Daily Minute Master Series – April 23, 2019

Marketing

Amazon and Google Release Free, Ad-Supported Music Streaming on Their Respective Smart Speakers

Amazon and Google announced free, ad-supported music streaming on their respective smart speakers on Thursday. That means Echo owners in the U.S. can “listen to an ad-supported selection of top playlists and stations for free with Amazon Music” even if they don’t have a Prime membership or a subscription to its paid offering, Amazon Music Unlimited. Similarly, Google’s equivalent, YouTube Music, has a free, ad-supported streaming service on Google Home and other speakers with Google Assistant. Both platforms also offer subscription services for ad-free music. Prime members have access to more than 2 million songs and “thousands of playlists and stations” while YouTube offers Music Premium for $9.99 a month and allows users to play music on demand, along with unlimited skips, replays and downloads for offline listening. News of Amazon’s plans for the service first came out last week, prompting some speculation as to if it will pave the way for more ads on voice-enabled devices.

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Advertising

Google takes baby steps to monetize Google Assistant, Google Home

Google is starting to insert paid-search ads into Assistant results on Android smartphones; it’s also starting to monetize Google Home “traffic” as well. In February, Google started testing ads in Assistant results on the phone. Then in early April, Google officially introduced ads in situations where there are web search results (vs. answers). Last week Google also decided to give Google Home smart speaker owners access to the free version of YouTube Music, which is ad-supported. The premium version without ads is $9.99 per month. The ad-supported version of YouTube Music is currently available on Google Home or other Google Assistant-powered smart speakers in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Google is exposing a subset of local listings in response to queries for local service providers on Google Home and Google Assistant. There are currently no ads returned for these queries. However, merchants must be certified through the Google Guarantee program (previously only available with Local Services Ads) or via Google partners Porch or HomeAdvisor. As the recent inclusion of ads in Assistant results on Android phones indicates, Google does intend to generate ad revenue from the Assistant and Google Home. Marketers should expect Google to test and introduce more advertising options for Assistant-powered devices by next year at the latest.

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New Google smart bidding signals coming: price competitiveness, seasonality for Shopping campaigns

Google’s automated smart bidding algorithms can take many signals into account at the time of each auction — device information, search query, location, etc. Soon, it will add more signals to that list for App and Shopping campaigns, according to a help page. Price competitiveness and seasonality will each soon be factors for Shopping campaigns. When this update rolls out, Google may optimize bids based on a product’s price compared to its auction competitors. Low prices, deals and discounts will influence automated bids. As more signals get incorporated into smart bidding, it should theoretically make the bids “smarter,” yet the issue of transparency becomes even more muddled as it becomes harder for advertisers to parse which factors are having the greatest influence on their ultimate bids and results.

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Spotify, Oracle Data Cloud Partner To Let Marketers Target Auto Buyers

The streaming music service Spotify and the technology giant Oracle are partnering to help automotive marketers more efficiently target potential car buyers. Spotify will integrate with Oracle Data Cloud to let marketers build custom audiences for car buyers for every stage of the buying cycle and across every car segment. Oracle Data Cloud’s solutions can be paired with Spotify’s first-party data to find and target potential buyers. Spotify is leaning into its natural relationship to cars, with users streaming music during their commutes and creating road-trip playlists. In fact, the company says analysis from Oracle Data Cloud duding Fata from Polk Measurement at IHS Markit found that Spotify users bought cars at a rate 26% higher than the national average in 2018.

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