There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

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The platform has bet big on creators like Jemele Hill and Alex Cooper, but all ears are on its ad tech.

Podcast ads are going to be a more prominent part of Spotify's ads business, and that has been a huge focus for the company. 

Current challenges

While Spotify has established itself as the preeminent force in podcasting, the industry still lacks much of the infrastructure it needs to support a robust advertising business. 

• For instance, although Spotify boasts having 4.4 million podcasts on its platform, only 14% of them currently earn the company any money. 
• Other challenges, such as the complex task of bringing brand safety to audio content, also remain unsolved.
• The company needs to overcome the technical limitations holding the medium back.

Marketers attention on audio

The gradual uptick in listenership has encouraged marketers to devote a larger share of their spend to the medium. 

• In 2020, Spotify signed an advertising deal with Omnicom Media Group worth $20 million.
• In 2021, Spotify generated $215 million in ad revenue from its podcasts. 

Podcast advertising will top $2 billion this year and $4 billion by 2024, according to a May report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Despite the rise in podcast ad spend, Spotify faces a number of challenges in its quest to turn the channel into a profit centre. Last year, for instance, podcast advertising accounted for only 2% of its total revenue.

Despite these advances, one unsolved challenge still looms large: brand safety. Marketers want to know the environment their campaigns will run in, but the improvisational nature of audio makes that challenging. To tackle the issue, Spotify has partnered with Integral Ad Science to build a tool that will allow it to classify podcasts based on their content.

VP of Marketing Nancy King talks about what works and doesn’t work for the home-sharing brand.

With a potential recession on the way, many marketers are adjusting their strategy as consumers make cutbacks. But Airbnb, as a travel brand that offers a variety of prices, has not seen a pullback and is confident that its business can weather the economic turmoil.

“We see ourselves as a pretty recession-proof business given the price variability,” said Nancy King, VP of marketing. 

She noted that travel is still experiencing a resurgence following the early months of the pandemic and that many consumers will give up other things like dining out or buying things in favour of taking a trip.

However, Airbnb is expecting the current economic climate to produce some new behaviours.

• In the 2008 recession, Airbnb saw more customers turn to hosting as a way to supplement their income, and that is a trend King expects might occur again. 
• Airbnb will incorporate more hosts into its marketing this fall, she said.

Some travel experts have said that baby boomers might begin appearing in more travel ads as brands target consumers with more disposable income and flexibility amid the downturn. 

Airbnb historically been known as a millennial brand, two of their most successful ads that they've run in the last year feature boomers. The company in particular has seen its ads that feature older consumer resonate. 

Last year, the IAB released a report that showed just how much money advertisers are pumping into CTV: In 2021, CTV ad spend grew to $15.2 billion and was estimated to increase to $21.2 billion in 2022.

There are 7 things in particular performance marketers should know before testing CTV advertising:

• Resist the urge to simply repurpose Facebook ad videos. CTV creative needs to be optimised for the big screen, not for mobile devices. This means you won’t find success by using existing Facebook ad creative when building your CTV campaigns.
• Speak to your audience. Your CTV creative should showcase your product or service in action or as a solution to a problem that your target audience segment faces.
• Spend enough to get the learnings you need. When testing CTV ads, be prepared to spend a minimum of $100/flight/day.
• Get uber-specific with audience targeting. Target just about every variable.
• Lean into the power of frequency. As a rule of thumb, you should aim for at least nine ad impressions over a 30-day period.
  
• Allocate part of your overall budget for retargeting. Allocate 10-20% of your overall budget to a complementary display retargeting campaign.
• Be ready to track key performance metrics. Before launching your first CTV campaign, make sure you are prepared to keep a close eye on campaign KPIs.