Mary Meeker presented the most anticipated Powerpoint deck of the year at the annual Recode Code Conference last Wednesday. Below are the big trends she highlighted that will shape the future of digital advertising.
- Mobile Growth May Have Peaked
2017 was the first year in which smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow at all. As more of the world become smartphone owners, growth has been harder and harder to come by. The same goes for internet user growth, which rose 7 percent in 2017, down from 12 percent the year before. - Digital Time Spent is Increasing
People, however, are still increasing the amount of time they spend online. U.S. adults spent 5.9 hours per day on digital media in 2017, up from 5.6 hours the year before. Time spent on mobile has reached 3.3 hours a day, which is more than double from 1.6 hours in 2012. - Search is Evolving
49 percent of product searches now start at Amazon—36 percent start on a search engine. What’s more, Amazon is better poised to capitalize on those searches with features like one-click purchasing, which encourage consumers to use Amazon to fulfill orders that result from those searches. Search engines and content sites do a better job of inspiring consumers to want things. - The Lines are Blurring Between Ads, Products, Content & Transactions
Online browsing is evolving into buying, fueled by social media. Facebook leads the way with 78 percent of survey respondents saying they have discovered products on the platform, followed by Instagram and Pinterest with 59 percent, Twitter with 34 percent and Snap with 22 percent. What’s more, 55 percent of respondents said they have purchased a product online after a social media discovery. - Google is Shifting to E-commerce as Amazon Shifts to Search
Google is expanding from an ads platform to a commerce platform via Google Home Ordering. Meanwhile, e-commerce giant Amazon is moving into advertising. - Voice is Going Mainstream
Voice-controlled products like Amazon Echo are taking off. The Echo’s installed base in the U.S. grew from 20 million in the third quarter of 2017 to more than 30 million in the fourth quarter. - E-Commerce Growth is Accelerating
E-commerce sales growth is continuing to accelerate. It grew 16 percent in the U.S. in 2017, up from 14 percent in 2016. Amazon is taking a bigger share of those sales at 28 percent last year. Conversely, physical retail sales are continuing to decline. - Subscription Services Continue to Grow
They’re seeing massive adoption, with Netflix up 25%, The New York Times up 43%, and Spotify up 48% year-over-year in 2017. A free tier helps to accelerate conversion rates. - Data Driven Experiences Create a Privacy Paradox
Advertising and usability improvements driven by data create what Meeker calls a privacy paradox: Advertising and services are made better thanks to user data, users engagement and value is increased, and regulators want to ensure user data is not used improperly. Technology-driven trends are changing so rapidly that it’s rare when one side fully understands the other, setting the stage for reactions that can have unintended consequences - Print Media Continues to Decline
Since 2011, the share of U.S. media consumption that happens in print has dropped about 40 percent. But the share of American ad dollars that go to print has dropped more than 60 percent. - Disruption is Accelerating
The speed of technological disruption is accelerating. It took about 80 years for Americans to adopt the dishwasher. The consumer internet became commonplace in less than a decade. - Ai Will Continue to Evolve
Internet leaders like Google and Amazon will offer more artificial intelligence service platforms as AI becomes a bigger part of enterprise and advertising spending.
Here are the slides:
davidgriffith.blog 