Tuning into success: How to advertise your app on Spotify

With over 489 million monthly active users as of Q4 2022, Spotify is one of the largest music streaming platforms in the world. Not only is it a great platform for music listeners, but it is also a fantastic place for businesses to advertise their apps.

Spotify is a great advertising platform because only 42% of listeners have a Premium account, meaning the remaining 58% are exposed to ads. Whether you have a small indie app or are a large multinational corporation with an app, Spotify offers an effective way to reach your target audience with contextual ads and drive scalable app growth.

Before we explore how to make the most of this advertising channel, let’s walk through the basics.

We’ll pull the curtain back on each of these steps. But first, let’s consider the Spotify advertising process holistically.

1. Create an account

   To advertise on Spotify, you must first create an account on Spotify Ad Studio.

2. Choose your ad format

   Consider how Spotify’s selection of audio and video (and rich media!) ad formats will serve the overall KPIs of your campaign.

3. Define your target audience

   Establish the age, gender, location, interests, and behaviors of your campaign’s target audience.

4. Set your budget

   Choose either a daily budget or a total campaign budget, and set a bid for your ads.

5. Create your Spotify ad

   Keep in mind that certain ad formats must be Spotify-hosted, while others must be third-party-hosted. Make sure your creative is engaging, informative, and relevant to your target audience.

Now, let’s take a closer look at these steps to discover how to put ads on Spotify.

To advertise on Spotify you need to create a Spotify Ad Studio account, which is Spotify's self-serve advertising platform. Once your account is set up, you can create and manage your Spotify advertising campaigns.

Spotify offers various audio and video ad formats, including:

• Spotify audio ads: A maximum 30-second audio ad played between songs.
• Spotify podcast ads: Audio ads played during podcast breaks.
• Spotify video ads: Displayed as full-screen ads between songs or as skippable ads. These videos can be in Spotify’s takeover or sponsored session format.

There are also several custom ad formats you can use to advertise on Spotify:

• Sponsored playlists: Combine native ads with in-playlist media on your exclusive brand-sponsored playlist.
• Overlay: Appears when Spotify users return to the Spotify app.
• *Homepage takeover: Displays for 24 hours on the Spotify desktop home page.
• *Leaderboard: 30-second clickable banner ads.

*These formats allow rich media ads. To utilize rich media for these ads, the campaign must be implemented through a third party.

To create an effective advertising campaign on Spotify, it is essential to put thought into defining your target audience. Advertisers can target their ads based on factors such as demographic information, listening behavior, and the interests of the audience. In fact, tapping into listening behavior is one of the key targeting features of Spotify ads. Mobile marketers can also use first-party data, such as customer email lists, to create custom audiences.

A Spotify ad’s cost depends on various factors such as ad format, targeting options, and competition (the bidding system). Advertisers can choose to either set a target cost per impression (CPM) or a maximum CPM bid. The final cost of the ad is determined by the auction, which takes into account the advertiser's bid, ad relevance, and user experience.

The minimum budget for a campaign is $250, and the minimum daily budget is $1. The average cost per impression (CPM) for a Spotify audio ad is around $5-$30 but tends to sway toward the more expensive end of the range. Spotify Ad Studio includes a cost estimator tool, which you can use to get an idea of how much you’ll spend on a campaign.

Although Spotify ads tend to be on the pricier side compared to other music streaming and radio ads, you can get better value for your money when you implement a highly-targeted, strategic campaign.

Let’s take a closer look at a few successful Spotify ad examples.

Gymshark (Health and wellness)

In early 2021, fitness apparel brand Gymshark released its fitness app Gymshark Training. To promote the new app, Gymshark launched a Spotify advertising campaign. The campaign included a series of custom playlists designed to motivate listeners during their workouts, as well as paid Spotify ads.

Advertising on Spotify can clearly be a great way for apps to reach their target audience and drive brand awareness and installs. With various ad formats, targeting options, and bidding systems, businesses of all sizes can create effective campaigns on Spotify as part of their larger marketing strategy. Learn how to view your campaign performance data from all channels in one, centralized dashboard with Adjust’s Datascape. Or, learn how to develop a well-targeted audience for all of your campaigns with Adjust’s Audience Builder.