Small Business Advertising

Resources to help grow your small business with Spotify ads

Dear small business owners, we hear you

We know from experience that small business advertising requires a lot of patience. Whether advertising in local newspapers or on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, it’s tough to cut through the noise and raise your business profile.

But Spotify can help.

Using our self-serve advertising studio, you can create ads that suit your budget and accurately target your intended audience when they’re plugged into the Spotify platform.

We tackle the unique challenges owners face when it comes to marketing their small business: Our self-serve ads manager, Ad Studio, makes audio advertising as simple and as accessible as possible. Here’s what you can expect:

Lack the staff, budget, or time to develop marketing expertise? Advertising with Spotify is one of the best strategies for promoting your business when working with limited resources. Our self-serve advertising platform is designed to be fully operational by small teams who don’t have extensive audio advertising experience. No need to spend endless hours learning—Spotify makes it easy to get your ads in front of listeners fast.

Feel like you’re drowning in a sea of other businesses? With so much competition out there, it can be hard to cut through the noise. Spotify Ad Studio is optimized for small business advertising in a way that helps increase visibility, generate quality leads, and drive targeted traffic down the sales funnel.

What’s the optimal strategy to get the most bang for your buck? Spotify allows you to target your audience by demographics, interests, device, and—of course—listening habits. Small business advertisements compete less for attention on audio—they play one at a time, at the right time, when listeners are already immersed. Whether you want to target music playlists or a favorite local podcast, we can help you reach your tribe.

Building a pipeline of successful ad campaigns is vital to the success of any small business marketing strategy. But it’s important that you maintain clear and consistent messaging. When you advertise business services and products with Spotify, you’ll have access to a self-serve ad platform that’s designed to maintain consistency across your campaigns, via one easy-to-use dashboard.

Content—whether editorial, a social media post, or an ad—helps to create a brand’s personality. Spotify Ad Studio gives you everything we think you’ll need to manage and craft a tone of voice, and speak to your target base in a way they’ll be familiar with. Choose from our team of professional voice actors to find the perfect match for your audience, then send us the script, and we’ll do the rest.

The world of advertising can be fast-paced and cutthroat. Spotify keeps on top of the latest industry trends to ensure its clients are among the first instead of the last to innovate. No matter how small your budget is, we can help you stay ahead of the competition and advertise your small business effectively.

Outsourcing any of your marketing activities comes with an inherent risk and trusting someone to deliver on their promises can feel like a lottery. Sign up to Spotify Advertising and take control of your own small business marketing campaigns, knowing you're in the capable hands of a global brand that’s committed to elevating small businesses through affordable audio ads.

Consumers expect high-quality ads. This means that even small businesses with tighter budgets need to meet the same production value as large multinational corporations. If you lack the resources or the experience to reach that level, it can reflect poorly upon your brand. Spotify Ad Studio offers one of the most intelligent and user-friendly ad platforms for small businesses—as well as that professional touch, without the high costs.

Why Ad Studio for small business advertisers?

Spotify Ad Studio, our self-serve ad platform, makes it easy for small-and-medium-sized businesses to create compelling ads that reach the audiences they care about.

Spotify ads drive incremental reach and audience attention.

  • 20%+

    Incremental weekly reach

    Ad-supported Spotify provides 20%+ incremental weekly reach to all other media formats on average.1

  • 51%

    Pay more attention

    Over half of Spotify listeners pay more attention to ads on Spotify than other platforms because they’re more relevant or tailored to them.2

Spotify Ad Studio allows you to run your own campaigns, or you can enlist the help of our dedicated Spotify team to show you the ropes. Our platform is constantly being updated and tweaked to suit the unique needs of advertising for small business.

To get started on a campaign, simply supply us with a script and choose from a range of professional in-house voice actors who will help you convert your words from concept into reality. We make it easy to create high-quality ads, quickly and affordably.

Invest in your business’s future and leverage the power of one of the fastest-rising entertainment mediums today: audio.

Audio advertising: the facts

Digitally streamed audio is one of the most consumed forms of media in the world, with podcasts leading the charge. For brands, this provides valuable opportunities to reach an immersed audience, driving engagement and revenue.

Ad formats for small businesses

AUDIO

Audio Ads

Reach active listeners on any device, in any environment, throughout the day. Audio ads are served between songs while there are no distractions — which means listeners are focused on what you have to say.

Learn more
VIDEO

Video Ads

Tap into industry-leading viewability. Video ads are only delivered during a listening session when the user is actively browsing through the catalogue to discover music and podcasts. Which means your ad is guaranteed to be seen and heard.

Learn more
Podcasts

Podcast Ads

Turn podcast listeners into your customers. Advertise in top shows. And reach engaged listeners across the Spotify Audience Network.

Learn more

Drive awareness, sales, and foot traffic

Whether you’re introducing a product, promoting a seasonal offer, or launching in a new market, Spotify can help you capture the attention of your customers—and find new ones.

