Helping build powerful connections between brands and listeners of the world’s most popular audio streaming service, Spotify Advertising is receiving Slack’s Excellence in Sales Award for using Slack to transform how its teams work and effectively increase productivity by 40%.
Launched in 2006, Spotify has more than 500 million global users who listen to, discover and share over 100 million tracks and 5 million podcast titles. When it set out in 2017 to build an advertising business that could meaningfully reach millions of users, Spotify knew it would have to be strategic about its approach.
Composed of sales, campaign management and account management teams, the Spotify business unit needed to stay aligned to optimise success, but discussions and strategy around campaigns and opportunities were often siloed and disjointed across email, Gchat and Salesforce.
Leveraging Slack and the Salesforce Sales Cloud integration, Spotify Advertising deploys more than 20 workflows to streamline each stage of the process, from first pitch to campaign completion. As a result, the team has cut down on meetings and email traffic, boosted ad-sales revenue and increased its campaign delivery rate from 97% to 99% to deliver its best year yet. What’s more, thanks to centralised communications and improved knowledge sharing, the team is stronger and more empowered than ever.
The process is centralised around a Slack channel, which is created when a seller updates an opportunity in Salesforce with a request for proposal. All relevant internal stakeholders are automatically added and notified of key details throughout the cycle.
Prior to Slack, it was difficult for campaign managers to track every line item once campaigns were underway. To increase efficiency, Spotify leveraged Slack’s API to build a Pacing Bot that sends alerts from ad servers (GAM and Megaphone) directly to the relevant Slack channels. This increases visibility but removes the need for managers to manually monitor everything, and enables teams to exceed client expectations.
‘If you’re not using Slack for your business, you’re missing out on a clear winner. Slack is the productivity platform for Spotify’s ad sales. We’re moving more and more of our business through Slack and Salesforce, and its value is unquestioned.’
Spotify Advertising also connects directly with 150 offshore partners by extending its processes in Slack Connect. To manage requests and monitor lead times, a third-party plug-in streamlines queue management, Jira ticket edits and notifications.
By automating its campaigns lifecycle in Slack, Spotify Advertising has increased campaign delivery rates, improved the punctuality of launches, enabled cross-team visibility and championed channel-based communication. This not only ensures that advertisers reach the most relevant audiences, but helps brands build authentic and long-lasting connections with millions of Spotify listeners.
