Spotify amplifies its podcast offer | WARC | The Feed

Spotify amplifies its podcast offer

Spotify will make it easier for advertisers to buy ads across all its inventory, including music and podcasts, at the same time as it is to start testing paid podcast subscriptions that will likely exclude ads.

Context 

In its recent Q4 earnings call, Spotify said it had tripled the number of podcasts on its own platform in the past year to 2.2 million and that a quarter of its 345 million monthly active users were podcast listeners. It added that having podcasts helps user growth and retention and is a positive contributor to LTV per subscriber. 

Let’s deal with the ads 

The Spotify Audience Network aims to give advertisers the ability to reach and target digital audio audiences at scale both on and off Spotify (via recent acquisitions such as Megaphone).

What about the subscription angle? 

US creators will be able to use a new feature in Spotify’s Anchor podcast creation tool to publish paid podcast content aimed at their “most dedicated fans”. This could include ad-free content as well as bonus material.

Anything else?  

Spotify is trialling video podcasts, and a new WordPress partnership will make it easier for bloggers to turn their posts into podcasts. Interactive features like polls and Q&As are also being tested, which, TechCrunch noted, offer audience participation but without the potential downsides of new audio-based app Clubhouse. And the platform is expanding into more than 80 new markets. 

Sourced from Seeking Alpha, Axios, TechCrunch