Whilst video killed the radio star, Spotify Ads is currently set to put a dent in radio ad budgets, as campaigns have more precise targeting options and, in turn, more measurable results. In the UK, the platform has grown 29% in the last year alone as more and more advertisers now incorporate Spotify into their advertising portfolios.

Following on from our guide on ‘Getting Started with Spotify Ads’, we’ve put together some tips on how to measure success when running ad campaigns on Spotify Ads.

Use Top-Level Campaign Metrics

One of the major benefits of Spotify Ads over traditional radio ads is the ability to accurately measure how many unique people heard your ad, and how many times on average they’ve heard it.

Within the Spotify Ads interface, campaign engagement metrics such as total impressions, reach, cost, etc., are included as line items in the reporting section. This allows advertisers to have an accurate view of the results they are able to generate from their campaigns, and removes the ‘tug of war’ often associated with traditional advertising channels.

Combined with the refined options included in campaign targeting, these metrics will allow advertisers to see the exact volume of target customers they were able to reach with their campaigns.

UTM Tagged Links

Ads on Spotify come with a clickable/tappable button that provides a click-through-link to the advertisers website. By including UTM tracking within this URL, advertisers are able to track how this traffic is engaging with their site; giving a view of bounce rate & number of pages per session, and ultimately the volume of transactions and revenue generated via these clicks.

Spotify should be seen as an awareness channel, so focusing on engagement stats (bounce rate, time on site, pages per session, etc) is where the majority of advertisers should be prioritising their time.

Whilst creating awareness is likely to be the key objective when running campaigns on Spotify, there are ways for advertisers to place a ROAS figure on their media investments into Spotify, which we’ve outlined in the point below.

Spotify Exclusive Promotions

At the best of times, promotions are an effective method of incentivising customers to purchase your product or service. Tying in channel exclusive promotions can be an extremely effective way of measuring the impact on sales, which ultimately should be seen as the most important metric when determining the success of any marketing channel.

Where possible, when launching a Spotify Ads campaign advertisers should look to create an exclusive promotion code for the channel, and feature this within your audio ads. This way, whenever the code is redeemed, you can attribute the sale to the awareness created by the ad.

For example, a fashion retailer running a Spotify ad may mention the promo code ‘Spotify10’, giving Spotify users an exclusive 10% off their next online purchase. When the campaign ends, they can review the proportion of transactions whereby the promo was used during checkout, and attribute that revenue to the Spotify campaign, and therefore measure the ROAS.

That process should help identify the success of the campaign in terms of actual revenue & profit.