Spotify is turning its attention to small and medium sized businesses to build its ad business.

The platform is opening the Spotify Advertising Academy and Spotify Partner Certification Program to teach SMBs and their agencies everything they need to know about advertising on Spotify. The courses are designed to help advertisers of all sizes learn to create, optimize and measure effective Spotify campaigns.

The academy courses are free, interactive and self-paced. They include topics such as digital audio foundations, intro to podcasting advertising, intro to ad studio and creative audio best practices, including how approach digital audio differently than radio creative and how to use Spotify’s free production tools.

The courses are now live in Canada, Australia, the U.K. and U.S., with localized versions coming to Europe and Brazil in the near future. Participants will earn a certification badge upon completion of the course. The SMBs Spotify is courting also includes media agencies: more than 40 were certified during a pre-launch phase, including Saskatchewan independent Directwest.

Spotify says the vast majority of current advertisers are large Fortune 500 companies and multinational brands, as well as big media agency networks. With a goal of having advertising make up 20% of total revenue, Spotify is looking for small- and medium-sized businesses to help with the growth. To date in 2023, the company says revenue from SMBs is up 30% year-over-year, and the Academy is an effort to continue that momentum.

Also in service of that goal, the company hired U.K.-based Samuel Bevan as global head of its SMB ad sales earlier this month. Bevan joined Spotify from Snapchat, where he led sales for small- and mid-sized customers, and has also held SMB-focused roles at Facebook and Google.