June 17, 2013
In light of recent data from comScore suggesting that a majority of display ads go unseen (at least per the 3MS standard for 50% of pixels in-view for at least a second), it's worth taking a look at viewability benchmarks according to PointRoll's latest benchmark report [pdf]. Covering 2012 activity, the data shows that viewability rates were lowest on shopping and auction (34.3%) and ad network (36.7%) sites, and highest on employment (68.5%), news (67%) and music and streaming media (66.1%) sites. Read more »
June 17, 2013
After a big jump last year, discretionary spending by college students is expected to remain largely flat this year at $117 billion, per the latest College Explorer report from re:fuel. That remains significantly above discretionary spending power from 2009-2011, though, which stood at roughly $90 billion. Factoring in $287 billion in non-discretionary spending (on items such as room and board, tuition), the total college market's spending power is estimated to be $404 billion this year, down only slightly from last year's $409 billion. Read more »
June 13, 2013
About 2 in 3 in-stream video ad impressions come from 4 advertiser categories, according to [pdf] a new study from Google DoubleClick. Looking at video ads served on DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) and the Ad Exchange between March 2012 and March 2013, Google reveals that automotive (19%), retail (18%), technology (17%) and CPG (14%) brands led all others, with these categories chiefly the realm of large advertisers seeking branding opportunities. And it looks like that trend isn't going away: 2 in 5 video ad impressions in Q1 came from advertisers new to digital video, with the majority of those being large brand advertisers. Read more »
June 11, 2013
Based on data collected from Social.com across upwards of 1 million ad units and 114 billion impressions during the first quarter, Salesforce has released a benchmark report [download page] examining the performance (and cost) of Facebook ads across unit types, industries, and geographic regions. The study shows that telecom (0.919%) and publishing (0.79%) brands are leading the charge in click-through rates (CTR), although telecom brands are paying significantly more on average per click than publishers ($0.34 vs. $0.22). On the other end of the spectrum, dating ads suffer from the lowest average click rate, of just 0.027%. Read more »
June 10, 2013
A recent forecast from PwC forecast US out-of-home (OOH) advertising revenues to grow at a compound annual rate of 5% between this year and 2017. New figures released by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) indicate that revenue growth is close to that pace, with spending up 4.5% year-over-year in Q1 to reach $1.5 billion. Retail advertisers increased their OOH investments most rapidly, by 12%, while the automotive sector upped spending by 8% year-over-year to crack the top 10 categories for the first time in 3 years. Read more »
May 20, 2013
Americans might be listening to more radio, but radio's advertising revenues aren't going anywhere, at least for the time being. In Q1, total expenditures were flat, at $3.5 billion, according to [pdf] the latest revenue report from the Radio Advertising Bureau, which excludes network radio data due to incomplete information. Healthy growth in digital (9%) and off-air (5%) helped offset a sluggish quarter for spot, which was down 2% from Q1 2012. While remaining the smallest segment, at $179 million in revenues, digital's growth means that it now exceeds 5% share of total radio revenues. Read more »
May 17, 2013
Socialbakers has released its latest "Socially Devoted" figures for Q1, and the results are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the average response rate grew 6% points quarter-over-quarter to 38%, after only improving by 4% points in the preceding 6 months. But on the other hand, that means that significantly fewer than half of questions posted to brands' Twitter profiles were answered. What's more, the average response time increased by 10%, from 6 hours in Q4 2012 to more than 6-and-a-half hours in Q1. Read more »
May 9, 2013
Media Economics Group has released a list of the top advertisers on Hispanic websites during Q1 2013, revealing that Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Toyota were by far the leading advertisers, neck and neck with 6.78% and 6.74% share of ad occurrences, respectively. According to Nielsen, P&G was the biggest spending advertiser in the US last year, with Toyota in the fourth spot. However, AT&T and General Motors, which were the second- and third-largest spenders last year in the US, didn't make the top 10 list for Hispanic advertisers in Q1. Rounding out the top 5 advertisers on Hispanic websites were Ford (2.99% share of occurrences); State Farm (2.93%); and Nissan (2.46%). Read more »
May 8, 2013
The average tenure for CMOs of leading US consumer brand companies reached 45 months in 2012, continuing a steady rise from a low of 23.2 months in 2006, according to study results from Spencer Stuart. The researchers attribute the trend to CMOs having "come of age," with the marketing function taking a greater role in enterprise growth due to new technologies and digital marketing channels. Late last year, The CMO Council pronounced 2013 "the year of the marketer," with survey results demonstrating that senior marketers are enjoying budget growth, increased responsibilities, legitimacy, and compensation. Read more »
May 2, 2013
Content engagement on Pinterest is more often initiated organically by users than from brand-owned accounts, at least in the fashion/retail, auto, and electronics categories, per a new study from Digitas and Curalate. Fashion and retail-related images are most likely to be pinned by the community, with brands pinning only 18% of content. Auto content engagement is also largely driven by the community (to the tune of 70% of content), while for electronics it's more of an even split (53% community vs. 47% brand). Read more »
