Spotify has launched a brand new ad format aimed at podcast listeners. Call-to-action cards (or CTA for short) are visual displays that complement audio displays while they are played in podcasts.
However, while Spotify would like to emphasize the usefulness of these advertisers, they could make the Spotify podcast listening experience more cluttered than it already is, and more annoying than it needs to be.
What are Spotify’s new call-to-action cards for podcasts?
As in a post on. described For the record, Spotify’s new call-to-action cards are visual accompaniments to the standard audio advertisements you hear at the beginning, at the end, and usually throughout the podcast.
They appear in the Spotify app as soon as the audio advertisement is played so that listeners can click on a link to the respective advertiser. They will also reappear when navigating the Spotify app.
Will this help or hinder the Spotify user experience?
Spotify claims that these CTA cards improve the user experience as they “make it easy for you to directly discover the products and services you are interested in without a hard-to-remember promo code or vanity url” .
There is some truth to this because on the rare occasion that you hear a podcast advertisement that you’re interested in, then having to open your web browser and enter the URL and / or promo code is a bit annoying.
On the other hand, however, these ads add another visual element to an already cluttered user experience. Especially since they follow you and come back up later as you explore the Spotify app.
Granted, I tend to listen to podcasts on Spotify, but only really by default. Despite the many and varied flaws, none of the other options I’ve tried so far has outperformed Spotify. And if I pay for it, I might as well use it.
Unfortunately, these new call-to-action cards are another potential distraction getting in the way of the easy listening experience of an audio podcast.
More beneficial for advertisers than for listeners
The benefits of these ads to advertisers are obvious. However, CTA cards only help podcast listeners who want to actively click their way through to the companies their favorite podcast. For the rest of us, these are just another unnecessary distraction.
This article was previously published on Source link
