Spotify, which has assertively strengthened and promoted the advertising opportunity of its free-listening service over the past year, today announced the expansion and official launch of programmatic buying across the company’s 59 markets, serving 70-million listeners.
Spotify is partnering with programmatic pioneer AppNexus, ad-tech company Rubicon Project, and buy-side platform The Trade Desk to execute the private buying marketplace. Advertisers have 15- and 30-second audio spots at their disposal. Real-time bidding is supporting.
In an email to RAIN News, “Les Hollander, Spotify Global Head of Audio Monetization, said: “We have now have added audio to our premium programatic inventory suite. It will provide advertisers the ability to deliver ads in real-time to users world wide. Agencies and advertisers now have the ability to reach our users programatically in multiple listening environments and moments such as at work, on the go, exercising, or at home.”
Spotify’s Big Data operation is woven into the platform as a key value. Advertisers can access the company’s first-party understanding of users, with targeted segments including the basics of age, gender, and location, in addition to language and a range of behavioral segments that Spotify has carved out across brand verticals. The first-party information, culled from user input on the platform, is supplemented by third-party data providers. Spotify had already offered advertisers daypart segmenting, device-specific delivery, and retargeting/sequential messaging.
Spotify calls today’s release “one of the most diverse programmatic offerings in the market, now expanding across display, video and audio, with industry-leading viewability topping 95%.”