Spotify Ads Product Design Systems Thinking 2025

Multi-format
Ad Sets

Enabling advertisers to combine audio, video, and display formats within a single ad set — simplifying setup, increasing auction density, and laying the foundation for ML-driven creative optimization.

My role

Lead Designer

Platform

Spotify Ads Manager

Timeline

2025

Overview

One ad set, every format

Advertisers on Spotify Ads Manager were required to select a single ad format — audio, video, or display — when creating each ad set. Running a multi-format campaign meant spinning up separate ad sets for each format, duplicating targeting and budget configurations. This single-format limitation created operational friction that didn't scale, particularly for sophisticated advertisers managing always-on campaigns across multiple creative types.

Multi-format Ad Sets reimagined the campaign hierarchy to allow audio, video, and display ads within a single ad set under one unified bid. On the design side, this meant rethinking the ad creation form to be format-agnostic — abstracting creative assets from specific formats to create more delivery opportunities with less work, while reducing the ~10% drop-off rate on the ad form.

Design process

Strategy to system, phased delivery

Understand & frame

Led the design brief and competitive analysis, examining how platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Google handle multi-format ad sets. Mapped the existing booking flow to identify where format constraints created unnecessary complexity and drop-off.

Concept & strategy

Developed a phased design strategy across three milestones: format and placement UX changes, multi-format ad set enablement with forecasting, and creative optimization. Built tactical concepts for format-agnostic ad forms and scaling ad creation.

Design & validate

Designed the unified asset upload experience, format nudges encouraging diversity, and multi-format preview system. Partnered with product and engineering to validate feasibility across bidding, forecasting, and ad review systems.

Design highlights

Key design decisions

📦
Format-agnostic ad form
Redesigned the ad creation form to accept images, video, and audio through a single upload surface. Rather than requiring advertisers to predetermine format before creating ads, the form abstracts format from the creative — reducing complexity and encouraging format diversity.

⚡
Scaling ad creation
Explored patterns for bulk ad creation within a multi-format ad set — enabling advertisers to quickly populate an ad set with multiple creative variations across formats without duplicating setup steps.

💡
Format diversity nudges
Designed contextual prompts that encourage advertisers to add multiple format types, surfacing data on how combining formats drives higher campaign performance. These nudges appear inline during ad creation without blocking the flow.

🔮
Asset generation & mutability
Explored future-facing concepts for AI-assisted creative generation and asset adaptation across formats — laying groundwork for Phase 3 creative optimization where the ad server selects the best format per impression opportunity.

Impact

Unlocking format flexibility at scale

This project established the design foundation for multi-format ad sets in Spotify Ads Manager — moving the platform toward industry-standard capabilities while setting the stage for ML-driven creative optimization.

Phased design strategy spanning format changes, multi-format enablement, and creative optimization

Unified ad set supporting audio, video, and display — replacing the one-format-per-ad-set constraint

XFN

Cross-functional partnership across design, product, engineering, bidding, and forecasting teams