Spotify allows local businesses to drill down beyond the basic demographics and reach their audience based on their listening habits, and their specific zip code.

Our audience network uses proactive, real-time metrics to let you tailor your ads according to your audience’s daily listening habits. So you can fine-tune your message for early risers, night owls, or listeners battling the rush-hour.

You’ll have the tools to target your audience wherever they are and whenever they’re listening. Develop a laser-targeted approach to your small business marketing plan with Spotify Ad Studio.

Make your ad dollars count

Audio and video campaigns on Ad Studio start at $250. Our intuitive, self-serve tools make it easy to control and optimize your budget throughout your campaign.

Our goal is to help you get the most out of advertising with Spotify, with a flexible pricing system to suit all budgets. Spotify’s audio advertising offers creative freedom at an accessible price.

Learn about pricing

Reach more listeners near you

Connect with Spotify's millions of listeners worldwide—or just the folks in your local area—across demos, interests, devices, and contexts.

Spotify’s approach to advertising gives you insight into the listening habits of millions. Target entire countries, cities, or just the people who share the same postcode as your business. No matter how wide you want to cast your net, you can easily tailor your small business advertising campaign according to your needs.

Learn about audience targeting

Create audio ads for free

It’s no big deal if you don’t have a creative team or if you’ve never made audio ads before. You can create custom, professionally-recorded audio ads for free right in Ad Studio.

You have the freedom to tailor your message as you see fit with Spotify Ad Studio—and you don’t need an entire creative team or a sound booth to do it. Our creative service allows you to upload your finished file or create your audio on the platform. In a matter of minutes, you’ll have produced your first audio ad.

Not happy with the first version? Request changes free of charge. We’ll work to get your revised ad back to you as soon as we can. There’s no faster way to make your small business ad-ready.

Create with Spotify

Make a sound investment with digital audio

Ad Studio’s campaign reporting dashboard provides real-time insights into essential KPIs for small businesses, like reach, frequency, ad delivery, and audience engagement.

Metrics are crucial for defining the success or failure of your advertising campaign. Whether you want to increase engagement on social media, or make contact with more people in your local area, you can track it all with real-time insights.

Our dashboard lets you easily search for what people are listening to, when they’re listening, and whether they’re listening to your ad all the way through. Get the data that matters most and start making smarter marketing decisions today.

Learn about ad measurement

Small business advertising FAQs

Still got questions? Here are the answers to some of the most common questions about Spotify Ad Studio.

We get it. Local stores are more interested in reaching people on their doorstep. With Ad Studio, you can make sure your ads are served only to listeners in your local area, whether they are part of the local community or just passing through. Simply set your parameters based on zip code and rest assured your ad will be reaching the right people, at the right moment.

You don’t need to be a marketing whiz to get the most out of Spotify. Our self-service advertising platform is designed for small business owners and entrepreneurs who may be approaching the idea of marketing for the first time. Create your own ad within the platform using our tutorials for free. If you don’t yet have the confidence to take the reins of your own campaign, check out Spotify's Advertising Academy to become trained on how to use the platform.

Get your advertisements up and running in a matter of minutes. With support options every step of the way, there’s no easier solution than Ad Sudio, Spotify’s small business advertising platform.

You can you start an advertising campaign on Spotify for as little as $250 and create your first ad for free. With this much you can create a high-quality ad without any training, and get access to our team of audio advertising gurus. You’ll also have free production tools, a library of background music, professional audio mixing, and a team of talented voice actors at your disposal.

It’s important to note that there are no standardized costs for how much an ad spot will cost within a podcast or a music playlist. Instead, ad spots operate using a bidding system.

The Spotify Ad Studio dashboard lets you control your bid cap for each ad. If your ad isn’t running, it shows there’s too much competition at any given time to accommodate your bid. Check out our pricing for more information.

In addition to what you advertise, where you advertise is also a reflection of your brand. At Spotify, we constantly refine our policies, the technology we use, and the people we work with to create a safe space for our advertisers to promote their unique brand messaging.

Our teams review existing content and work with major industry bodies to ensure high advertising standards within the digital audio space remain upheld. Moreover, you have full control over when and where your ads are served. Visit your advertising dashboard to get the latest details on your ads, their performance, and where they’re set to run.

Plan your Q4 media strategy

No matter how you celebrate, we all have a seasonal soundtrack. And we already know your audience is listening — three in four Spotify ad supported listeners stream holiday music during the festive period. We’ll help you reach your audience while they’re tuned in this season.
Learn about holiday planning

Resources for small business advertisers

Hear how businesses of all sizes succeed on Spotify

Ready to get your message heard?

Your audio campaign is a click away with Ad Studio, Spotify's self-serve ad platform.
Sources
1-2: Spotify & Kantar: TNS Research, US Age=16-64, 2020