Spotify introduced a new programmatic offering called Spotify Ad Exchange (SAX), which allows advertisers to reach its logged-in users via real-time auctions of its audio, video, and display formats across music, with podcast support on the way.
A programmatic ad offering provides a way for advertisers to buy and sell digital ad space using a self-serve dashboard, rather than through manual processes like direct sales or insertion orders. Prior to 2016, Spotify focused mainly on direct ad sales, which involved brands having to work with Spotify's sales team to run campaigns. Then in 2016, the company introduced programmatic ad buying for display and video ads via external DSPs like The Trade Desk. In 2018, the company introduced programmatic audio through DSPs.
Spotify also announced that it inked new partnerships with Google's Display & Video 360 and Magnite (available now), with Yahoo DSP, Adform and others coming soon. The exchange will initially be available in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico.
Additionally, Spotify made improvements to its self-serve Spotify Ads Manager platform, bringing more advanced targeting capabilities, new 1P and 3P measurement solutions, and new outcome-based objectives to help advertisers create, optimize, and measure their campaigns, including Spotify Pixel, Custom Audiences, key third-party partnerships, and a new App Installs objective.
Lastly, the company added generative AI audio ads to its ads manager, allowing buyers to generate a script, edit the draft, add voice-overs from a library of voices, and select background music.