Spotify Audience Network

Leading programmatic podcast advertising network leveraging Spotify's first-party data and massive listener base to dominate audio ad targeting

The Spotify Audience Network (SPAN) is Spotify's programmatic audio advertising marketplace, launched in April 2021, that allows advertisers to reach podcast listeners across both Spotify-original content and a growing network of third-party podcast publishers. SPAN enables advertisers to buy podcast ad inventory programmatically, leveraging Spotify's first-party listener data to deliver targeted audio ads based on demographics, interests, listening behavior, and contextual signals — without relying on cookies. SPAN represents a significant evolution in podcast advertising by bringing programmatic buying capabilities to a historically direct-sold, manually-booked medium. Advertisers can access inventory through Spotify's self-serve Ads Manager platform or via programmatic channels, with dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technology enabling real-time targeting and measurement. The network aggregates supply from Spotify's owned-and-operated shows as well as independent podcast publishers who opt into the network, dramatically expanding reach beyond Spotify's own content library. In the AdTech ecosystem, SPAN occupies a unique position as both a walled garden (leveraging Spotify's proprietary first-party data) and an open marketplace for podcast inventory. It competes with traditional podcast ad networks like Acast, Megaphone, and iHeart's network, while also challenging broader audio DSPs. As podcast advertising continues its rapid growth trajectory, SPAN has become one of the most significant programmatic audio platforms globally, benefiting from Spotify's scale of over 600 million monthly active users and its aggressive podcast content acquisition strategy.