Music streaming service spotify has launched a new programmatic ad buying program that allows advertisers to target its 70 million non paying subscribers.
From now on, personal data such as your age, gender and song choices will be made available to companies to who want to sell your their products.
“Here’s the deal: we’ve launched Private Marketplaces for our best in-class audio advertising platform on mobile, allowing access for 15 and 30-second audio spots,” said Spotify.
“This makes Spotify the first publisher to enable Deal ID/PMP access across audio inventory in a true, real-time bidding environment.”
“This is available globally across Spotify’s 59 markets. Buyers can target audiences by age, gender, genres, and playlists – all in real time”, the company added.
In short, this means that ads on Spotify are about to get very, very personal.
If you have been listening to the 'Macarea' recently don’t be surprised if you start seeing ads for package holidays to Spain!
The news comes as Spotify has changed its range of pricing plans in order to try and compete against other music streaming services, most notably Apple Music, which despite only launching just over a year ago, already has 15 million paying subscribers compared to 30 million subscribers who pay for a premium Spotify account.
How users will react to the new ads remains to be seen. However, targeted ads are part and parcel on variety range of digital platforms, Spotify will be hoping that it has no negative impact.
