12 Big Trends Shaping the Future of Digital Advertising

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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:

Three Trends Digital Marketers Need to Watch.

emarketer
If you’re looking for digital marketing trends for the upcoming year, go to a company that follows the industry trends.
eMarketer just released their report on the key digital trends for 2015. Here are three important trends to keep your eye on:

1) Programmatic will move Beyond Display Advertising

Another tipping point in 2015: programmatic advertising.
We expect programmatic will cross the line to make up
more than 50% of all digital display advertising.
But the story of programmatic will go much further than
display next year.
The same momentum and technologies that have
reshaped how we buy display ads could eventually
transform how we buy all forms of advertising, not
just digital but traditional as well. Programmatic TV, for
example, accounts for less than 1% of all TV ad spending,
but some predict it could be a multibillion dollar industry
within 12 to 24 months as both buyers and sellers use it
to better understand their audiences.
Some forecasts have that number jumping to as much as
20% of all TV spending by 2018. That’s a huge increase,
and even if it’s half or a quarter of that, we’re still talking
about very big money here. Expect the tide to begin to
turn in 2015

2) Cord-Shaving

Yes, some consumers are cutting the cord, but they’re
in the low single digits percentage-wise. A more real
behavior is cord-shaving, where consumers reduce what
they spend, rather than eliminating it altogether.
Individuals in all age groups are still watching a ton of TV
the traditional way, even millennials.
Of course, now that HBO has announced plans to
offer HBO GO as a standalone service, all of that could
change, especially as other networks rush to follow suit.
So, as they say, don’t touch that dial: Unbundling could
accelerate consumers’ latent thirst for cord-cutting.
What that means is you need to pay close attention to
consumers’ shifting video consumption habits.

TV is holding steady. It’s still the media big dog … for now. But
mobile is the channel that’s growing. With all the time,
money and attention flowing to digital video, marketers
that lack deals with content owners and dynamic
advertising are going to miss the boat.

3) Social TV

Consumers regularly use mobile devices while watching TV, but only a small percentage
talk about what they are watching via social media.
TV-related conversations are also fragmented across
platforms, and industry executives are still unsure of the
effect of social media on people’s viewing behaviors or
on ratings.

Consumers aren’t really engaging in social TV marketing
efforts, and marketers are holding back as a result. That’s
not going to change in 2015.