digital advertising

A few things to watch for: A boom in voice services, such as Siri and Alexa, which will integrate advertising. Wariness of fake news. Emphasis on behavioral signals. Jonathan Adams, chief digital officer at Maxus, says advertisers will need to “prioritize authenticity” when it comes to news.

Consumers are increasingly accessing content digitally. Savvy advertisers continue to follow them and industry trades and consumer publications are full of stories on how digital ad revenues are outpacing those of traditional TV. The question becomes: What’s the risk of a wait-and-see approach?

Gordon Borrell says that in addition to that decrease, digital was up $1.3 billion. In 2017, he says, core TV spending will be flat, with digital outselling traditional media. What stations need to do, he advises, is show advertisers how broadcast spend can help drive traffic to their website or Facebook page. “When they begin to put the two together — that broadcast advertising drives digital traffic better than anything else, and it does — than you’re going to see more … advertising.”

A new report from Borrell Associates says that 68% of all businesses that buy local TV commercials plan to increase their spending on digital and mobile media in 2017. “Broadcasters need to realize that it’s their game to lose.”

While many publicly traded station groups have taken a very distinct path toward their digital media investments, one common denominator is forging relationships with third-party aggregators as well as search engine marketing and search engine optimization partners. Here’s how six station groups are taking advantage of their unique strengths to scale their offerings and maintain their leadership positions in digital.

Digital ad revenues were $32.7 billion for the first half of 2016, up 19% from the year-earlier period according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Mobile ad revenues grew 89% to $15.5 billion, representing 49% of all digital ad spend in the period. Video and search advertising were up 178% and 105%, respectively, while desktop display fell 10%.

There’s been pushback on that narrative of late, as advertisers move money back to TV. But a new report suggests the trend is temporary. Expects digital’s ad share to hit 51% by decade’s end.

DMP? DSP? SSP? What does it all mean? Here’s a look at the terms and practices that are essential to know as a digital marketer on the way to 2020.

Mid-roll advertisements and total impressions are rising, but pre-roll ads are still dominant. A study by Ooyala says mid-roll video ads rose to a 24% share from in April 2016 from a 19% share in February 2015. Pre-roll digital video ads still dominate — but have dropped in share of total digital video ads — to 60% from 75% in February 2015.

The shift in ad industry market share from so-called “analogue” media to “digital” media is accelerating, and the latter is now expected to surpass television’s historically dominant share of U.S. ad spending by the end of 2016 — months sooner than expected, according to the statsmasters at eMarketer.

Advertisers move money back to broadcast and cable, concerned about the lack of results from online efforts. While the web’s still gaining, it’s at a lower rate.

Released today, Borrell Associates’ annual automotive advertising assessment finds that “dealers have begun an even stronger scale-back of expenditures in broadcast and print media,” as “dealers’ love affair with digital media is thinning the traditional-media pack.” Dealership consolidation and stagnation are also major factors in an auto advertising category expected to be $37.5 billion this year.

A study says getting a high-quality “TV-like” experience on all new digital video devices is of major importance to consumers — which can translate into big advertising revenue gains. Overall, 86% of viewers say it is “very or extremely important” to get a “TV-like” quality experience every time they watch, and on every screen they use, according to a Verizon Digital Media Services’ report.

Big media companies like NBCUniversal, Time Warner, Walt Disney and 21st Century Fox can fight for a healthy cut of the action as money shifts to digital platforms. They will have to embrace that shift, not resist it, and be willing to create edgy business models, not just edgy programming.

Station sales staffs today face the challenge of delivering the traditional type of buyer connection with viewers even when those viewers are consuming video across multiple platforms. Here are suggestions offered at MFM’s Media Finance Forum 2016.

Traditional local advertising will remain flat in the next five years — with local digital advertising experiencing continued double-digit percentage compounded growth. BIA/Kelsey says overall local advertising will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 4.2% to $172.2 million by 2020. For 2016, the media research/consultancy now estimates local TV will hit $21.9 billion (it had estimated $22.3 billion in February).

Interpublic Group’s Magna Global has struck a multi-year deal with YouTube to invest $250 million into digital video. It’s YouTube’s largest upfront deal ever for its premium Google Preferred program. Over the next three years, Magna Global will get “competitive rates” on Google Preferred’s unskippable ad inventory as well as access to measurement tools and top creators.

Ad spending on original digital — both desktop and mobile — programming has more than doubled since 2014, and those budgets have come primarily out of television, according to findings of a survey of advertiser and agency executives released this morning by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Big advertisers who moved money online shift it back to TV during first quarter over concerns that up to half of the traffic is fraudulent. Also, the digital growth pace slows in March.

The IAB and PwC found U.S. digital ad revenue reached $60 billion in 2015. Mobile in particular saw a big boost, growing 66% from $13 billion in 2014 to $21 billion in 2015.

