go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Despite extraordinary visibility, capital, and hype, Twitter continues to struggle to move beyond the status of a niche social network.

A recent chart from Morgan Stanley, tweeted by Business Insider’s Elena Holodny, shows that Twitter’s share over overall Internet usage time remains tiny. And time spent on the service actually grew more slowly than the overall Internet last year.

Importantly, this chart only appears to show time spent on Twitter.com, and most of Twitter’s usage comes via apps, so this chart presents only a partial picture. But the big blue band at the bottom, which shows the same measure for Facebook, illustrates the vast difference in the amount of attention commanded by the two networks. Twitter is the little black band at the top.

The Death Of Twitter pic.twitter.com/sKdYQCbV5D

— Elena Holodny (@elenaholodny) December 24, 2014

Facebook-owned Instagram recently passed Twitter in usage. And Instagram, Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and other networks and apps have captured markets and mindshare that arguably could have been Twitter’s.

These struggles are one reason some Twitter investors are losing patience with the company’s CEO.

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Consumers don’t write online reviews to release anger. Instead, they keep it positive, according to a November 2014 study by YouGov. Among US internet users who posted online customer reviews, the top reason for doing so was to help others make better purchasing decisions, cited by 62% of respondents Fully 35% shared because they thought it was polite to provide feedback, and around one-quarter wanted to let others know about their own good experience or make sure that good vendors got good business.

Meanwhile, just 13% wanted to warn readers about a bad experience, and only 12% posted reviews to “expose” bad vendors. While this is good news for businesses that don’t provide the! best cu stomer service, it also means that those who do want good reviews need to work extra hard to please customers—not just do what they need to do to get by during the purchase process.

YouGov respondents claimed to view online reviews positively, with 86% saying they were trustworthy, but further questioning suggested they did indeed have negative feelings about online review practices today.

Digital ad spending now accounts for more than three in 10 dollars advertisers in Canada spend on paid media, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates of ad spending around the world. We estimate that digital ad spending is approaching C$4 billion ($3.74 billion) this year, up from C$3.53 billion (nearly $3.3 billion) in 2013, and makes up 31.3% of all spending in the country.

By 2018, we estimate, 40.5% of all paid media spending in Canada will occur on digital channels, including all ads served to any internet-connected device. That year, digital spending will approach C$6 billion ($5.54 billion).

A growing share of that total will occur on mobile channels, where spending is expected to hit C$952.5! million ($890.2 million) this year.

Digital ad spending is already well ahead of spending on TV commercials in Canada, which will fall this year slightly to C$3.30 billion ($3.08 billion), and hover under C$3.5 billion ($3.27 billion) throughout our forecast period. Spending on print channels will continue to decline, dropping from C$3.09 billion ($2.89 billion) this year to C$2.68 billion ($2.50 billion) by 2018.

Radio and outdoor ads provide more of a bright spot, with both expected to grow throughout the forecast period—albeit more slowly than digital or mobile spending.

eMarketer bases all of its forecasts on a multipronged approach that focuses on both worldwide and local trends in the economy, technology and population, along with company-, product-, country- and demographic-specific trends, and trends in specific consumer behaviors.

Source: Nielsen / CMO Council

Notes: Marketers are shifting their digital campaigns from direct response to brand advertising, according to a Nielsen survey conducted in conjunction with the CMO Council. Budgets continued to rise for digital brand advertising campaigns, with 7 in 10 marketers increasing their funding, up 15% year-over-year. The study notes that further growth is being hindered by the lack of relevant metrics: 95% said they would increase their digital brand advertising spending if they could verify that it created the desired result; a! nd 82% w ould do so if they had the ability to verify that the advertising was actually delivered to their intended audience.

Online video ads are one of the fastest-growing ad mediums, far outpacing growth in spending on television and other digital formats. Online video ad viewing exploded in 2013. Over 35 billion video ads were viewed in the U.S. in December.

It’s not hard to understand what makes online video so compelling to advertisers. Video ads provide a level of visual and narrative richness that nearly equals television, while offering all the advantages of digital, including advanced targeting, tracking, and increasingly, automated buying of video ad units.

In a new report from BI Intelligence we explore the key drivers of the skyrocketing growth of video ads, examine the cost and performance of the emerging digital ad format, and look at the major players that are shaping the industry.

Here are some of the key trends we explore in the report:

• Online video ad revenue will reach nearly $5 billion in 2016, up from $2.8 billion in 2013, while TV ad revenue will decline by nearly 3% per year during the same time period.
• Video ad views exploded in 2013, topping over 35 billion views in December, averaging over 100% year-over-year monthly growth during the year.
• Online video ads are significantly more expensive than other formats, but prices are steadily declining as more publishers rush into video, and placements open up.
• Video ads have an average click-through rate (CTR) of 1.84%, the highest click-through rate of all digital ad formats.
• Viewability, the question of whether video ads are actually seen by multitasking online viewers, has emerged as an issue, but we believe that overall demand for online video is too high for viewability to put too much of a crimp in the video ad market.
• Streaming devices and connected TV accounted for just 2% of online video ad views in the fourth quarter of 2013, but companies like BrightLine are experimenting with formats to grow this new niche market.

What are digital marketers’ top priorities for the next 12 months? A new survey [download page] from Marin Software sheds some light on what to expect in the year ahead, showing that while a better understanding of audiences (51%) ranks as the top priority, better integration of various channels and disciplines will also be a key area of focus. › Continue reading

Source: Gallup

Notes: There might be value in brands displaying their authenticity and trustworthiness, but consumers aren’t expecting muc! h from a dvertising professionals. According to a new survey from Gallup, just 1 in 10 American adults rate the honesty and ethical standards of advertising practitioners as being “very high” or “high” – and that’s down from 14% last year. How does that rate next to other professions? It’s only slightly ahead of car salespeople and members of Congress…