Spotify hires hundreds to increase ad sales

Spotify plans to hire hundreds of employees to boost its ad sales in Europe and elsewhere, as the music streaming service looks to boost revenue from customers who don’t pay a monthly fee. But they make up the bulk of its user base.

“We are increasing our commercial advertising workforce by more than 70 percent in Europe, Australia and Canada,” said Lee Brown, the company’s head of advertising.

He added: We are investing in our advertising activity. As for the long-term strategy, I think advertising days are now less than 10 percent of our total revenue.

Spotify also hired an advertising industry executive with 25 years of international experience to lead international sales, without giving his name.

The company, which generates income from paid subscriptions and by posting ads to non-paying users, has seen its advertising activity return to growth this year after being stymied by the pandemic.

Of the 365 million monthly active users, 210 million are supported by ads. This generates about 12 percent of its total revenue.

Advertising generates revenue for the company. It also helps reduce costs. This results in fewer songs being played. This reduces the amount of commissions that must be paid.

The increase in podcast content helped boost advertising revenue. Podcasts attract more users, and being longer, they allow more time for ads.

The platform has as many as 2.9 million podcasts as of the second quarter. An increase of nearly 12 percent over the previous three months.

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Spotify seeks to increase revenue from ads

The company is looking to add more tools for advertisers. It makes its advertising and publishing platform Megaphone available in Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

Megaphone, which was bought by Spotify last year, provides tools for podcasters to create ads for their own shows, through which they generate income, and measure their reach.

Megaphone currently hosts about a third of the top 200 shows across Spotify and Apple. The company has spent hundreds of millions promoting its podcast business.

Its rivalry with Apple intensified after both launched paid subscription platforms for podcast creators earlier this year.

The Swedish company is expected to overtake Apple in podcast listeners for the first time this year. According for the research firm eMarketer.

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