Spotify to inject targeted ads into exclusive podcasts

Spotify will inject targeted ads into Spotify-only podcasts. This only concerns episodes that users stream and not downloaded episodes. As a result, advertisers know for sure that listeners have heard the ads.

Spotify can personalize its ads based on what it knows about the user, including gender, age and listening habits, the company reports. The Swedish streaming service calls the technology Streaming Ad Injection. In addition to knowing whether users have heard the ad, Spotify also measures whether users take action in response to the ad. How that happens is not clear.

The ads will only be in podcasts that creators put exclusively on Spotify. That’s a small minority of the podcasts that are on Spotify, as many podcasts also publish on other platforms. Spotify doesn’t use the technology for those podcasts. The streaming service has had a free plan since its inception, with users hearing ads between songs.