantly exceeding Spotify's benchmarks for both audio and video formats.

In 2024, brands have more opportunities to expand their reach and win over potential customers with engaging ads than ever before. They just need the right tools to help them get their message across.