Spotify dives further into podcasts with the acquisition of Chartable and Podsights
The streaming giant claims that the acquisitions will “advance podcast measurement for advertisers and insights for publishers” through the technologies acquired.
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Spotify has continued its acquisition of podcast-related technologies with the announcement of the streaming service’s acquisition of podcast tech platforms Chartable and Podsights.
In an announcement posted on Spotify’s blog yesterday, the company claimed that the acquisitions would “advance podcast measurement for advertisers and insights for publishers” through the technologies acquired. Podsights specialises in a podcast advertising measurement service, providing tools and insights for advertisers to measure and scale their podcast advertising, while Chartable is a podcast analytics platform that provides promotional attribution and audience insight tools to help publishers grow their following.
While Podsights’ technology will initially be used to “help advertisers understand how podcast ads drive actions that matter to their businesses”, Spotify intends to eventually expand upon these measurement capabilities in order to encompass its whole range of offerings, including audio ads within music, video ads, and display ads.
Chartable’s audience insight and promotional tools, SmartLinks and SmartPromos, will be integrated into the streaming giant’s podcast distribution service Megaphone. The tools join the recent acquisition of Whooska’s broadcast-to-podcast technology in the expansion of publisher tools available on Megaphone, which already provides a suite of monetisation tools for Spotify’s podcast creators including Streaming Ad Insertion, podcast ad buying through Spotify Ad Studio, and the Spotify Audience Network.
Spotify is currently working on a slew of different initiatives, with CEO Daniel Ek sharing that superfan monetisation would be the “next wave of growth in the music economy”, telling investors in a call that “The evolution here will be about unlocking through superfans. That’s where the real dollars comes in. And that was always the music business to begin with.”
Plans for a possible new Spotify premium tier named “Platinum” reportedly include several new features including ad-free original & exclusive (O&E) podcasts, higher quality audio, sound optimisation, DJ tools, and listening statistics. Surveys were reportedly conducted where Spotify asked users to rate how much they agree or disagree with the statement “I would be interested in this plan” if those features were to be included in Spotify’s Platinum tier.
