Tuesday 29 May 2018

Digital ad spend in Europe doubled from 2012 to 2017

"At its annual Interact conference today, IAB Europe announced that digital advertising grew 13.2% in 2017 to €48bn, driven by strong growth in social, mobile and video investment.
The AdEx Benchmark study is the definitive guide to the state of the European digital advertising market and is now in its twelfth year. A total of twenty markets grew double-digit. Mobile dominated with double-digit growth in all 27 markets in the study. Mobile display grew by more than 40% and now accounts for 42% of total display advertising whilst video now accounts for more than a quarter of total display. Social grew at a similar rate at 38% and increased its share of display whilst video grew by 4x the rate of non-video display at 35%. The growth in video is driven by out-stream advertising which experienced a 73.4% growth compared with in-stream at 6.9%.
[...]
The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark study divides the digital ad market into three categories: Display, Search and Classifieds and Directories. Growth in these advertising formats has been underpinned by shifting uses in devices and changing consumption patterns.
Display advertising outperformed search and classifieds with a growth rate of 14.9% to a value of €19.3bn. Search is still the largest online advertising category in terms of revenue with a growth of 14.4% and a market value of €21.9bn.
[...]
The top 3 individual growth markets reveal strong growth in the CEE region:
Belarus – 33.9%
Serbia – 23.7%
Russia – 21.9%
There was also strong growth in the most mature markets (in line with or above the European average) such as the UK (14.3%), Norway (16.6%), Sweden (18.4%), Switzerland (12.5%) and Denmark (9.7%) demonstrating that maturity doesn’t hinder opportunity for further innovation and growth.
Top 10 rankings (by market size)
UK – €15.6bn
Germany – €6.6bn
France – €5.1bn
Russia – €3.3bn
Italy – €2.6bn
Sweden– €1.8bn
Netherlands – €1.8bn
Switzerland – €1.8bn
Spain – €1.8bn
Belgium – €1bn"

UK digital ad spend rose 14% to £11.55bn in 2017

"Advertisers spent £476 million more on smartphone video ads in 2017, making it the fastest-growing online ad format, according to the latest Digital Adspend report by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK and PwC.
This was a rise of 69% on 2016 and took total spend on the format to £1.17 billion. Video ad spend overall (including phones, computers and tablets) increased 47% to £1.61bn. Thus, 73% of all video spend now goes on smartphones.
Video contributed heavily to the total amount spent across all smartphone advertising rising by 37.4% to £5.2bn. As a result, 45% of all digital ad spend went on smartphones - compared to just 9% five years ago. However, the IAB's chief digital officer Tim Elkington noted "there's still significant room for smartphones share to grow" as they accounted for 59% of online time¹ in the final quarter of 2017.
Overall, total digital ad spend increased 14.3% to £11.55bn.
"People are spending more time online - specifically on smartphones. Digital has led to a change in consumer behaviour as people use their smartphone for a wider variety of things, be it listening to podcasts, learning a new skill or following stories on the likes of Snapchat and Instagram," says Elkington. "The ad community has responded to this change - particularly the growth of mobile and video - by developing dynamic ad products that fit seamlessly into their environment."
"While this data relates to 2017, before some of the recent headlines that have been dominating the industry, it's clear that there has been considerable momentum in the market. What stands out to us is the number of success stories we've seen across a diverse range of formats, from audio to sponsored content, and across all parts of the industry value chain. More than half of the companies submitting to the study this year are in growth, which points to a robust and competitive marketplace" said Tom Tryon, Strategy Manager at PwC.
Accompanying online YouGov data² produced specifically for the report reveals that in terms of online smartphone activities, listening to a podcast has seen the biggest rise amongst Smartphone users, with a 'net'² rise in popularity of 30% followed by viewing social media 'stories' (up 29%), reading news articles (up 24%) and learning a new skill (up 22%).
In terms of other ad formats:
Social media spend rose 38% to £2.39bn, or one in every five pounds spent on digital ads - 83% of social media budgets now go to smartphones
In-feed advertising rose 9% to £950m
Outstream video (up 94% to £900m) overtook pre/post-roll (up 11% to £671m) as the largest video format
80% of the £3.84bn spent on display advertising was traded programmatically - up from 72% in 2016 - 63% being traded through direct means, such as private marketplaces, rather than on open exchanges (17%)
Paid for search rose 16% to £5.82bn, classifieds fell -1% to £1.47bn"
Source:  Data from the IAB & PwC, 25th April 2018

Over 10% of spending on toys is adults buying things for themselves

"The profitable ‘kidults’ market is continuing to grow as new data reveals that adults spent £383 million on toys for themselves in 2017.
According to the NPD, the kidult market has grown by eight per cent in value over the course of last year and now amounts to 11 per cent of the total toy sector; a rise of £30 million in value since 2016.
To put that in to context, £1 in every £9 spent on toys today is adult buying toys for themselves.
The latest results results from the toy industry tracking group reveal that millennials account for almost half (48 per cent) of the spend among grown ups buying toys for themselves, while Generation X-ers account for 28 per cent and Boomers account for 24 per cent.
Among the millennials market, 62 per cent of the money spent on toys for adults is by young parents. Another four in 10 (38 per cent) are not yet into parenthood and many of this young group are fans of pop-culture, expressing their fandom by buying toys."
Note - It's not clear whether this is global, or UK only.  I'm assuming that it's global (but currencies are in sterling as it's a UK publication)

Facebook deleted nearly 1.3bn fake accounts in 6 months

"Facebook disabled nearly 1.3 billion “fake” accounts over the past two quarters, many of them bots “with the intent of spreading spam or conducting illicit activities such as scams,” the company said on Monday.
Facebook disabled 583 million accounts in Q1 2018, down from 694 million accounts in Q4 of last year, a decrease the company attributes to its “variability of our detection technology’s ability to find and flag them.”
Most of the accounts “were disabled within minutes of registration,” Facebook claimed in a blog post, but Facebook doesn’t catch all fake accounts. The company estimates that 3 percent to 4 percent of its monthly active users are “fake,” up from 2 percent to 3 percent in Q3 of 2017, according to filings documents.
Those numbers are big, a reminder of what Facebook is up against just 18 months after it was learned that a Russian troll farm used Facebook to try and influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Facebook says it finds most of the accounts on its own using software algorithms, but a small percentage — about 1.5 percent of the disabled accounts — were discovered after they were flagged by Facebook."
Source:  Recode, 15th May 2018
Note - This seems to be just on Facebook, and not on Instagram or WhatsApp (it's only Facebook that insists on a real identity)


Friday 25 May 2018

19% of Amazon merchants make over $1m in annual revenues

"A survey found that 19 percent of third-party merchants that sell goods on Amazon have made more than $1 million in sales this year, an increase from 10 percent in 2017. It also found that 3 percent made more than $10 million, an increase of 1 percent from last year.
Feedvisor, an eCommerce company that helps merchants price goods on Amazon and other online marketplaces, surveyed 1,200 Amazon merchants this year and 1,600 in 2017, and was distributed to the same sellers both years. Nearly 50 percent of the merchants surveyed sell almost exclusively with Amazon, with revenue from the eCommerce marketplace accounting for 81 percent to 100 percent of their sales."
Source:  PYMNTS, 24th May 2018