Spotify Experiences 12% Growth YoY In Video Advertising in the US Market

As Spotify further embraces video advertising with its new ad exchange (SAX), the platform has seen an 11% year-over-year growth across all formats, and +12 on video ads in 2024 YTD (January to September). Now, video ads account for 20% of all digital ads for Spotify, according to Guideline, the single source of truth for advertising spend and pricing data, which captures actual agency investment from all agency holding companies and most large independents.

Other findings from the same period in Spotify include:

Other Ad Types Stay Steady: Ad spending on audio ads was up 11% year-over-year, while spending on digital display ads was up 3% year-over-year.

Who Is Investing?:  The top three product categories inviting in Spotify by share of spend were CPG, Technology and Retail. Wellness (+66% YoY), Pharmaceuticals (+54% YoY) and Apparel & Accessories (+38 YoY) increased their investment the most. Automotive ( -21% YoY) decreased their investment the most.

Spotify Leads: Spotify continues to lead the US digital audio market in ad revenue, while growing its market share. It’s biggest competitor’s ad revenue, Pandora, is up +2% in the year-to-date.

Alberto Leyes, Head of Product Strategy at Guideline, said: “Spotify’s SAX exemplifies how publishers are stepping up to provide advertisers with enhanced transparency across multiple types of placements in the programmatic landscape, while reducing costs and elevating control as they cut players from the supply chain.”

About Guideline

Formed in 2020 as a partnership between Scott Knoll, David Hahn, Michael lantosca, and GTCR, Guideline is the world’s most trusted authority for accurate media data and collaborative planning tools to guide your advertising decisions.

With the 2022 acquisitions of Standard Media Index and SQAD, as well as the 2023 acquisition of Mediaocean’s Lumina, the company offers a single source of truth for advertising spend and pricing data that provides unprecedented accuracy and transparency across the media industry as well as a powerful centralized media planning platform that delivers collaboration, efficiency, and analysis across multiple global media teams and agencies in one interface.

To learn more about Guideline, visit guideline.ai. Follow us on LinkedIn.

Mumbler And Spotify Are Empowering Podcasters

We’re excited to announce our partnership with Spotify to help podcasters expand their reach, engage more deeply with their listeners, and generate additional income. Since its inception, Mumbler.io’s mission has been to provide audio creators with the tools to manage their content, strengthen connections with their most dedicated listeners, and build thriving, sustainable businesses. We’re thrilled to collaborate with Spotify, a partner that shares our vision of empowering podcasters to take control of their growth and success.

Mumbler.io has become a top choice for podcasters who want to monetize their content and cultivate vibrant communities. We’re proud to see creators thriving, from emerging voices to established podcasters generating significant income. This new partnership gives all podcasters the ability to enhance audience growth with Spotify’s discovery features, bring more engaged fans into their Mumbler communities, and diversify their revenue streams beyond traditional advertising. Now, listeners will also be able to access Mumbler-exclusive podcasts directly on Spotify.

A New Path To Grow Your Podcast Audience And Business

This collaboration creates an integrated Mumblr.io and Spotify experience. Podcasters can now promote their Mumbler-exclusive episodes on Spotify to boost membership and strengthen their fanbase, offering a seamless way to engage and build community.

By synching their Mumbler.io and Spotify accounts, podcasters will be able to feature all their Mumbler-exclusive episodes on a new, dedicated Spotify page. To amplify exposure, promotional banners can be placed at the top of existing free Spotify show pages, giving podcasters more visibility and encouraging fan engagement.

Public episodes remain a powerful tool for podcasters to promote their Mumbler-exclusive content. We’ve observed that when podcasters mention their premium membership on public platforms, they often experience significant growth in their community. To enhance this, we recommend promoting paid content through shout-outs in free podcast episodes and across social media channels.

New Ways For Fans To Discover And Engage

Listeners can now discover Mumbler-exclusive content within Spotify’s platform and sign up for access through a streamlined process. Existing members will be able to link their Mumbler.io and Spotify accounts for immediate access to exclusive content. This can be done by clicking the padlock on their favorite Spotify podcast show pages.

