Introduction
With over 574 million monthly active users globally and 28 million in the UK alone, Spotify provides access to a massive and emotionally engaged audience.
That’s a big opportunity for charities to reach supporters, prospective donors and volunteers, cost-efficiently at scale.
The power of digital audio
Digital audio and music streaming have exploded in popularity, especially among younger demographics. It lets people go screen-free, reducing fatigue from our constant device usage.
Fun facts about Spotify:
- 89% of UK adults listen to audio daily across music streaming, podcasts, radio, audiobooks and more
- Time spent listening has also steadily increased, now surpassing social media usage
- Spotify also drives unmatched engagement. Users spend an average of 2.8 hours per day streaming on the platform – more than Facebook or Instagram
- Spotify has rich user data and insights to inform campaign targeting strategies. The platform knows listeners’ demographics, interests, streaming behaviours, and more
- Spotify delivers a 6x higher ad memorability score than other audio & social channels
- 66% of people took action after hearing a Spotify ad, compared to 7-15% on other platforms
Targeting options on Spotify
You can use this data to reach people to get them interested in your charity.
Like with all digital advertising, the more you know about your current supporters, the better you can find new supporters.
You can target your audience on Spotify Ads in these ways.
Demographics:
Target by age, gender, location like any digital platform.
This works well for top level and test-and-learn campaigns.
Music genres:
Categorise audiences into fans of different music types from classic rock to K-pop to jazz based on their streaming histories.
This is great when you have an idea of the genres your potential supporters are into.
Contextual playlists:
Reach users who are listening to categorised playlist types like “Focus” or “Chill” in real time.
This lets you get your message across in relevant mindset moments.
Interests:
Build audiences based on the podcasts/music people streamed recently.
This covers topics like wellness or sports to passion-hobbies like gardening or self-improvement.
Podcast categories:
Target podcast episodes focused specifically on themes like society and culture or business.
That can get your cause in front of engaged listeners who are ready for a message like yours.
Opt-in video
Opt-In Video is a new, non-interruptive video ad format that Spotify users will encounter on the Now Playing View (NPV) while engaging with the app.
When an ad-supported listener enters the NPV while streaming music, a video ad is rendered after two seconds, replacing the audio artwork. The ad autoplays with the sound off as music continues playing, and the listener has three choices of actions to take at any point during the ad.
How to plan your charity’s Spotify campaign
Here’s what to do if you’re setting up your first Spotify campaign.
Start with awareness goals
If you’re just testing the platform, begin with an impressions or reach campaign.
This way, you can use top-of-funnel metrics to not only increase your charity’s brand awareness but also establish performance benchmarks cost-efficiently.
Plan both audio and video creative
If you can, plan to use audio ads to maximise reach. The platform is set up to engage people emotionally with the power of audio, speech and music. So plan to use these for the maximum impact.
You can either repurpose your existing radio ads or use Spotify’s audio ad creation service. You just send them your script and voiceover artist preferences, and they send you a completed ad back in as little as a few hours! It’s borderline magic.
Alongside audio, plan video to engage those actively in-app. You’ll of course need video editing capabilities in-house or via an agency or freelancer.
Test both to see what resonates with your target audience.
Continually test and optimise
Get testing!
Try new combinations of targeting options, messaging, creative and budgets.
Analyse the data to optimise delivery.
Dedicate a decent test budget
One thing you’ll definitely need is a test budget for ad spend, even if you’re running the campaign in house.
Try to allocate at least £5,000 for a 3-4 week campaign. More will get you more results and more learnings for future campaigns if you have it.
You can get away with spending less but that makes it tricky to get decent data on performance for future budget decisions. Spotify has a minimum spend of £250.
Use the Spotify pixel
Like the Meta pixel, the Spotify Pixel is a piece of JavaScript on your website that allows you to analyze the actions that listeners took after hearing your ad.
You’ll be able to see whether listeners visited your website, donated or signed up for a campaigning action on your website.
Case Study: Dementia UK’s Spotify Success
UK charity Dementia UK ran an awareness campaign across various channels including Spotify, leveraging their existing radio creative.
Platypus planned it with them and ran it for them.
The campaign reached 1.4 million unique Spotify listeners over 2.2 million times – a massive audience scale for their messaging.
The ads also drove superb engagement, with a 97% ad completion rate (the percentage of people who heard the whole ad). This far exceeded Spotify’s normal 80-90% benchmark for comparable ads – these audio ads massively resonated with Dementia UK’s audience.
The campaign was also super cost-efficient, with an exceptional CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) of only £1.88.
This low CPM got attention in other teams at Dementia UK. It made them keen to allocate budgets to their own test Spotify campaigns to emotionally engage their audience in the same way
Top tips for running your Spotify campaign
Here are some top tips to make the most of your Spotify activity.:
1. Incorporate Spotify Ads into your existing campaign media mix. Using it as a supplemental awareness channel will boost results across the board.
2. Reallocate budgets from other other audio platforms like YouTube to fund initial tests, and compare results.
3. Engage agency experts (like Platypus!) for guidance, best practices, ad creation and management.
4. Follow Spotify’s own onboarding checklist for setting up accounts, billing and access
5. Plan multiple campaign ideas across different objectives, targeting approaches and creative
6. Create simple text scripts for your initial audio ad concepts.
7. Then Spotify’s ad creation service for fast turnaround of free voice-overed ads
8. Test rigorously, frequently and in detail to determine what resonates based on robust data
9. Focus more budget behind winning combinations in a structured way
10. Continue monitoring, optimising and evolving your approach over time.
Frequently Asked Questions about Spotify Ads
Q. How much budget do I need to test Spotify?
You need £250 minimum to start, but around £5,000+ for 3-4 weeks is better to effectively gauge performance.
Q. What content length should our audio ads be?
15-30 seconds is ideal. Avoid going over 30 seconds.
Q. How often can ads be skipped?
Ads cannot be skipped on Spotify by free, ad-supported users.
Q. Can we reuse radio spots as Spotify ads?
Absolutely. Repurposing radio or even podcast reads for Spotify is totally fine as a starting point while you optimise further.
Q. How much support is in the platform?
Lots! Spotify has an intuitive self-serve Ad Studio with rich in-platform data, flexible creative development/editing services and responsive account management.
Conclusion
Spotify usage keeps growing across all age groups. So the platform is a great way for charities to drive awareness, engage supporters and increase brand awareness.
Following the strategies in this guide – testing, optimisation and increasing investment in the best results – Spotify can become a cost-effective way for charities to reach the people who need them most.
