When Spotify announced its acquisition of not one but two major podcast analytics companies earlier this year, it leveled up its advertising business to include a more complete in-house campaign-measurement service. What Spotify gained, the broader podcast industry could be losing.

Since Spotify bought Podsights and Chartable, others in the industry have expressed concerns that the move significantly reduces the third-party measurement capabilities available.

• Spotify is a major player in podcasting, but advertisers and publishers could be hesitant to accept campaign metrics from a streaming service that not only owns podcasts, but also sells ads on them and owns the measurement platforms used to report metrics.
• “In the podcast space, and really any media channel, there’s always concern about the idea that publishers shouldn’t be grading their own homework or [that] there should be third-party verification to help advertisers gain confidence in the space,” Cameron Hendrix, co-founder of podcast media planning platform Magellan AI, told Marketing Brew.

Looking ahead: Podcast tech players including Magellan, Podtrac, and Claritas see the loss of these formerly third-party solutions to Spotify’s first-party business as an opportunity to step up and check Spotify’s work as advertisers grow increasingly interested in podcasts.

What’s new

Even before Spotify acquired Podsights and Chartable, it was able to report to advertisers about how their campaigns performed in some capacity.

• Plus, the company had previously partnered with both before acquiring them to offer some attribution services for campaigns, but now advertisers who buy through the Spotify Audience Network will “have easier access to Podsights’ delivery and conversion reporting,” Khurrum Malik, Spotify’s global head of advertising business marketing, told Marketing Brew.

Not so fast: Of course, advertisers might be skeptical about that information, given that it’s now coming from inside the house, Hendrix explained. For those who are, they can still turn to third-party analytics companies. They just won’t be Podsights or Chartable.

“Advertisers have been able to access trusted third-party measurement solutions across Spotify podcast campaigns to validate the reach and impact of their investments,” Malik said. “Those solutions will still be available to our customers, and with our most recent acquisitions, we’re excited to up-level podcast advertising measurement both on and off Spotify.”

Mind the gap

Spotify scooping up Podsights and Chartable made waves in the industry, in part because it left a significant gap in third-party measurement options.

It’s also one of the first acquisitions by a podcast company of an attribution and analytics partner. IHeartMedia owns Triton, an IAB-certified audio tech company that offers pixel-based attribution, but podcast analytics companies have largely remained independent.

“People were very shocked that Spotify bought both at once,” said Bryan Barletta, founder of podcast-ad-tech publication Sounds Profitable, who previously worked at podcast ad companies including Megaphone and Barometric. “Buying one of them puts the pressure on the other one, it changes the space, it creates more competition. Buying both of them created a hole in the space.”

Click here to continue reading.—AM

As many advertisers have realized over the last decade, sports marketing is a bit more complex than Gatorade’s 1991 “Be Like Mike” spot. It’s major broadcasters and platforms, it’s intense and attentive audiences, it’s e-sports and the NFL, it’s partnerships with influencers and professional athletes, and now college kids.

Fear not: Marketing Brew broke it all down in our first-ever IRL CTA event, held Tuesday evening in New York. If you joined us, we hope you enjoyed the open bar.

If you didn’t, here’s some of what you missed:

As we’ve covered recently, advertisers can be skeptical of the gaming industry as a legit source of investment. Jaci Hays, chief operating officer of the e-sports and entertainment company FaZe Clan, thinks they should jump in. Joined onstage by Marketing Brew Editor Minda Smiley, Hays explained why gaming can give blue-chip brands direct access to Gen Z.

• FaZe Clan has nabbed partnerships with McDonald’s, Nissan, Beats By Dre, the James Bond franchise, and more.

But Hays said brands that partner with FaZe Clan should be comfortable with moving “at the speed of the internet,” explaining that they “have to trust—and that’s really hard—that we know where we’re going with this audience.”

Hays claims FaZe Clan doesn’t get pushback from its audience for its partnerships with big brands. “For this community, they just love that the brand shows up. It shows that they get them,” she said.

Click here to read about our discussion with PepsiCo’s head of sports marketing.—RB

There were a lot of fleeting lockdown trends: baking bread and virtual happy hours, to name a few.

But one has stuck around: beards. “During the worst of the pandemic, when almost everyone was stuck at home, many men stopped shaving, and products like razors and shaving cream took it, naturally, on the chin,” writes Retail Brew’s Andrew Adam Newman.

On the other hand, beard-care products have gotten a boost. Mike Gilman, founder of e-comm retailer Grooming Lounge, told Retail Brew that sales for beard products rose more than 15% between 2019 and 2021.

It’s all part of a larger trend: “There is a cultural reassessment about what it means to grow a beard,” Newman writes. And brands are cashing in.

• Edgewell, the CPG company behind brands like Skintimate and Banana Boat, acquired men’s grooming company Cremo in 2020.
• Cremo, which started as a shaving-cream brand, added beard products to its lineup in 2016.
• Sales for beard products at Cremo and Bulldog, another men’s grooming brand owned by Edgewell, saw “double-digit growth” in 2020, according to Matthew Biggins, SVP and GM of the grooming division at Edgewell.

Read the full story here in Retail Brew.

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Pull back the curtain: Later shares its social media content strategy.

Smash that dislike button: TikTok is testing downvotes on comments, so better make sure they’re good.

Top of the class: Tips to get on page one of Google, the organic way.

Help us help you: If you have a minute, take this quick survey to help us improve our brand-partnerships game. We couldn’t do it without ya!*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Looking for a marketing job, or high quality marketers for your team? Look no further than our new, free Marketing Brew Job Board!

Today’s feature openings:

• Campaign Coordinator at Diffusion PR
• Content Creator Intern at Zoku
• Social Media Specialist at Holman

See more jobs or post your job opportunities here.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• How brands are approaching Coachella this year
• Spotify’s latest acquisitions expand its podcast analytics and attribution capabilities—here’s how the tech works
• How crypto companies can approach paid ads on Twitter

Which headlines are real marketing news, and which one is fake?

1. Ben & Jerry’s has a new ice cream flavor for Earth Day: pine tree
2. Heidi Montag is promoting single-use, disposable jeans to save the environment
3. This smoke alarm delivers McDonald’s when it senses you’ve burned dinner
4. Adult film pros help Liquid Death deliver eco message

Keep scrolling for the answer.