Take Control Of Your Podcast Journey Today

At the core of our partnership with Spotify is a shared commitment to providing podcasters with new opportunities to share their voice with the world and make a living doing what they love.

We’re excited to see how the podcast creator community leverages this new integration. If you’re a podcaster ready to join Mumber.io or an existing Mumblr.io podcaster, syncing your accounts is quick and easy. Happy Podcasting!

Spotify’s The Ringer Announces New Talent Joining The Network

Spotify’s The Ringer is thrilled to announce the addition of four prominent voices to its growing talent roster. Todd McShay, Joel Anderson, Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby are joining the Ringer lineup, bringing their unique perspectives and experience to engage listeners, viewers, and readers across various topics in sports, culture, and beyond.

Quote from Spotify’s Head of Podcast Studios and Managing Director, The Ringer, Geoff Chow: “We are thrilled to welcome Todd, Joel, and Kirk to our team and to deepen our collaboration with David. We have long admired their caliber of work and look forward to bringing their expertise and enthusiasm to The Ringer.”

Todd McShay is set to launch a new audio and video podcast with The Ringer on October 22, the McShay Show. The podcast will provide in-depth scouting and analysis of the top draft-eligible players in college football. It will feature guests from The Ringer as well as across the draft, college football, and NFL landscapes. Todd plans to include mock drafts, player rankings, and coverage of the best story lines from behind college football and the NFL.

The podcast builds on McShay’s status as an NFL draft insider, as well as a college football and NFL analyst, with over two decades of experience scouting the nation’s top pro prospects. He was also an analyst at ESPN, where he contributed to SportsCenter, NFL Live, College Football Live, and ESPN Radio. He covers many of the top college football games over the past decade as a sideline analysts at ESPN and was a two-time Emmy Award-winning contributor to ESPN’s College GameDay. Todd is already a regular guest on The Ryen Russillo Podcast.

Joel Anderson will provide perspective on the intersection of sports and culture across audio/video and written content with the goal of challenging conventional narratives. He is a respected journalist and commentator, and was most recently staff writer at Slate. Before that, h was a senior writer at ESPN and a senior national reporter at BuzzFeed. Anderson hosted Seasons 3 (murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.), 6 (focus on LA Riots), and 8 (Becoming Justice Thomas) of Slow Burn – with Slow Burn 8 reigning Pod of the Year.

Kirk Goldsberry will bring his unique blend of NBA analysis, data visualization, and reporting to The Ringer’s basketball coverage across the web, audio, and video. He is a New York Times bestselling author and a leading expert for the San Antonio Spurs and as the lead analysts for 2016 USMNT basketball, won gold at the Rio Olympics. He was also a staffer writer at Grantland and ESPN. As a professor, he has held positions at Michigan State University, Harvard, and the University of Texas at Austin, where he currently teaches.

David Jacoby will be the new co-host of The Mismatch, a Ringer Podcast focused on the NBA, along with long-time Ringer co-host Chris Vernon. Jacoby will continue to co-host Food News alongside Juliet Litman. He is a longtime producer, host and media personality deeply rooted in sports commentary and pop culture. 

Best known for co-hosting Jalen & Jacoby with Jalen Rose, Jacoby is a dynamic voice who blends sharp analysis with an authentic connection to his audience. Having built a career that spans from producing hit shows at ESPN, being a significant contributor to Grantland and hosting his own successful podcast, this reunites Jacoby with Simmons.

Immediate Media Co Joins Megaphone And The Spotify Audience Network

Immediate Media Co, the special interest content and platform company, has announced a partnership with Spotify’s Megaphone to host its award-winning podcast portfolio. From March 2023, Immediate Media’s podcast shows will be hosted and monetized through Spotify’s enterprise podcasting platform, Megaphone.

Megaphone is the industry-leading podcasting platform for enterprise publishers and professional podcasters globally as it offers a comprehensive set of tools that enable publishers to publish, monetise, and grow their podcast businesses. With 489 million MAUs, Spotify is the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service. In the UK, Spotify reaches more than half of the online population.

