Serious pod head... Spotify is majorly pod addicted. In the past few years, the Swedish streamer has sealed deals for shows from big names like Joe Rogan, Michelle Obama, and Kim K. Spotify also shelled out over $500M to buy companies like The Ringer (pod network), Gimlet (pod producer), Parcast (original shows), and Anchor (pod recording software). Now...
You're special... Not everyone got the same Function of Beauty ad mid-pod — Megaphone knows you're worried about split hairs. Advertisers buy slots targeting different audiences across the 5.5K+ shows that use Megaphone, instead of specific pods. With this acquisition, Spotify gains all of Megaphone's customers. It can also use Megaphone's tech to improve/expand its own ad tech.
Podcasting is still going through puberty... It grew three feet over the past two years, and now its old basketball shorts look like Speedos (awkward). Podcasting now has over 100M monthly listeners, but less than $1B/year is spent on pod ads. Targeting/measurement on pods is way less precise than social media targeting, so advertisers aren't shelling out as much $$$. Spotify's hoping to change that with this deal.