Anyone can use the Spotify app to listen to podcasts for free, but starting today, that experience is getting cluttered up with a bunch of new in-app ads. For years, Spotify was only known as a music streaming service. From its launch in 2008 and up through the mid-2010s, it was a destination for music and music only. Open the app, find an artist/album/playlist to listen to, and that was it.
But things quickly started to change in 2015. That's when Spotify first added podcasts to its app, and in the years since then, podcasts have only become a bigger and bigger focus. Spotify acquired exclusive rights to The Joe Rogan Experience in May 2020, launched video podcasts that July, and debuted podcast subscriptions in April 2021. It's obvious this is a niche Spotify isn't backing away from any time soon — despite how much it distracts users just trying to listen to music.
For its next big podcasting push, Spotify's doing something that's bound to annoy everyone: It's adding in-app advertisements to podcasts. Announced on January 6, the new 'Call-to-Action' cards will appear on the podcast player screen during ad breaks. Once an ad starts playing, a related CTA card appears with more information about it. If the podcast you're listening to starts playing a Squarespace ad, for example, you'll see a Squarespace banner above the playback controls and a smaller one below them — including a button to visit the website for whatever ad is playing.
Ads Will Also Appear On The Show & Episode Pages
That on its own isn't ideal, but it's also not the end of the world. Most people listen to podcasts without starting at the playback screen. In other words, these visual advertisements should be pretty easy to avoid altogether. However, that's not the only place Spotify's adding them. In addition to showing up on the playback screen, visual ads will also now appear on the show and episode pages for a podcast — pages you have to look at when browsing for a podcast to listen to.
The good news? These ads won't automatically appear for every podcast you listen to on Spotify. They're initially rolling out to "select Spotify Original & Exclusive podcasts" for this initial launch. That's bound to change over the coming weeks and months, but at least for now, only Spotify's own podcasts are getting this increased advertising treatment.
If in-app ads are generally hated by users, why's Spotify deciding to double-down on them? It all boils down to one word: Money. Spotify claims that these visual ads increase website visits 2x more compared to playing an audio ad without them. That makes advertisers more money, which in turn makes Spotify more money. It's annoying, irritating, and likely to remain in Spotify for years to come.
Source: Spotify