

Before, advertisers would have needed a direct relationship with the Spotify team and a sizable budget to advertise on its podcast network. The company is also soon launching support for podcast ad buying in Spotify Ad Studio, its self-serve channel now live in 26 global markets. Spotify said the expansion is only one way it’s working to make it easier for advertisers to reach the podcast listener base on its platform. Spotify says the rate will be visible to participating creators in the money tab of their Anchor dashboard, and at this time the rate is a $13 RPM.


But this detail isn’t mentioned on the website which presents the ad options to Anchor creators. Instead of taking a percentage revenue share from advertiser payments, Anchor creators who are part of the Spotify Audience Network will receive a flat rate RPM (revenue per thousand listeners), the company told TechCrunch. Megaphone publishers saw fill rates increase by over 10% in June and CPMs increase by over 40%, Spotify claims. Meanwhile, when it added Megaphone inventory to the Spotify Audience Network, it increased advertiser reach by 30%. Many are first-time podcast advertisers, like Saks Fifth Avenue. Though the company today declined to say how many total podcasts are participating in the marketplace, it said the total has risen by more than 50% since launch, and about 4x more advertisers are now running ads on the network. The Spotify Audience Network has already launched in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, where it now powers advertising across Spotify’s shows and other third-party podcasts, like those from The Wall Street Journal and ViacomCBS. It seemed that Spotify may have chosen to prioritize the building out of this larger ad marketplace, rather than working on sponsor outreach for smaller shows. The debut of the Spotify Audience Network, however, put that report into perspective. Instead, Spotify itself was found to be the main sponsor for Anchor advertising to date. The news had shortly followed an investigative report by The Verge, which found that Anchor was struggling to find sponsors for smaller podcasters, as it had promised to do. The company described the new platform as a potential game changer for the world of podcast monetization, as it would give advertisers tools to reach the Spotify audience of hundreds of millions. Support for Anchor had been previously announced when Spotify first unveiled its plans for the Spotify Audience Network back in February during its “Stream On” live event. Today, the company is launching access to the Spotify Audience Network to creators who use its Anchor podcast publishing tool in the U.S. Earlier this year, Spotify introduced its new audio advertising marketplace, the Spotify Audience Network, which allows advertisers to reach audiences across Spotify’s ad-supported music and original and exclusive podcast programs, as well as third-party podcasts from Megaphone publishers, all in one place.