As the UK’s leading publisher podcast producer, Immediate’s output includes the HistoryExtra podcast – which recently celebrated 200 million downloads – Radio Times’ View From My Sofa, BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast and the BBC Good Food Podcast with Tom Kerridge.

Immediate produced 750 podcast episodes across its portfolio last year, with 12 ongoing series across its brands and 5.5 million downloads per month. Partnering with Spotify will further increase the reach and profile of Immediate’s content, driving innovation and commercial growth.

The Immediate podcast portfolio features a range of expert voices and high profile guests, alongside Tom Kerridge on BBC Good Food, BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast features Alan Titchmarsh, Monty Don, Adam Frost, Francis Tophill and Art Anderson with guests including Michael Mosley, Dame Judi Dench, Joe Lycett, and Deborah Meaden, and the BBC Good Food Health podcast which in January hosted Nutracheck’s expert nutritionists.

HistoryExtra features interviews with notable historians on topics spanning ancient history through to its historical conspiracies and events shaping our modern world. Episodes feature historical perspectives on everything from Tudor monarchs, The D-Day landings, and a 5,000 year history of tattoos.

Top names from the world of TV film and entertainment include Jed Mercurio, Helen Fielding, KSI, Letitia Wright, Louis Theroux, Stephen Fry, and Daniel Radcliffe have all joined Radio Times’ View From My Sofa.

Olive magazine’s podcast has the latest foodie trends, travel tips and hacks every week, whilst the new Top Gear series features high profile names from the world of motor sport, including Jenson Button.

Sean Cornwell, Immediate’s Platforms CEO, says: “Immediate has been consistently growing our podcast output, reach and revenues over the last few years, and our partnership with Spotify will help further accelerate this growth. The combination of our trusted brands and quality content is continually attracting new audiences and this partnership will enable us to significantly scale our proposition.”

Chelsea Bradbury, Head of UK Publisher Partnerships at Spotify says: “Over the past year, we’ve been focused on strengthening Megaphone’s already robust offering to ensure it remains the best place for publishers to understand and grow their audiences and monetise their content. We are thrilled to partner with Immediate Media and we believe these tools will play a critical role in helping them accelerate their growth.”

Spotify’s Max Cutler To Depart In May

Max Cutler – the executive who oversees Spotify’s exclusive deals with top creators like Joe Rogan, Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper and Emma Chamberlain – will leave the company in May, a Spotify spokesperson confirmed The Hollywood Reporter.

Cutler’s exit comes shortly after Spotify announced a reorganization on Jan. 23 that led to the departure of Dawn Ostroff, Spotify’s chief content and ad business officer, and the promotions of Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström to the co-president positions.

With Cutler’s pending departure, Julie McNamara will now take over leadership of Spotify’s exclusive licensing deals with creators like Rogan, Cooper and Chamberlain in addition to continuing to lead original content and major studio partnerships. Bryan Thoensen, who joined Spotify late last year from TikTok and initially reported up to Cutler, will oversee content partner strategy outside of the U.S., will be responsible for podcast monetization across Spotify’s portfolio of content. He will continue to lead The Ringer.

McNamara, Thoensen and Simmons will all report up to Sahar Elhabashi, the head of Spotify’s podcast business; Elhabashi reports up to Norström, whose purview includes Spotify’s content business.

As for Cutler’s exit, the timing appears to follow a typical four-year earn-out cycle for M&A deals, though Spotify declined to comment on the specific timing of Cutler’s situation.

Bloomberg reported Max Cutler, Spotify Technology SA’s head of audio talk shows and partnerships, is leaving the company to start a new venture.

He plans to leave on May 1 according to a company spokesperson and a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. His exit follows by nearly a month the departure of Dawn Ostroff, who oversaw content and advertising, and a subsequent reorganization of the podcast team. In a comment Tuesday, Spotify said Cutler’s departure will be accompanied by a further reorganizing of the business.

According to Bloomberg, Cutler, who founded a podcasting business acquired by Spotify, plans to start a new business, according to his memo. Details on the new venture weren’t immediately available. In a memo to staff, Cutler said he believes the “future is bright at Spotify.”

