Spotify acquires Podsights and Chartable to boost podcast measurement capabilities

Spotify has acquired advertising measurement and analytics platforms Podsights and Chartable to improve podcast ad measurement on its platform. 

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Podsight’s 40 full-time employees will join Spotify as its own team while Chartable’s 11 employees join Spotify’s business and tech teams. 

Podsights will enhance Spotify’s ad measurement capabilities by allowing advertisers to better measure and scale their campaigns. And Chartable will give podcast publishers deeper insight into their audiences through more advanced attribution. 

According to a blog post, Spotify plans to extend both solutions to include the full scope of its platform, including audio ads within music, video ads and display ads. 

The acquisitions come as Spotify continues to enhance Megaphone, the other podcast ad platform it bought in 2020. Spotify recently built on Megaphone with the acquisition of Whooshkaa, a broadcast-to-podcast technology that it integrated into the platform. 

Spotify now plans to integrate Chartable’s capabilities to Megaphone’s suite of tools as well. 

“We believe we’re still in the early chapters of digital audio and the opportunity for advertising in this space remains significant,” said Dawn Ostroff, chief content and advertising business officer at Spotify in an email. “Our acquisitions of podcast technology players Podsights and Chartable are important steps in our pursuit of taking digital audio to the next level, underscoring the powerful impact it delivers for advertisers and publishers, respectively.”

The deals come as Spotify’s ad business and podcasting ambitions continue to grow. 

In 2021, Spotify’s ad revenues surpassed €1 billion in and achieved a record 15% of total revenues in Q4. Spotify also grew the number of publishers in the Spotify Audience Network by more than 50% since its launch in April 2021, expanding ad supply. 

But not all of Spotify’s podcasting moves have been celebrated. 

Recently, the company has faced significant backlash for continuing to allow Joe Rogan to publish podcasts on the platform. The former UFC fighter has come under fire for spreading Covid misinformation as well as saying racial slurs on his podcast. Spotify has stood by Rogan with the stance of protecting freedom of speech. However, the controversy has prompted artists such as Neil Young to request their music be removed from the platform.