So, they pay next to nothing for podcasts, for example, and they may be paid extra to promote or get the stream counts up on certain artists. I think all of these services are to some extent bound by revenue-sharing deals with record labels - that's the main reason these all-in music services even exist - and so one way they can increase their share of the revenue is to get you to spend more of your time listening to things that generate them more profit while not pushing you so far away from what you like that you leave the service. Like a lot of modern services, they're not fully-supported by paying customers and need to find other ways to generate revenue. Something I suspect that Spotify will never enable since users can enjoy podcasts anywhere for free.ĬTA cards will be available in select Spotify Original and Spotify Exclusive podcasts in the U.S. You know what would be even more effective? Not letting users skip over ads. “CTA cards will make it easier for you to directly discover the products and services you’re interested in without having a hard-to-remember promo code or vanity URL.” “CTA cards will appear in the app as soon as a podcast ad begins playing, and will resurface later on while you’re exploring the Spotify app, making it easier to check out the brand, product, or service you heard about while listening,” the firm explains.

But even for those people who may be interested in the ads, this sounds a bit invasive. But most people probably skip over podcast ads without thinking much about it. The idea is that finding links for the products and services that are advertised during podcasts is too difficult, and that this will drive engagement with sponsors. What Spotify is talking about is “bringing interactivity to the audio ad experience” using a system called call-to-action (CTA) cards that will appear over the Now Playing experience while an audio ad is playing. “What’s the next great frontier in audio?” Spotify asks rhetorically. In a dubious move, Spotify today issued a “call to action” for podcasters to create interactive displays ads that will appear over ad reads.

Spotify podcasts