Spotify Partners With Pod Live Sport

Spotify has been announced as the lead sponsor for Pod Live Sport, the UK’s inaugural Sports Podcast Festival taking place at Kings Place, London on February 8th – 12th 2023.

Among the line-up are an array of sporting legends and award-winners, with Premier League icons Ben Foster and Ian Wright hosting live-editions of their shows, Fozcast and Wrighty’s House respectively.

Also joining the lineup of live shows will be The Rugby Pod – the most listened to rugby podcast in the world – with regular hosts Andy Rowe, Big Jim Hamilton and Andy Goode set to be joined by special guests for a Six Nations discussion.

Spotify’s leading Original & Exclusive podcasts will headline the festival, with Wrighty’s House and The Rugby Pod live on Thursday 9th February, followed by Fozcast on Friday 10th February.

This will mark Fozcast’s first ever foray into live shows, with previous guests including cult heroes Trot Deeney, Sean Dyche and Kasper Schmiechel. The pod will be bringing an exciting range of guests that include top level athletes, content creators and people with interesting stories to share.

Finally, the hosts of Wrighty’s House x Stadio x Counter Pressed – Ian Wright, Musa Okwonga, Ryan Hunn, and Flo Lloyd-Hughes – will unite at Pod Live Sport to discuss football’s big talking points in a podcasting mash-up that dreams are made of.

Ben Foster, host of the Fozcast said: “We’re absolutely buzzing to be playing our first ever live show and bringing the Fozcast live to our fans for the first time. Who knows what might happen when we try this live, so It should be eventful whatever happens.”

Alex Aden, Senior Partnerships Manager, The Ringer (UK) at Spotify said: “Sport is massive for us at Spotify, and The Ringer boasts some of the best sports podcasts in the UK. We’re looking forward to showcasing these at Pod Live and being a part of the first ever live sports podcast festival to be held in the UK.”

Fan favorites including: The Socially Distant Sports Bar, The Race F1 Podcast, The Cycling Podcast, BBC’s Fighting Talk and the Sports Podcast of the Year 2022, Morning Kombat will also be at Pod Live Sport, with fans and listeners interested in attending able to visit www.pod-live.com to buy tickets.

Spotify Adds New Bundle For Megaphone Publishers In Europe

Spotify is forging a path to modernize audio advertising in order to deliver more impact for advertisers and drive growth for creators and publishers. Over the last few years, we’ve launched game-changing ad tech like Streaming Ad Insertion, and the Spotify Audience Network, and welcomed podcast platforms Megaphone, Podsights and Chartable to the Spotify family. These advancement not only strengthen Spotify’s podcast prowess; we believe they’ll help the entire industry reach new heights.

At the same time, we are investing in growing our international ads business, specifically in Europe, growing our teams and introducing products in the region to help us achieve this goal. In the U.K., we’ve expanded our Megaphone business development team, with Chelsea Bradbury leading as Head of U.K. Publisher Partnerships.

We are continuing this momentum with the introduction of a new bundle for Megaphone publishers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The bundle grants them free access to both Chartable and Podsights – all while maintaining Megaphone’s current price points.

Here’s what this bundle means for podcast publishers:

Chartable is our podcast analytics platform that enables publishers to know and grow their podcast audiences through promotional attribution and audience insight tools.

Podsights is a leading podcast advertising measurement service that helps advertisers better measure and scale their podcast advertising.

Through this suite of offerings, publishers will be able to easily apply key analytics and measurement solutions across their entire podcast business.

Megaphone publishers in these markets will now have access to Chartable, allowing them to access unique audience insights and deeper understanding of their promotional campaigns with SmartPromos and SmartLinks.

With Podsights, publishers will be able to tap the platform’s powerful ad attribution tools. This will enable them to measure the impact of ad campaigns running in their podcasts, proving the value of their content and driving the greater advertiser market.

At this time, Megaphone clients will need to access Podsights and Chartable separately from the Megaphone platform. Over time, Spotify intends to make it possible for Megaphone users to tap into these tools directly with the Megaphone experience.