Auto advertising continues to move online with Standard Media Index reporting that digital media’s share of the category rose 20% in 2015 while spot TV’s slice was down 8%. A large percentage of that digital money is going to auto verticals and a few broadcast groups have opted for an “if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em” approach and moved into that market as well.

A number of analysts have forecast 2016 will be the year digital ad spending surpasses television to become the No. 1 medium. But accountability remains a problem for the Internet. While many advertisers are moving their dollars online, there are serious concerns dogging the medium, including worries about ad fraud, ad blocking and viewability. Martin Utreras, an analyst at eMarketer, talks about how the problems are being addressed, what can be improved and what changes to expect this year.

There’s a new benchmark for Internet ad spend according to IAB and PwC data: $15 billion in the third quarter. That’s up 23% from the same quarter last year when it was a record $12.2 billion.

TV will account for 38.4% of the $503 billion global ad market this year and will drop to 38% of the market in 2016, according to a forecast by Interpublic Group’s Magna Global. In the meantime, digital media will continue its meteoric rise. Digital ad spending will grow 17.2% this year, to nearly $160 billion, and 13.5% in 2016, and is expected to overtake TV as the biggest advertising category by the end of 2017, the forecast says.

A newly discovered botnet nicknamed Xindi could cost advertisers nearly $3 billion by the end of 2016, according to a report released today by ad-fraud prevention firm Pixalate.

Car sales hit a 14-year high, prompting automakers to hike ad spending to entice buyers into their showrooms. However, those ad dollars are increasingly going to online media.

Another forecaster predicts digital will outdraw TV in ad spending next year. Credit the growth of online, yes, but also the weakening of television, particularly broadcast.

Political campaigns have turned to short, attention-grabbing digital ads for mobile devices that are sharper and more creative in presenting a political message.

Facebook last week began rolling out new video and mobile-friendly features for profile pages. But video isn’t just a useful advertising tool for companies that have the resources to compete for brands with advertising budgets big enough to afford a $4 million dollar 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl. Videos are useful for companies of any size because they can be produced with big budgets or done more simply with animated GIFS and user-generated content.

TV spending will decline by 3% annually as digital grows 12%, becoming the No. 1 medium in two years. Credit digital’s precision targeting and TV’s shrinking viewership.

Auto companies are driving digital spend this year, with Ford in the lead. The six leading auto companies by volume have increased their online advertising activities since January, according to MediaRadar, a New York-based advertising sales consultancy.

Broadcast political TV advertising will again grow for the 2015-2016 political season, which includes the presidential race. But in years to come, digital platforms will eat into its political advertising share, according to new research from Borrell Associates.

Over the course of the 2014-15 broadcast season, digital media siphoned off more than $1 billion from the national TV market, with the vast majority of those dollars being drained out of the Big Four networks. According to new research from Standard Media Index, about $1.1 billion in national TV spend was rerouted to digital, of which a staggering 87%, or $960 million, was plundered from broadcast.

The online ad market is vast and confusing. Thousands of companies are now vying for the attention of major agencies with the hope they can attract a portion of their clients’ growing digital ad budgets. Agencies are now attempting to streamline the number of digital ad partners they work with as a result.

Advertising technology revenue is set to grow over 300% by 2020 — up from $30 billion in 2015 to $100 billion by 2020 — according to a new Ad Tech Vendor Benchmark report from Technology Business Research, a technology market research and consulting firm. The growth will be spurred by advertisers’ continued shift toward digital formats and the rise of self-serve platform offerings.

Cox Media and TubeMogul have entered a partnership that will enable ad buyers to purchase linear TV ads and Web video ads via the same digital interface. At the same time, Cox’s local ads sales force will be able to sell local TV ads along with Web video ad space from a variety of sites, such as YouTube, Crackle and MLB.com.

Hershey Co. is the latest food marketer to jump on the digital ad bandwagon, with plans to triple spending on the medium. Plans include dedicating 40% of the digital spending to mobile. The boost would put the marketer’s digital spend at about 20% of all media spending.

As Super Bowl audiences demand more second-screen content and as online ad opportunities expand, brands are aggressively growing their presence beyond merely multimillion-dollar TV spots. It’s about so much more than simply posting longer versions of an ad online, with marketers investing heavily in full-blown digital campaigns that run during the Big Game.

A marked slowdown in the last quarter of 2014 occurred in the U.S. advertising market. Standard Media Index says the market was flat in the fourth quarter of 2014 versus the same period in 2013. Only digital media spending witnessed a rise, up 15% versus the same time period a year ago to $7.6 billion. More traditional TV media moved in the other direction. National broadcast TV spending was down 2% to $4.8 billion, and cable TV gave up 1.6% to $6.8 billion during the period.