In the quest to increase its market cap, Spotify is making significant technological changes and renovations to attract more users in 2022. It is following in the footsteps of Alphabet Company which is now valued at $1.9 trillion. Whether or not the strategies will work depends on time. Here are the renovations.
Refreshing the Spotify App Icons
Spotify had not made any app update since 2016. This year's update was the first one since then. The update focused solely on the icons, making the new ones bolder. If you see the new and old ones side-by-side, you will be able to tell the difference. The size of the new icons is 16px and 24px, and they will remain so for now.
The bigger size is meant to enhance the readability and simplicity of the system. Their line size was also increased by 1px for 24px icons and o.5px for 16px icons, thus making them bolder. The adjustments made to the objects of the icons were minor. Therefore, the users will still be familiar with them. Spotify intends to fill in a percentage of an icon to make it clearer when it is active. This is unlike the past, where its lines increased if the icon was active. You will notice these changes in the Spotify app before the end of 2022.
The Advertising Model
During its inception, Spotify faced significant resistance from big music labels as far as pushing ads on its platform was concerned. Therefore, it shifted and focused on accumulating as many subscribers as possible. However, according to CEO Daniel Ek, this trend has been changing and is set to change even more in 2022. The change is facilitated by alternative audio forms that Spotify is pushing, including live chats, podcasts, and audiobooks. Consequently, Spotify estimates to have more than 400 million active users per month by the end of 2022.
For Spotify and you as the advertiser to benefit from these numbers, Spotify has created a marketplace called Spotify Audience Network (SPAN). The market is unique from traditional radio because it lets advertisers target an audience considering their listening trends. Currently, SPAN is limited to only podcasts. However, there is a proposal to add the audiobooks, which will increase the marketing space for the advertisers.
Enhancing Measurability of Ads
In the past, measuring the performance of an ad was quite tricky since advertisers could not tell how many numbers they reached out to. In other worse instances, they could not even tell whether their ad reached people in the first place. However, this is not the case today. Courtesy of companies like Google, advertisers can now target and reach as many audiences as they want and measure the ad's performance using analytics. Unfortunately for audio ads, measurability is still a challenge. This is the reason behind Spotify's call-to-action cards for its ads.
The cards include phrases such as "download" and "buy now." So, if you run a podcast ad through the audience network of Spotify, the listeners will see those phrases pop up, and they can take action to either buy what you are selling or download anything you are promoting. The new feature is set to assist you as an advertiser in measuring the performance of your ad. As more people click the call-to-action button, you will know that the ad is doing well. And vice versa. If you are a listener, it will help reduce the friction. Either way, it will attract more advertisers and listeners to Spotify, increasing its market cap.
Market Expansion
Spotify is keen to increase its presence in more than 80 new countries. Most of these countries are based in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Europe. It will also introduce 36 more new languages to the platform. These changes will increase the possibility of having more than 1 billion Spotify users globally, whereby each will have an opportunity to listen to local and international music.
So, if you are a creator, you will have no limit to the audience your creation can reach. And if you are a listener, you will have myriad options of creations to listen to. Subsequently, as the number of creators and listeners grows, the Spotify market cap will also increase. Countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, where this program has already been initiated, have added many local artists to the platform. The advertisers will also have a vast audience to promote their products and services and increase sales.
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