Traditional Media Ad Spending Plateaus. After plunging by 18.5% in 2009, ad spending on traditional media is on a slow rebound. eMarketer estimates spending was up 2.1% in 2010, to $127.2 billion. But rather than making a true recovery, spending will seesaw in coming years, hovering under $130 billion through 2015—far from the $165.94 billion recorded in 2007 on the eve of the recent recession. “As advertiser spending continues to more closely reflect the amount of attention consumers give to individual media, each will fare differently,” said Nicole Perrin, eMarketer senior editor and author of the new report, “Traditional Media: Dollars and Attention Shift to Digital.” “For example, TV and radio are holding on to their audience, and eMarketer forecasts advertising gains for both—unlike for print media.” TV still takes up more time per day for the average consumer than any other medium. eMarketer estimates adults spend 4 hours, 24 minutes watching TV and offline video daily, vs. 2 hours, 35 minutes online.
A Quickstart Guide to Social Media for Business. Update: Catch Getit Comms’s interview here We love sharing simple infographics that succinctly explain how social media can be used for business. Getit Comms, a Singapore based Digital Marketing firm created an infographic to explain the process of crafting a social media plan for business purposes. This infographic consisted 13 steps coupled with adorable designs. I particularly like how Getit Comms highlighted the need to understand where buyers and key influencers are.
Measuring is also put of the plan just in case you think digital influence (a.k.a social media marketing) is all fluff and no stuff. It even included details like getting input from stakeholders and developing a social media policy, which are often neglected by companies. If you were to think about it, this infographic crafted by Getit Comms is a great way to showcase the agency’s talent in digital marketing. More social media infographics for business: Here's What Google, Salesforce & Sequoia Are Investing In. Inbound marketing software company HubSpot announced Tuesday that it has received a $32 million round of Series D funding from Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Salesforce.com. The five-year-old startup was one of the earliest firms (in my memory, at least) to take advantage of social media, search and mobile to attract leads and sales, frequently running online seminars on those subjects as a way to build up its now more than 4,000-member client base of small- and medium-sized business.
HubSpot has one core software platform designed to increase website traffic and convert that traffic into leads and sales. Apps within the platform offer control panels for general website and lead management, blogging, SEO, analytics and social media monitoring. In addition to the three new investors, HubSpot's previous list of VC investors — General Catalyst, Matrix Partners and Scale Venture Partners — also participated in the round. Disclosure: HubSpot is a Mashable sponsor. The Differences Between Mobile and Tablet Advertising. Research to date on tablet advertising has typically found that placements that take advantage of the full features of the device—like video, 360-degree views, striking photos and interactivity—appeal most to users. An Adobe-sponsored study found flashy iPad ads were more engaging and effective than their static print counterparts, and earlier research from UM and Time Inc. indicated that videos were the most desired feature of iPad ads.
On smartphones, by contrast, users seem to prefer to keep it simple. A Pontiflex survey conducted by Harris Interactive found that very few smartphone users preferred ads that were like commercials or that featured video. Just 15% of all adults liked such ads on their phone, vs. 63% who preferred more basic coupons, deals or newsletters. The Nielsen Company found in August 2010 that 40% of iPhone users were more likely to look at ads with an interesting video, significantly higher than the 15% in the Pontiflex survey. Facebook Turns 'Like' Into Its Newest Ad - Advertising Age - Digital. Online Ad Spending Set to Break Records. After 2009’s downslide, US online ad spending in 2010 will rise by 13.9%, reaching a record $25.8 billion. And in that same vein, internet ad spending will hit new peaks in each of the following four years, passing $30 billion in 2012 and breaking the $40 billion barrier in 2014.
The more granular quarter-by-quarter picture shows a record spend of $6.42 billion in Q3 2010, as reported by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers (IAB-PwC), followed by a new record of $7.25 billion in Q4, according to eMarketer projections. “A spending peak in Q4 is likely, primarily because Q4 has been the biggest quarter for US online ad spending every year but one since 1999,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report, “US Ad Spending: Online Outshines Other Media.”
Such spending will bring double-digit growth to online advertising for five consecutive years. By contrast, total media ad spending is less robust. How Online Video Can Reach the Business Audience. Executives with no time for fun and games do have time for the sound and motion of video, according to findings from Forbes Insights. In some cases, they may actually prefer it to text for learning about products and services. A majority of businesspeople surveyed by Forbes in October 2010 said they watched more online video than a year earlier. Nearly 60% of all respondents said they would watch video before reading text on the same webpage, and 22% said they generally liked watching video more than reading text for reviewing business information.
Three-quarters of all executives said they watched work-related videos on business websites at least once a week, and more than half did the same on YouTube. Video can be highly effective for merchants. The executives surveyed reported taking a wide variety of actions after watching online videos, with about two-thirds visiting vendor websites subsequent to viewing and more than half searching for more information. Can Consumers Learn to Love Behavioral Targeting?
A whopping two-thirds of internet users don’t believe advertisers should be allowed to target online ads to their interests based on the sites they have visited, according to a survey by USA Today and Gallup. Respondents were only slightly more sympathetic when asked whether free access to content made targeting worth it; 61% disagreed while 35% thought the practice was OK.
Younger and wealthier internet users were less likely to be against behaviorally targeted advertising, but even among those groups only a minority tolerated the practice. Respondents were more amenable to allowing behavioral targeting from select advertisers. The youngest respondents, ages 18 to 34, were most likely to say they would be willing to allow targeting from chosen advertisers, at 57%. The most affluent users fell behind, however, and those making between $30,000 and $75,000 were more apt to say yes. The Gallup survey is hardly the first poll to show widespread antipathy toward behavioral targeting. Trends in Consumers’ Time Spent with Media. There are only so many hours per day that consumers can spend watching TV, reading newspapers and surfing the internet. But as marketers may suspect, the time devoted to media is undergoing some not-so-subtle changes. eMarketer recently conducted a meta-analysis of data from dozens of research firms using a variety of methodologies.
The result is a series of estimates of how much time consumers spend with all major media, regardless of multitasking or simultaneous usage, from 2008 to 2010. The estimates apply to average media usage of the general public, not solely to the users of each medium. The average time spent with all major media combined increased from about 10.6 hours in 2008 to 11 hours in 2010, according to eMarketer. To account for multitasking, an hour spent watching TV and surfing the internet was counted as 1 hour for TV plus 1 hour for internet use. In fact, time spent with mobile devices is rising faster than all other media.
Advertising Age Media Mavens Share Wisdom, Lessons - Advertising Age - MediaWorks. Online Ad Spend Continues Double-Digit Growth. The economy may be on an upward trajectory, but continued caution among advertisers will lead to a continued shift toward online advertising, eMarketer forecasts. eMarketer, which forms its forecast by performing a meta-analysis of research estimates and methodologies from dozens of firms that track ad spending, projects a 10.5% increase in US online ad spending next year, followed by double-digit growth every year through 2014 when spending will reach $40.5 billion.
“It may seem ironic, but marketers’ economic concerns are leading them to spend more for online advertising,” said David Hallerman, principal analyst at eMarketer. “This trend reflects how most forms of internet advertising are now seen as more of a ‘sure thing’ than most traditional media.” “In addition, marketers of all sizes increasingly acknowledge the internet’s central place in people’s lives by devoting larger shares of their ad budgets to digital,” Hallerman said. Keep your business ahead of the digital curve.