Spotify’s marketing chief discusses the streamer’s self-serve ad ambitions

In June, Spotify confirmed it was testing a feature that would allow labels to pay to have their artists’ music featured more prominently.

Now, Spotify’s marketing chief, Seth Farbman, has shared the streaming giant’s ambitions for the platform.

Telling the Wall Street Journal the feature is designed to help musicians, labels and all marketers, Farbman said:

“There’s (also) a whole series of different audio ads. We’re working on, for small- and medium-sized businesses, a sort of turnkey self-serve (audio and ad platform).”

Once out of beta, Ad Studio, the targetable audio ad platform, will feature a display banner and see 15 and 30-second ads play in-stream on Spotify’s free tier.

Seth Farbman revealed the most popular ad unit for brands and bands:

“I think it’s still sponsored sessions—this half-hour brought to you by (an advertiser),” he said. “We don’t want to hit you with like 90 ads like radio does. Increasingly, we’re doing things like sponsored playlists, and some of the original content we create we have been sponsored by brands.”

Seth Farbman touched on how Spotify uses data when talking to corporate sponsors:

“It’s allowed us to segment the audience around behaviours that weren’t just music behaviours. If you just finished your workout, we can deliver an ad that may have specifically to do with replenishing the body from your workout. It allows us to hyper target in that moment in time.”

“We built and launched Spotify for Artists, so an artist can see who their fans are, and where they’re located so they can plan tours based on where superfans are.”

Spotify’s corporate ambitions are a necessary feather in its cap as its prepares for an imminent IPO. Rumoured to happen as soon as September, it would mean Spotify registers its shares onto the public market, skipping an initial offer to current investors.

Spotify was valued in May 2017 at $13 billion in anticipation of the possible IPO.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.