Nina Harvey, International Head of Publishers and Business Development at Spotify: “Over the past year, we’ve been focused on strengthening Megaphone’s already robust offering to ensure it remains the best place for publishers to understand and grow their audiences and monetize their content. We are laser focused on helping European podcast publishers grow their businesses and we believe these tools will play a critical role in making this happen.”

We are also thrilled to share that the UK’s Reach is the latest publisher to join Megaphone. Reach is home to more than 130 national and local media brands, reaching 80% of the UK online population. Reach’s podcasts generate an average of 1.7 million monthly worldwide downloads with a strong focus on Sports and Entertainment. Reach’s best known and most listened to weekly shows include Blood Red: The Liverpool FC Podcast, Everything is Black and White, a Newcastle United Podcast, and Pod Save The King, which focuses on Royal family news, interviews, and fashion.

Reach will be part of the Spotify Audience Network, our audio-first advertising marketplace that makes it possible for advertisers of all sizes to connect with listeners across a broad range of content on and off Spotify. Megaphone podcast publishers who have opted in to the network have seen meaningful improvement in their ability to effectively monetize their content.

Leslie Harris, Head of Digital Partnerships, 3rd Parties and AV at Reach: “We are very excited to join Megaphone and the Spotify Audience Network at a key moment in our podcast growth cycle as we gain momentum in the market. We look forward to witnessing its acceleration through this new partnership.”

Spotify And IAS Establish A Brand Safety Solution For Podcast Advertisers

Spotify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) announced a new partnership to establish third-party brand safety solution for podcast advertisers. The companies will embark on a rigorous analysis to help the industry understand the tools and resources necessary to effectively deliver brand safety in podcasting and digital audio writ large.

Ultimately, the firms intend to create the industry’s first third-party brand safety and sustainability reporting tool to bring more transparency and confidence to podcast advertising. Global media agency UM Worldwide will be part of the learning and development process as the first holding company to test this solution, ensuring that the voice and needs of advertisers are considered from the outset.

Podcast as spend has grown rapidly over the past few years alongside an influx of listening worldwide. In fact, podcast ad revenue surpassed $1 Billion in 2021 and is forecasted to almost triple to more than $4 Billion in 2024. As investment and innovation in podcast advertising has surged, so has the importance of ensuring suitability for advertisers. There are well-established brand safety guidelines and technology across the digital advertising ecosystem, most notably in video; however, these do not yet exist in audio. Creating a third-party solution for this now mainstream medium is critical to maintain advertiser confidence and continued media spend.

To solve this challenge, Spotify and IAS are embarking on a joint effort to better understand how to responsibly and effectively validate that advertiser messages are served in their intended context for podcasts. In the future, the results will be used to create a first-of-its-kind brand safety and suitability tool to aid in campaign planning, management, and reporting.

The solution will be powered by Spotify’s first-party data and verified by IAS’ independent analysis solutions based on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media’s categories and guidelines. Their initial efforts will focus on third-party content within the Spotify Audience Network.

“Spotify pioneered the digital audio landscape as we know it today and we’re excited to continue our leadership here as we rise to the next challenge: brand safety,” said Julie Clark, Global Alliance for Responsible Media’s categories and guidelines. Their initial efforts will focus on third-party content within the Spotify Audience Network.

“Spotify pioneered the digital audio landscape as we know it today and we’re excited to continue our leadership here as we rise to the next challenge: brand safety,” said Julie Clark, Global Head of Advertising Revenue Innovation at Spotify. “We are pleased to be partnering with IAS – one of the most trusted leaders in media – to give advertisers confidence that their messages are heard in the right place while further validating the contextual targeting solutions we already have in the market.”

“Partnering with Spotify and UM to develop a podcast brand safety and sustainability solution will be a transformational step for advertisers targeting the audio space,” said Yannis Dosios, Global Chief Commercial Officer at IAS. “With podcasts expected to reach more than 500 million listeners worldwide by 2024, this solution will offer advertisers more control and confidence that their messages will deeply resonate with their intended audiences.”

