Popup podcast notifications in app -

[gB3organ]

I recently registered for a premium account. The experience has been pretty good, but  i've noticed that i'm getting a popup in the ios app suggesting content (like a sponsored podcast) that I have to dismiss before i start listening to music. This is quite annoying and very disappointing that I'm receiving advertising despite paying for a premium service, and to be frank it's making me want to stop using spotify altogether.

How can I disable these popups? 

[gB3organ]

Hey there folks,

Thank you for your posts and feedback.

There's an idea about this. You can leave a +VOTE and Subscribe to the thread for any updates.

We're always testing things by adding or removing features to make Spotify better overall. We're constantly aiming to improve our features so we hope you’ll continue using it and find it gets better in the future. 

You can read more about how your feedback reach Spotify here.

Once again - thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it.
 

Cheers!

[jimothy]

i am having exactly the same issue, its mainly advertising podcasts. I dont want this happening. Spotify, there appears to be a number of people with this issue. please don't ignore it. We pay for an ad free experience, this include "recommendations" that i cannot control

[OneByBoo]

Hi there @gB3organ,

thanks for reaching out to the community !

Just to be sure you're logged into a Premium account, please visit your account overview page and check your subscription status.

In the meanwhile, it'll be helpful if you can send screenshots of the ads you're seeing on your account.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Waiting on your update 🙂

[gB3organ]

Yeah I'm on a premium DUO account.

I managed to get a screen shot of the advertising popup last night. That was ad #4 that day.

I have all notifications turned off in the account settings. 

[darklyluna]

I'm confused.

The first message about these popups is from 2018. Now people are complaining about it happening more. Are you saying in all this time, I've just been lucky to not get the popups? Because they're coming in fast and furious now.

Every time I do a search, I get a popup. 

And are you also suggesting that we have to put in feedback to have ads removed from something that your service claims is ad free if I pay for it?

[gB3organ]

I did some digging, and found an article from Oct 2019 suggesting that Spotify have been trialing out this feature.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/record-labels-can-now-pay-spotify-to-promote-artists-on-the-p...

Interestingly the article suggested that the will make a way to turn off the ads. 

I'm very much aware that what gets published in the media may not be totally accurate, so I'd love to here from a Spotify rep to get a clear and concise statement to what's going on here.

[sarahsmiles57]

I'd like to second this. The popups today have been aggressive between podcasts I don't care about, music I don't care about and COVID-19 updates. I'm really disappointed that I've already disabled all the ads in my settings and did a clean install, and I'm still getting pop-ups.  It's honestly really disappointing, and if premium doesn't remove ads like it promised, it doesn't seem like I have any reason to continue paying for a service I'm not receiving. 

[bangdroid]

Plan

Premium

Country

AU

Device

Galaxy S10

Operating System

Android 10

My Question or Issue

I'm wondering why Spotify is promoting or advertising podcasts in app.

I am now getting fullscreen ads for podcasts when I visit the Home screen, where previously there were banners covering 1/3 the top of the home screen.

I'm confused, I've checked my subscription and it is indeed premium.

I've set all notifications to off, and I'm not interested in, nor will I ever use Spotify for podcasts.

I'd pay more for a subscription tier that has 100% no ads or podcasts at all. (Yes I'm a sucker and you've hooked me line and sinker)

[Elena]

Hello folks!

Thanks for flagging this with us here on the Community.

We appreciate your feedback on this topic as it helps us improve our service.

We'll make sure to forward your comments to the relevant team here so that they'll be able to take it into consideration and make adjustments if needed.

Feel free to let us know if there's anything else we can do for you in the meantime!

Take care!

[HowdyMcGee]

100% having the same issue. It's pretty frustrating.

[jibiel]

I second that. Do you guys realize that this is an app with a premium subscription? Do you realize that this is a mobile app and people usually use these on the go? Almost every time I'm walking and using the search it hits me with the popup. 3 times in a row. It is very distracting, repetitive, annoying and forces me not to use the app at all.

Do you realize you're breaking the UX flow for absolutely irrelevant suggestions? And this is a popup (!) in the premium (!!) mobile (!!!) app. Even Facebook doesn't do this and they're full of ads.

[Stevenswall]

 Stop now.

 

 

[wademcclain]

On iOS with Premium subscription I am having popup ads for the Kids' version of the Spotify app and for random podcasts appear several times a day, sometimes every 5-10 minutes. These take up the whole screen and I am forced to hunt for the dismiss button. I pay for a premium subscription to avoid ads and if this is a new "feature" I'll have to cancel and go to another service.

[wademcclain]

This has started happening to me too. If it doesn't stop in a week I'll be cancelling my subscription and going to apple music.

[gB3organ]

It just happened twice in 5 mins. I’m about to quit.

Spotify, please listen: you may make money in the short term from advertising revenue but in this competitive market you will lose users and your more importantly your reputation by introducing ads in a paid subscription...

[patmillott]

I'm in agreement with everyone here. Spotify is a great service and I don't mind paying for premium to not have advertisements. These "recommendations" for podcasts that I am not interested are advertisements.

I'm giving Spotify 3 update cycles to fix this. If I keep seeing ads, then I'm switching to apple music. 

[ticandle]

I'm having the same issue and I also have a premium subscription. I noticed that the podcast that was recommended was published by Spotify studios and dealt with mature themes/ explicit content. I don't listen to podcasts in that genre and I do not want to be recommended podcasts like that. If this was an ad on another platform (because it is an ad, not an actual recommendation), I would ask for it to be hidden because it is "offensive or inappropriate". I don't know how to report it or ask for it not to be shown again. Pop-up podcast recommendations/ads are annoying, but pop-ups that are potentially offensive are extremely disruptive to the user experience.

[TancingTunes]

I'm getting popup ads every single time I navigate backwards in the Android Spotify app. It's the same damn ad every single time 'Premium Duo. Perfect for two.' 

Spotify, make it stop. Your mobile advertisement system is obviously broken, and serves no purpose other than irritating your *paying customers*.

If you're going to continue doing this very annoying and worthless thing,

a) Change it so it doesn't interrupt how we use the same ad

b) Buy or build a real advertising recommender. Your ad department is plainly just shoving C-suite mandates into the pipeline, with little thought as to how often or whether to rotate.

I've gotten this same ad every time I hit the back button on Android Spotify on a Samsung Galaxy S20+.

As a result, I'm now three times more likely to plug my headphones into my laptop and listen there- where there are no advertisements. Think about that, for a minute. You're driving paying customers away from your mobile platform.

Why is the mobile platform -with its confined, smaller screen and more limited navigation- a better way to deliver ads to users? You obviously haven't thought this through.

[joemccall86]

I just posted about the same issue here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/I-m-getting-in-app-ads-even-though-I-m-subscribed-to-premiu...

[Wookie985]

I too am getting podcast notifications as a premium member even tho I have my notifications TURNED OFF. HIGHLY ANNOYING. They’re political podcasts in nature. This needs to stop. Now.