Spotify boosts ad offerings in India with Ad Exchange launch

Spotify announced on April 14 that it is bringing Spotify Ad Exchange (SAX) to India, making it easier for advertisers to buy, create and measure the impact of their campaigns on the platform.

The launch follows a six-month pilot in partnership with The Trade Desk in the United States and Canada. It is part of the audio streaming platform's efforts to boost its advertising business in India, a key market for its future growth.

SAX will enable advertisers to reach the service's engaged, logged-in users through real-time auction for the first time, with full addressability and measurement capabilities, the company said.

In India, Spotify has integrated with Google DV360, The Trade Desk, and Magnite, which will now have access to the company's suite of audio, video, and display ads across music, with podcasts expected to be added soon.

The offering will give advertisers easier access to Spotify's inventory and more opportunities to reach the service's "highly-engaged audience at scale", said Arjun Kolady, Head of Sales - India, Spotify.

"Globally, over 5,000 advertisers have tested SAX, and with the official launch, our goal is to ensure that all programmatic players can plug into it. We aim to make it easier for our client and agency partners to include Spotify as a part of their programmatic always on audience strategies,” he said.

Spotify claimed that an analysis of over 350 campaigns with mixed media across various publishers, consolidated within Google Dv360, found that incorporating Spotify programmatically delivered an average incremental reach of 11.5 percent without increasing media spend.

India is a key for Spotify's expansion strategy, with significant growth in its user base since entering the market in 2019. It is now one of Spotify's top five markets by user base.

The service had about 57 million monthly active users in India and 91 million unique visitors as of December, according to industry estimates.

In February, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he was confident India and other emerging markets would become substantial businesses for the audio streaming service in the long term. This comment came as the company reported its first full year of profitability since its launch in 2008.

Note: Spotify has informed that it has delayed the launch of generative AI ads in India, following an earlier announcement that it would be launching the offering here. The story has been updated accordingly.