“Podcasts have hit the mainstream in a big way and our clients are ready to increase their investment in the space given the undeniable opportunity to connect with audiences; however, without a way to validate brand suitability across the depth and breadth of shows, they are hesitant to go all in,” said Joshua Lowcock, Global Chief Media Officer at UM Worldwide. “We’re pleased to see Spotify and IAS step up to create a brand safety solution and are ready to work with them during the building and testing phase to ensure advertisers’ needs are addressed from the start.”

CuriousCast Podcast Network Joins Spotify Podcast Platform Megaphone

Corus Entertainment’s award-winning podcast network Curiouscast announced that it will be joining Megaphone, Spotify’s enterprise podcasting platform, to host its full lineup of podcasts. In addition to hosting all Curiouscast podcasts on the Megaphone platform, Spotify will have access to select Curiouscast inventory to monetize via the Spotify Audience Network.

The Spotify Audience Network is an audio-first advertising marketplace that makes it possible for advertisers of all sizes to connect with listeners across a broad range of content on and off Spotify. Megaphone podcast publishers who have opted in to the Spotify Audience Network have seen meaningful improvement in their ability to monetize.

“Working with Spotify and Megaphone is the next step in our evolution as a network. We are excited to be working together to grow our audiences and provide for new opportunities for our advertisers both in Canada and around the world,” said Chris “Dunner” Duncombe, Director of Streaming and Podcasting, Curious/Corus Entertainment.

“Audiences worldwide are tuned into digital audio at record rates and the numbers are rising,” said Emma Vaugh, Head of Advertising Business Development & Partnerships at Spotify. “Digital audio consumption surpassed radio for the first time in Canada last year according to a recent eMarketer study. Given this growth, we’re thrilled that leading publishers like Curiouscast are leveraging best-in-class tools across both Megaphone and the Spotify Audience Network to better monetize and measure their content.”

The award-winning Curiouscast network launched in 2018 and is home to internationally recognized brands with diverse audio storytelling, including: Edward R. Murrow International Podcast Award and RTDNA winners Crime Beat (now adapted for TV on Global News and Hulu) and 13 Hours Inside the Nova Scotia Massacre; the #1 Canadian-produced music podcast, The Ongoing History of New Music; and 2020 Canadian Podcast Award winners Dark Poutine, History of the 90’s, as well as Nighttime, The Peak Daily, Escaping Denver, Marsfall, and RTNA winner Global News What Happened To.

Spotify Allows Creators in Select Markets to Publish Video Podcasts

Spotify began activating Video Podcasts for Creators on a limited basis last Fall. Now, Spotify is allowing podcasters the option to accompany their audio with visual components.

As this audience grows, Spotify is also opening up the Video Podcast capability to more creators. This was announced on April 21, 2022.

Starting today, we’re expanding Video Podcasts on Spotify to all creators in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, and the U.K. Creators will have the ability to upload their video content to Spotify through Anchor as easily as they already publish audio.

In addition, Spotify is adding new features to help set up creators for success.

New features include:

Access for everyone: Starting now, creators in these five markets can find Video Podcast uploading capabilities on Anchor’s web platform. We plan to roll this out to additional markets in the future.

Podcast Subscriptions: Spotify Podcast Subscriptions will be available for video podcasts, empowering creators to own their monetization models by creating exclusive content, gating video, and more. Stay tuned – we’re working on more monetization features to come soon.

Integration with Riverside: Now, when you embed a Video Podcast episode from Spotify, the video will play directly in the embed player wherever you placed it. It’s a great tool – whether you’re excited to share great content with friends or grow your audience.

Video Bulk-Replace: Bulk-replace allows Anchor creators to easily replace their existing audio episodes with video versions from an easy-to-use interface. Get ready for more time creating content and less time editing it.

Video Analytics: Video-specific analytics will give creators deep insights into their videos’ performance on Spotify, enabling them to better understand their audiences and publish content suited to them.

Interactive capabilities: Our interactive podcast features, like Polls and Q&A, will be available for Video Podcasts so creators can connect with and get feedback directly from their listeners.