Spotify has just announced the acquisition of Podsights and Chartable. The purpose of the operation is to improve podcast measurement for advertisers and provide insights for publishers. Podsights is a podcast advertising measurement service, while Chartable is an analytics platform that uses promotional attribution and audience perception tools to help publishers learn about and grow their audience.

Recent research by Advertiser Perceptions points out that measurement and attribution remain the biggest challenges for podcast advertisers. With the merger of the two companies, Spotify will expand its set of tools to facilitate the transformation of insights into actions. The expectation is to increase the listener base and improve business.

Sean Creeley, CEO of Podsights, says that Podsights and Spotify share the same belief. “All big media ecosystems need big measures to thrive.” Khurrum Malik, head of marketing for Spotify's advertising business, points out that many advertisers have shifted more budgets to podcasts. “They are telling us that to increase their investment in the category, they need more measurement and more insights.”

 

Malik says the company hopes the Podsights team will help accelerate and improve measurement for podcast advertisers around the world. “Better measurement will benefit the entire ecosystem and we can't wait to get started”, he ponders. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Spotify had 3.6 million podcasts on the platform (in the third quarter, there were 3.2 million).

The company already acquired Australian-based podcast technology platform based in Australia in December 2021 and podcast discovery platform Podz in June 2021. By November 2020, Spotify had already incorporated Megaphone, an advertising and podcast publishing, for $235 million. Other companies acquired include Gimlet Media and Anchor, for $343 million, in February 2019, Parcast and The Ringer.

The consultancy eMarketer points out that annual digital audio advertising revenue in the US is expected to reach close to US$ 8 billion by 2025. Of this total, US$ 2.7 billion (R$ 14 billion) will go to podcast advertising. For Spotify, the next step in ensuring growth is demonstrating the impact of audio advertising through innovations in measurement and insights for publishers.